![]() While there may be societal reasons, like social demands and the use of electronic media right before bedtime, these patterns also may reflect biological changes that occur during adolescence, they write. The investigators note that 25% of children ages 6 to 13 had a CTSO close to 11 pm. ![]() Those weekday/weeknight differentials only happened in school- and work-age individuals with children ages 14-17 showed the biggest differences.įor school-age children, the CTSO was 9:30 pm, which was not surprising, but that time got later through high school and hit the peak around age 21 when the average time was closer to 11:30 pm, McCall says, adding he thought it would actually be even later. Young American adults about age 20 had the latest CTSO, or clock time for sleep onset, which is considered the time participants actually went to sleep, and high school students had the biggest weekday/weekend differences between the time they went to sleep and awakened. Females’ sleep onset time tended to be about five minutes later than males, but before age 20 males went to bed later. While more study is needed to understand sex differences in sleep, sex differences should already be considered in studies and treatment of sleep health, the investigators write. The investigators were surprised to find that males and females were equally sleep efficient since females are more likely to report worse sleep quality and more sleep disturbances. They found females generally sleep longer than males across their lives but tend to go to sleep later, particularly as they get older, and get interrupted more, particularly in taking care of children, but still net about four minutes more sleep than males. “Traditionally people think sleep efficiency goes straight down with age, but we did find there is a stable period, from ages 30 to 60 years old, that you have quite stable sleep efficiency,” Wang says. Sleep efficiency - basically the time you actually sleep versus the time you have dedicated to sleep, with 85% considered good - also tends to decrease with age, although the investigators found it stabilized from ages 30 to 60, indicating that adults maintain sleep efficiency for a long period, but may get the least sleep in their busy middle age. Health problems and not feeling well may be another reason older American sleep longer, the investigators write, and more study is needed to look at those potential associations. The increased sleep time later in life may reflect the reality that most Americans still retire in their 60s and simply don’t need to get up as early. Studies of a large population of Japanese and French residents have shown a similar pattern. In this more objective assessment of sleep parameters based on movement, investigators found again that generally, nighttime sleep decreases as our age increases, although they saw the U shape emerge as sleep duration dropped significantly from about age 10 into the 50s and get a little longer after that. And, during middle age, people sleep less and our findings support that objectively.” Additionally, sleep duration is increased for those aged 60 and older, he says. ![]() “People think children and adolescents sleep later and we found this. “We confirmed previous findings based on subjective measurement,” Su says. Credit: Michael Holahan, Augusta University Shaoyong Su, Vaughn McCall, and Xiaoling Wang.
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