Daily Routines Help Seniors Sleep Better

April 1, 2010 -- Maintaining regular daily routines reduces insomnia and improves sleep
quality in older people who live in retirement communities, a new study
suggests.
Study researcher Ana Zisberg, PhD, RN, of the University of Haifa in
Israel, says performing basic activities such as eating, dressing, and bathing
at the same time every day was found to improve sleep quality.
Performing less frequent activities, such as shopping or visiting a doctor,
on a regular basis improved sleep quality to a lesser extent.
So to get better sleep, she suggests, it’s important to keep a daily
routine.
“We predicted that there would be a relationship between routine activity
patterns and sleep quality, since theoretically sleep patterns and other
everyday life activities are related and potentially synchronized,�? Zisberg
says in a news release. “However, given the widely accepted view that light is
the major synchronizer of the human sleep-wake cycle, we were surprised that
our findings were so robust.�?




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http://www .webmd.com/healthy-aging/news/20100401/daily-routines-help-seniors-sleep-better?src=RSS_PUBLIC