But for some people, it is not easy to ensure adequate and high-quality sleep, and the elderly are one of them. Many old people will feel this way. As they get older, they wake up earlier and earlier, and even suddenly wake up in the middle of the night. Only by understanding the reasons can we care for and improve the quality of sleep.
The growth of age is not only the change of numbers, whether bones, muscles, organs or blood will age by one year, and the living conditions will change with the change of physical quality, and sleep is no exception.
First of all, because the older you get, the worse your metabolism will be.
With the growth of age, the aging of various organs of the body will slow down the metabolic rate, and one of the functions of sleep is to help the body recover the physical strength lost by metabolism. The metabolism slows down, the demand for sleep decreases, and the sleep time will be shortened.
In particular, some elderly people who rarely go out for activities and have little physical exertion are more likely to wake up suddenly in the middle of the night and have no drowsiness afterwards.
The second reason is that it is difficult for the brain to enter "deep sleep"
With the growth of age, the brain of the elderly will slowly age, the brain system will degenerate, and the time from waking to sleep will be longer.
In this way, the sleep of the elderly is generally shallow, and it is easy to be awakened by some slight movements, and it is easier to be awakened in the middle of the night. Not only that, with the aging of the brain, the number of nerve cells in the brain decreases, which will also affect the quality of sleep to some extent.
The last reason is that the elderly are prone to emotional instability.
What is more biased here is psychological factors. For the elderly, they tend to worry about more things, such as illness, age, children and so on. Therefore, the psychological pressure of many elderly people is not worse than that of young people.
In addition, because of aging, the elderly have poor brain endurance, which leads to a decline in sleep quality and suddenly wakes up in the middle of the night.
The older you get. The easier it is to wake up in the middle of the night, which is not unreasonable. Therefore, especially the elderly, need to take care of the quality of sleep in their daily lives. Unlike young people, the elderly also have unique means to improve the quality of sleep.
Old people are different from young people. Young people want to improve the quality of sleep, they can use exercise and drugs. But for the elderly, on the one hand, the body may not be able to bear a lot of exercise demand, on the other hand, blindly taking medicine is also easy to increase the burden on liver and kidney.
Therefore, to improve the quality of sleep for the elderly, two tricks can still be tried:
① Foot bath: This method is very suitable for the elderly. By soaking feet, there is no physical need, which is more in line with the rhythm of the elderly. Proper foot soaking before going to bed can warm the heart and soothe the nerves, which is of great help to improve the quality of sleep.
Not only that, but for the elderly who have certain health needs, you can also try Chinese medicine foot bath, such as soaking feet with qi-invigorating herbs such as chrysanthemum, astragalus root and jujube kernel, to supplement the qi in the body and promote blood circulation, which is less likely to wake up in the middle of the night.
② Self-massage: Besides foot bath, massage is also a very good way to promote sleep. There are two main massage positions, stomach and acupoints.
Massage the stomach properly before going to bed, and gently press around the navel clockwise for about 2 minutes, which can speed up the blood flow in the abdominal cavity and stomach, reduce the possibility of abdominal pain or diarrhea during sleep, and thus avoid waking up in the middle of the night.
Acupoint massage can choose Shenmen point and Laogong point. Shenmen point is located on the left side of the wrist, and Laogong point is located in the palm. These two points correspond to the heart meridian, which has the function of refreshing and relieving fever. Proper pressing before going to bed can reduce anger and troubles, and it is also a good choice to improve sleep quality.
Under normal circumstances, the sleep quality of the elderly who can help them sleep well before going to bed can be greatly improved. If the quality of sleep still hasn't improved, we should try to find the reason in our life.
Wrong habits and behaviors in daily life will also affect the quality of sleep to a certain extent, and the elderly should also actively correct them.
For example, there is a habit of smoking and drinking: tobacco poison and alcohol have the ability to invade the nerves. In the long run, the nerve transmission ability will become worse and worse, and it will become more and more difficult to enter deep sleep, thus affecting the sleep quality of the elderly.
Or playing mobile phone before going to bed: Although modern people have similar habits, it is recommended that the elderly do not do so. On the one hand, the eyes of the elderly are relatively old and fragile, and strong light before going to bed will cause eye discomfort and affect sleep. On the other hand, the content in the mobile phone will also promote brain activity and further increase the burden on the brain.
There are also some wrong habits, such as eating before going to bed and sleeping with the light on, which may affect the sleep quality of the elderly. If you want to keep a high quality sleep, please make positive corrections. After all, the physical condition of the elderly is different from that of the young. In the matter of sleep health, we need to be strict and serious, and maintain a correct attitude towards health, so that the body will return to our health.