The claim

You need less sleep as you get older

The facts

Sleep may not exactly be a waste of time, as Thomas Edison described it, but is there any truth to the notion that as we age we need less and less of it?

Some research suggests that Americans at 70 tend to spend two hours less in bed each night than they did at 30.

It’s hardly a surprise that rising early is more common among the elderly than it is among younger people.

While it may appear that the natural urge to rest somehow grows weaker with age, experts say that is not the case.

What happens instead is that the composition of sleep changes, as people gradually spend less and less time in the deep, restorative stages of sleep.

There is also a greater likelihood that sleep will be disrupted by chronic illness, pain or some other discomfort.

As a result, you end up with fewer hours of sleep each night — and subsequently a need to make up for that loss during the day.

In 1992, for example, a study published in The Journal of the American Geriatric Society compared a group of 45 healthy people older than 78 with 33 healthy adults from 20 to 30.

The researchers found that in a typical night, the older group experienced more waking episodes, more disordered breathing and more periodic movements than the younger group.

The older subjects were also more likely to nap during the day, the study found, and those who took the most naps were also those who experienced the most disruptions in their sleep at night.

The bottomline

Studies suggest that the body's need for sleep does not decrease with age.

NYTNS