n On
Living Well
much happens during those hours,” says Dr. Edlund. “But many things that are important for our health are occurring.” In fact, new research from the National Institutes of Health indicates that losing just one night of sleep leads to an immediate increase in beta-amyloid, a protein in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Sleep and Aging
by Julie Kendrick
F
our hundred years ago, the Elizabethan dramatist Thomas Dekker illustrated the link between rest and well-being: “Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” Unfortunately, since Dekker's time, we as humans have increasingly found ways to provide ourselves with endless entertainment through technology, disrupting our sleeping habits. This has come at a significant cost to our health. “We spend so much time around machines that we start to think we are one,” says Matthew Edlund, M.D., director of the Center for Circadian Medicine. He says that it’s time we gain some biological intelligence and begin to give our bodies the rest they need. “One of the basic requirements of the human body is the need for renewal
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through rest,” he says. “If you don’t eat food, you’ll die. And it’s the very same way with sleep. We need it to live. If you treat your body like it’s a machine, instead of a biological organism, it will break down.”
Sleep and Health When we sleep, our brains grow new cells and rewire memories. Rest also helps support the strength of our cardiovascular, metabolic and immune systems and more. “Because we generally don’t recall what we do in sleep, we don’t think
Sleep Smarts You can learn more about healthy sleep with our online learning course, How to Sleep Better and the Secret Power of Naps. To take the course, sign into your plan website and go to Health & Wellness. myAARPMedicare.com •
Nighttime bites. Want to know what foods to avoid for a better bedtime? Sign in to your plan website and go to Health & Wellness. myAARPMedicare.com
“A healthy outside starts from the inside.” —Robert Urich
Photo by Getty Images/Wavebreakmedia
The Power of Rest
Although we tend not to prioritize it, sleep is as important to our health as nutritious food and exercise.
There’s no way around it: Our circadian rhythm — the body's 24-hour internal clock — changes as we age. And along with that comes what experts delicately call “a more fragmented sleep architecture.” But while you still should be getting quality sleep every night, Michelle Drerup, Psy.D., a behavioral sleep medicine specialist at the Sleep Disorders Center of Cleveland Clinic, cautions realism: “When patients who are in their 60s and 70s tell me, ‘I wake up two times a night,’ I tell them that’s pretty normal.” However, if you have problems getting to sleep, staying asleep or if you still feel tired during the day, talk with your primary care provider to rule out any undiagnosed medical conditions.