The Business Insider explores the issue of sleep and age.
The difference between an older person’s and a younger person’s sleep schedule is relatively simple: Older people rarely get all their sleep in one solid block.
As a result, they’re typically groggier after waking and take frequent naps.
In addition to sleeping less solidly, we also sleep less deeply as we age: The older we are, the less time our brains spend in deep sleep mode, that precious time when the frantic chaos of brain activity grinds to a slow burn.
A typical 25-year-old brain, for example, plunges half a dozen times into several hours of deep sleep throughout the night. In contrast, the average 70-year-old brain shuffles quickly in and out of moderate-level sleep, spending only a few minutes in the deepest phase of rest and far more time in shallow sleep or complete wakefulness.
