Is it normal to sleep less as you get older?

That phrase is only half right. And the other half is what matters.

Key points in 30 seconds

1. The half that's right: sleep really does change with age. Deep sleep decreases, you wake more often during the night, and the body clock shifts earlier, so you get sleepy in the early evening and wake before dawn.
2. So adjusting your expectations makes sleep easier. If you hold yourself to the eight hours you slept when you were young, every night becomes a failure. Sleep that's gotten a little shorter and lighter isn't broken; it's changed.
3. The half that's wrong: "it's just age" becomes a cover for everything. Pain at night, reflux that comes up when you lie down, sleep apnea, the timing of medications, depression in later life. These are causes that can be fixed once they're found.
4. The most common trap after retirement is sleep getting spread thin across the whole day. Going to bed early, getting up late, and adding naps on top break nighttime sleep into even more pieces.
5. The prescription is surprisingly simple: make the day fuller, and the night gets deeper.

What we often hear

• "That's just how it is when you get old. You stop sleeping."
• "By 4 a.m. my eyes pop open, so I come out and sit in the living room."
• "I nod off on the sofa during the day, and then by 8 p.m. my eyes are closing again."
• "I wonder if I should take pills, but that worries me too."

Today, let's put the phrase "everyone's like this when they get older" on the scale.

The half that's right: sleep changes with age

Textbooks explain it like this. Just as someone who ran 100 meters fast when young slows down with age, the ability to sleep deeply and long also declines with age.

The share of time in bed actually spent asleep is described as dropping by 3% every 10 years. The share of deep sleep goes down, you wake more often during the night, and you become a lighter sleeper. The body clock also shifts earlier, so you get sleepy in the early evening and wake early before dawn.

This happens even without any particular illness. That's why more than half of older adults mention sleep problems.

Why this matters

Because adjusting your expectations makes sleep easier.

If you hold yourself to the eight hours of unbroken sleep you had when you were young, every night becomes a failure. The worry "why can I only sleep this much" turns bedtime into a time of tension, and that tension breaks even what sleep you do get.

Sleep at sixty being different from sleep at thirty is normal. Sleep that's gotten a little shorter and a little lighter isn't, in itself, broken; it's changed.

The half that's wrong: what "it's just age" covers up

The problem is that this phrase becomes a cover for everything. Besides age itself, there's a whole line of causes that can be fixed.

When your body wakes you. Pain at night such as arthritis, reflux that comes up when you lie down, and sleep apnea, said to affect about one in three people over 60.

When medication wakes you. Medications that increase urination can, depending on when you take them, be the reason you wake up at night to go to the bathroom.

When your mind wakes you. Depression in later life often shows up in the form of waking before dawn.

These causes aren't something to put up with by blaming age; they're something to find and deal with.

And sleep gets spread thin across the whole day

This is the most common trap after retirement.

With no commute, the regular daily routine that kept the body clock set disappears, and with nowhere to go, the time spent in bed grows longer.

When you feel short on sleep and go to bed early, get up late, and add naps on top, sleep doesn't increase; it gets spread thin across the whole day.

Naps use up your nighttime need for sleep in advance, so nighttime sleep breaks into even more pieces, and that broken nighttime sleep leads to even more napping. It's a cycle.

The prescription research has confirmed is simple

Textbooks describe a study of older adults in care facilities.

When they reduced daytime time spent lying in bed, got 30 minutes or more of sunlight in the morning, moved their bodies three times a week, and reduced light and noise in the bedroom at night, naps decreased and the number of times they woke at night decreased.

Not with medication, but with four everyday habits.

The principle is one: make the day fuller, and the night gets deeper. Morning sunlight and activity send a strong "this is waking time" signal to the body clock, and by contrast, nighttime sleep consolidates.

If you start at home, here's the order

• When you get up in the morning, open the curtains first, and if possible, get some sunlight outside while moving your body
• Keep naps short, and plan something to do instead during your sleepy hours. A walk, a gathering, housework, anything
• Use the bed only for sleep

Cutting time in bed down to the amount you actually sleep is a method with confirmed effects. But as I said in that method, it's safer not to decide how much to cut on your own, but to decide it together.

Don't brush these signs off as "just age"

• You've shouted and thrashed your arms and legs in your sleep and nearly hurt yourself or the person next to you: this means you're acting out your dreams, so a neurology check is needed
• You get short of breath lying down and only feel better sitting up: a heart check comes first
• Family members say your snoring is loud and your breathing seems to stop: pointing you to a sleep study (polysomnography) facility comes first
• You've felt down for more than two weeks and the things you used to enjoy have lost their appeal: your mood needs looking at before waking before dawn does
• You've been going to the bathroom more at night since starting a medication: this isn't about stopping the medication but about discussing the timing with whoever prescribed it

Our care starts by sorting out which branch it is

First, we find which branch those early hours fall into. Normal change, the body, medication, mood, or lifestyle. We check your sleep diary and list of medications, and look at your physical condition with blood tests and a body composition test, plus abdominal and pulse diagnosis. If we see the signs above, pointing you to the right care comes first.

Next, we redesign your day and night and support your body. We set a daily timetable for morning sunlight and activity, naps, and time in bed together, to fit your life. We work on pain that wakes you up with acupuncture and pharmacopuncture, and look at underlying factors such as digestion and circulation with herbal medicine matched to your tests and abdominal diagnosis. We start while leaving your medication as it is. If an adjustment seems needed, we guide you to discuss it with whoever prescribed it.

Then, we check with the diary. We look together, through the records, at whether the number of times you wake at night and your nap time are going down. The order in which we look at sleep is laid out in our insomnia care page.

One thing to ask this weekend

Not a living room where you wait for morning after waking before dawn, but sleep that, even if short, carries through to morning. A day with things to do instead of drowsiness. That rhythm is what we aim for.

How much recovery is possible varies from person to person, depending on age, the illnesses you live with, and your living situation. But recovery starts with knowing that sleep at sixty has its own standard for sixty.

If you're worried about your parents' early-morning hours, ask them this weekend.

Not "How many hours do you sleep?" but "How many hours are you in bed?"

If there's a big gap between those two numbers, that's the point we'll look at together.

Many older patients come in on weekends with their adult children. That's one of the reasons we're open every day.

For questions or appointments, message us in English through the messenger at the bottom right of the page, or call +82-53-716-1175.

The evidence on sleep where you wake up during the night is in the director's column Waking up during the night is insomnia too.