Anti-Aging Sleep Restoration Action Plan

In a room with thirty or so people, you can be sure that more than half of them will have had some trouble with their sleep habits. Trouble sleeping is defined as difficulty getting to sleep, waking up several times throughout the night and not feeling refreshed or rested in the mornings when you do have to get up.

If you struggle with sleeping properly, you’re not alone. However, since a lack of the proper amount of sleep can lead to help problems as well as cause premature aging you need to have an anti-aging sleep restoration action plan set up.

In Your 30s and Younger

If you’re in your 30s, and you think you fit the criteria for sleep problems, you can take steps to analyze where you stand and how to deal with the lack. At this age, if you lose sleep, you’ll notice that it’s affecting you mentally.

If you struggle to get through your day because you feel drowsy, that’s a sure sign you’re having sleep problems. But there are other things a lack of the right amount of sleep causes that are often mistakenly associated with other things.

For example, not getting the rest that you need can cause an upswing in how stressed you feel. You’ll feel stressed over things that didn’t use to bother you. You might also start to experience anxiety and feel depressed without being able to put your finger on why.

It seems that every little thing you go through affects you emotionally. With a lack of the right amount of sleep, you’ll feel like you’re on a short fuse. It’ll be easier to have less patience with people and situations and you’ll experience a rise in irritability.

You might be able to concentrate at home or at work the way that you use to. When you need to respond physically or mentally to things, you feel like you’re moving or thinking in slow motion.

When you’re in your 30s and you’re experiencing trouble with your sleep, it can be easy to think that you can just get back on track without any long-lasting consequences but that’s not the case.

Not having the sleep your body needs sets the groundwork for some pretty notable health issues including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, weight gain and even early death.

If you’re in your 30s and you’re having trouble getting enough sleep, you need to analyze how often you’re struggling and how long the bouts last. Because everyone can have one or two sleepless nights, these aren’t usually anything to worry about.

It’s when these times stretch into weeks and then months that you need to do something about them. Far too often people will turn to over the counter medications to help them get to sleep when they can’t before they’ll try anything else.

That can be a mistake because then your body’s natural sleep rhythm won’t have a chance to right itself and you can become reliant on medications to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

It’s always best to try natural remedies first. The best natural remedy for sleep troubles at this stage in your life is to make sure that you practice good sleeping habits. Though there are several good sleep habits to follow, you should fit them all into one actionable plan you put into practice every night.

Make sure that you have a set time that you go to bed. Try not to vary from that. If you have a set time to go to bed every night, then your body gets into that sleep rhythm and you’ll fall asleep more naturally.

Stay away from stimulating activities before bed such as watching a television show or movie that makes your adrenaline kick in. Make sure all the lighting in the room that you’re in is soft lighting.

This type of lighting makes it easier to fall asleep at night whereas bright lights make you feel more alert. Stay away from any type of chemicals that are stimulants. This means don’t have any caffeine at least a few hours before bed.

The caffeine will kick in later in the evening and make you feel wide awake. By the same token you also want to make sure that you stay away from smoking before bed. The nicotine in cigarettes is a stimulant so if you smoke before bed and have trouble getting to sleep, that night time smoke could be one of the reasons.

Though doctors recommend having wine for the sake of your heart, it’s not recommended as a way to help you get to sleep. The wine and other alcoholic beverages can take a hard toll on your ability to fall asleep.

Alcohol is known to disrupt the sleep pattern. Specifically, it can cause trouble with your REM sleep. When you lose REM sleep, it can affect your memory function. If you have trouble falling asleep because you live in a noisy area or you have roommates who aren’t quiet at night, the solution to this can be sleeping with a pair of earplugs in.

If you don’t like sleeping with earplugs in, then you can use a white noise machine to drown out the sounds. One of the big reasons that many people have trouble sleeping at this age is because as soon as they lie down in bed, their mind kicks into high gear.

They start thinking about all the things they didn’t get done that day and all the things they have to accomplish tomorrow. They worry about things that are going on in their lives or fret over a relationship issue.

Or maybe it’s job or finance related. Whatever the issue, lying in bed allowing these things to run through your mind is a good way to rev up anxiety and cause you to be unable to fall asleep.

It can be helpful to make a tomorrow worry list. This is where, before you get ready for bed, you make a list of all the things you need to worry about tomorrow. This act helps you clear your head and make it easier for you to get some much-needed sleep.

In Your 40s

Of all the basic needs that you have in order to function properly, sleep is at the top of the list. If you don’t get the sleep that you need it will cause you to have some serious physical problems and can also cause emotional or mental problems.

Your body uses sleep to help itself run the way that it’s supposed to. The function of sleep is so that you’ll be mentally alert and able to function. Sleep handles the body’s processes such as the production of cells and hormones.

When it’s interrupted, these processes are also interrupted. When it’s time for you to go to sleep, your body begins a process where to prepare for it. For example, when it’s time to sleep, your body pushes for the release of melatonin to help you get there.

When all is well in your sleep habits, the melatonin works to bring on sleep and you get the rest that you need. You can analyze whether or not you’re getting the amount of melatonin production you need by checking on how you feel.

If you notice that you fit any of the following symptoms, it’s highly likely that your melatonin production has fallen off which is a common problem associated with middle age.

With the beginning decline of melatonin production at this stage of life, you’ll notice that your sleep patterns have been disrupted usually during your restorative sleep stage. Analyze yourself to see if you’ve noticed changes in your sleep pattern but often, a loss of melatonin shows up in other ways as well.

Besides a loss of sleep, you might feel a rise in anxiety or depression. You might feel more than just slightly tired. Some people experience fatigue like they’ve never had it before.

Others feel mentally fogged like they’re a beat behind and can’t quite seem to stay on top of things. Other times, you might notice more physical changes with a loss of melatonin such as constipation.

This is caused by the disruption in your sleep habits. Knowing what’s wrong and why you’re not getting to sleep is a pretty easy fix if it’s related to a low melatonin production. You can buy melatonin supplements over the counter at health food stores and the instructions on how much and when to take this sleep hormone will be listed on the packaging.

In Your 50s

Many people find that at this stage of their life, they’re not getting the same amount of sleep that they used to get. Surprisingly, not getting the same amount of sleep doesn’t always affect how you feel.

It’s not about the number of hours you sleep as much as it’s about how well you do sleep once you drift off. When you fall asleep, your body goes through different stages of sleep.

In the first stage of sleep, you’re only partially drifting off. A loud noise could easily startle you awake at this point. You’re also still in the stage where you feel kind of awake but not completely.

In the second stage, you sleep to the point where you don’t know what’s going on around you and you can’t be startled awake as easily. By the time you hit the third and fourth stage of sleep, you’re in deep sleep and your body is working hard to repair muscles and tissue, boost your immune system and give you restorative rest.

Because this is a deeper sleep stage, if you were to wake up at this point, you would feel out of it and have trouble thinking clearly. Once you hit your 50s, there can be an issue where you start to wake up from this deeper sleep and when you do, it impacts your body more because once you’re awake at this sleep stage, it’s harder to drift back off.

What you want to examine yourself for when it comes to sleep at this stage is whether or not you feel a physical or mental overload. Sometimes, you can experience trouble sleeping and not realize that it’s because something is bothering you.

If you get ready to go to sleep and you feel a sense of unease or you’re worried but don’t know why, it can help to undergo behavioral therapy to get back to the sleep you once had.

One of the easiest parts of behavioral therapy in your 50s is known as relaxation therapy. This therapy focuses on learning how you can do deep breathing exercises to induce a state of relaxation.

As you perform the deep breathing exercises, your muscles relax from head to toe. This in turn induces a state of mind relaxation that can make falling asleep and staying asleep a lot easier.

You can learn behavioral relaxation therapy through meditation on your own or with a guide. There are books as well as CDs that you can buy that will walk you through the steps. Once you put this practice to use, you’ll find that you’re able to once again get a good’s night sleep.

In Your Senior Years

By the time you reach your senior years, sleep problems can be quite common. Many seniors report trouble sleeping at this stage of life. Sometimes, this trouble sleeping is directly linked to changes that the body goes through that alters the body’s natural sleep patterns.

This is why you may notice that senior citizens tend to rise often before it’s even daylight. Their sleep cycle has been altered because of the way their body has changed.

Not getting enough sleep isn’t good for your health at any age but especially as a senior citizen because the longevity can be impaired. Your lifespan will be shortened when your sleep cycle is malfunctioning.

The way that you can tell if you’re at risk of aging your body and even premature death is to pay attention to how long it takes you to fall asleep at night. If it takes you more than 30 minutes to get to sleep, then your risks of premature death are higher.

Go through a question checklist to find out why you’re not getting the sleep that you need. Ask yourself if you’re struggling with emotions like worrying. Have you recently had a health scare?

At this stage, a health scare wakes up many senior citizens to their own mortality and makes them worry about their future and the future of the loved ones they’ll leave behind.

Do a medication check as well. There are many medications that can disrupt the sleep cycle and although that may be noted on the pharmacy insert, many people don’t often make that medication/lack of sleep connection.

If you do a life check and figure out that you’re not experiencing any heavy worry or other emotional upsets and you’re not losing sleep because of medication, fixing your sleepless nights should be a simple repair.

The cure for losing sleep when you’re a senior citizen is to get out in the sun. Make sure that you spend some time outdoors and soak up the bright sunlight. It’s recommended that people at this age spend at least two to three hours in the sun.

Make sure you that let plenty of sunlight into your home by opening up your windows and letting the sunshine in. You can sit in the sun coming in through a window in your house if you can’t get outside.

The reason that it’s important for you to get outside and get some sun at this point is because the sunlight boosts the production of melatonin which is the sleep hormone. It also works to help your sleep cycle stay regulated.

If you live in an area where there’s not as much sunlight, then get a sun lamp to use for light therapy. You can order one online and have it shipped right to your doorstep.