It is widely assumed that after you have left 50 or so in the rear view mirror it is normal to not sleep as much or as well going forward and that this is no big deal.
Well, actually, it is.
A large international study recently concluded that older adults need six to nine hours of sleep to maintain their peak cognitive abilities. Cognitive abilities, of course, include such things as being able to communicate, keep the senior moments to a minimum, and recall what's her name's first name, you know, your spouse?
Getting quality nighttime sleep, however, is easier said then done.
Now, you want to talk napping, no worries there. The average baby boomer is fully capable of knocking off for a quick 20 minutes seated court side at a UConn basketball game (and often do.)
And you know that boomers who look particularly serene during the boring work meeting? Dead asleep with their eyes open.
Some people chase the elusive good night's sleep via sleeping aids, but their side effects can leave you so groggy you end up standing in the walk-in closet at 3 a.m. wondering what happened to the shower stall.
The challenge for baby boomers is not the sleeping, as much as it is the getting back to sleep.
The older you get, the more frequently nature dials your number during the night. So you get up, you answer the call, and then you try to pick up where you left off. Unfortunately, the Hotel La La Land is not always easy to check back into once you have checked out.
As a result, you toss and turn and try to fall back asleep, and maybe you do, or maybe you don't, or maybe you fall into that nether world of half asleep and half awake, or maybe you do fall asleep but dream you are awake. The possibilities are endless and can continue right up until it's time to, well, get up and go again.
This process is even more vexing if you share a bed with someone because either you wake her up when you get up, or she wakes you up when she gets up. This often ends in a situation where you both end up tossing and turning until one of you finally succumbs to the inevitable and utters those three little worlds from which returning to sleep is nigh impossible: "Are you awake?"
Anyway, now that researchers have determined how much sleep boomers need, maybe they should start focusing on how to get it.