Getting seven to nine hours of sleep a night is important for maintaining good health. The average American gets less than seven. Given the way averages are computed, as many Americans are below that average as above it.
For seniors, getting a good night’s sleep can be even harder, thanks to such things as medication side effects, snoring, apnea, acid reflux, restless leg syndrome, and, for men, enlarged prostates.
But, based on recent Korean research, the Sleep Foundation suggests a totally unexpected and amazingly simple way to fall asleep sooner and sleep longer:
Wearing socks to bed.
Here’s why: One way that human bodies prepare for sleep is to lower their core temperature. “As our body increases melatonin production near the end of the day to prepare us for sleep,” they write, “our core body temperature starts to drop.” The process of warming your feet draws heat away from your body’s core, lowering its temperature.
In the Korean research, men wearing socks fell asleep sooner, slept more than a half-hour longer, and were 7½ times less likely to wake up in the middle of the night than the barefoot control group.
Another thing that can keep you awake nights is stress, particularly if you’re an unpaid family caregiver and particularly during the pandemic. Too many senior care agencies are unable to really relieve that stress – at best because they focus only on the family member who’s their client, and at worst on a predetermined list of capabilities they can provide.
At Senior Insights, we take a different approach. In addition to covering the client’s physical, psychosocial and mental status, our thorough three-part needs assessment includes interviewing family caregivers to see how we can relieve their very real stresses and give them time to take care of themselves too.
So please contact us to learn more about this more coordinated, more inclusive form of senior care management. You’ll sleep better knowing that you did.