Deep Sleep and the Aging Brain: How To Protect Your Brain Health as You Get Older

If you're going to do just one thing to keep yourself healthy as you age, focus on sleep. Sleep is linked to nearly every aspect of your well-being, including cardiovascular health, metabolic health and brain health.

Lack of sleep can also increase your risk of obesity, which is linked to 13 cancers. So getting proper sleep also reduces your cancer risk.

What Proper Sleep Looks Like: The Link to Dementia and Cancer Risk

We all need to get –seven to eight hours of sleep each night, and most adults don't. The kind of sleep also matters. You need at least an hour of slow-wave sleep – also known as deep sleep -- each night to help prevent dementia. During slow-wave sleep, the glymphatic system becomes much more active, flushing the proteins that cause the plaques and proteins associated with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Slow-wave sleep is especially important for women, who account for nearly two-thirds of dementia cases. As women age, they get less slow-wave sleep due to decreasing estrogen levels. One new study found that estrogen supplementation may reduce dementia risk, but only if women start in their 40s and 50s. Changes in the brain that lead to dementia start 10 to 20 years before symptoms are evident.

How to Tell If You Are Getting Enough Deep Sleep

To determine if you’re getting enough slow-wave sleep, the quickest check is whether you wake refreshed or not. A more accurate way is to rely on a wearable while you sleep. Wearables track your heart rate, heart-rate variability, movement and respiratory rate to determine when you’re in slow-wave sleep, which they often call deep sleep. Note that deep sleep is not REM sleep.

10 Ways to Improve Your Sleep Hygiene and Increase Deep Sleep

Start by looking at your everyday habits. These strategies are the easiest, most accessible and most affordable ways to improve your sleep quality.

1. Build a sleep routine. The sooner you commit to a routine in which you go to bed at the same time every night, including weekends, and wake at the same time, the sooner you will see results.
2. Stop screen time one hour before bed. Keep your phone in another room while you sleep. If it’s in your bedroom, you’re more likely to peek. Likewise, having a TV in the bedroom is also a big detriment. Both emit blue light, which reduces melatonin release, negatively impacts sleep quality and affects circadian rhythms.
3. Don’t drink significant amounts of liquid two hours before bed or else you risk waking to urinate.
4. Finish eating three hours before bed.
5. Decrease your alcohol consumption. Too much alcohol can lead to increased wakefulness and less REM sleep.
6. Stop drinking caffeine around lunchtime.
7. Expose yourself to morning light shortly after waking. This will boost cortisol at the appropriate time of day, suppress melatonin production and realign your circadian rhythm.
8. Incorporate workouts into your day. Just don’t do a strenuous workout two hours before bed.
9. Try supplements. Magnesium glycinate, which typically comes in capsule form, is easily absorbed and calms the nervous system. Unlike magnesium citrate, it won't cause loose stools. Take magnesium glycinate three hours before bedtime, with dinner. Tart cherry juice also increases relaxation and aids in muscle recovery.
10. Consider cognitive behavioral therapy. It can help you change your habits around sleep, and your reactions following a poor night of sleep. Several months of CBT can lead to results that last for years.

When Should You Get Screened for a Sleep Disorder?

If you snore loudly or wake gasping at night, you should talk to your doctor now. If you overhaul your sleep hygiene and still don’t see the results you want, it may be time to be screened for sleep disorders. Your primary-care doctor can easily do this and provide a referral to a sleep specialist if needed. For example, if you have sleep apnea, you will never get enough slow-wave sleep.

If you complete a sleep screening and still don’t know what’s causing your poor sleep, it might be time to consider a specialist or a doctor who takes a holistic approach to health. In some cases, determining what’s going on with your health takes time. Wellness programs provide more time with your doctor, allowing for more thorough testing and conversations to determine a thorough plan for wellness.

This content is not AI generated.