Is there anything more frustrating than spending an entire night listening to the tick of the clock on your bedside table?
Restless nights sap people's vitality and zeal for life. Without enough rest, people become more forgetful, have difficulty concentrating, become more accident prone, and often feel irritable.
While youngsters seem to experience little difficulty sleeping, a solid eight hours of shut-eye can become a challenge as the years pass. The need for sleep doesn't change significantly, but the natural aging process, certain chronic conditions, and medications all can erode your chances of a good night's rest.
With aging, there's less slow-wave, deeper sleep, and older people are more likely to be awakened by noises in the environment.
According to the National Sleep Foundation a number of health problems can make sleeping difficult:
Remember that sleep is a necessity, not a commodity. It's as much a part of overall health as good nutrition and regular exercise.
So don't settle for two to three hours per night. Draw yourself a bath, pour a glass of warm milk, crawl into a comfortable bed, don your earplugs, and turn off all the lights. You deserve it. And call your doctor if you need help.
A $24 billion health care provider and insurer, Pittsburgh-based UPMC is inventing new models of patient-centered, cost-effective, accountable care. The largest nongovernmental employer in Pennsylvania, UPMC integrates more than 92,000 employees, 40 hospitals, 800 doctors’ offices and outpatient sites, and a more than 4 million-member Insurance Services Division, the largest medical insurer in western Pennsylvania. In the most recent fiscal year, UPMC contributed $1.5 billion in benefits to its communities, including more care to the region’s most vulnerable citizens than any other health care institution, and paid more than $900 million in federal, state and local taxes. Working in close collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, UPMC shares its clinical, managerial and technological skills worldwide through its innovation and commercialization arm, UPMC Enterprises, and through UPMC International. U.S. News consistently ranks UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside among the nation’s best hospitals in many specialties and ranks UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh on its Honor Roll of Best Children’s Hospitals. For more information, go to UPMC.com.