Children and youth and sleep
A child and adolescent require sleep according to their age. Adequate sleep and rest promote the growth and development of a child. Sleep facilitates daytime learning and memory consolidation. Sleep also supports a child's growth as growth hormones are released during sleep.
Difficult experiences and fears encountered during the day are processed during sleep, thus aiding in emotional development. Following a sufficiently long and quality night's sleep, a child or adolescent is happy, alert, and creative, enabling them to concentrate on play, schoolwork, and other daily activities.
The growing child's sleep
Brain maturation and the development of sleep and circadian rhythms are individual processes. Similarly, sleep needs vary from one child to another; some children require more sleep while others can function well with less nighttime rest. The amount of sleep is deemed appropriate if the child feels well during the day and appears alert. Temporary stressors, such as illnesses, may increase the need for sleep.
A child's need for sleep is greatest immediately after birth. A child's total sleep amount, both day and night, at three months of age averages around 14 hours per day. The total amount of sleep decreases throughout childhood. A five-year-old typically sleeps just over 10 hours per day, while a 10-11-year-old sleeps slightly less than 10 hours per day. Particularly during the first few years of life, differences in total sleep time among children can be significant. These differences tend to level out with age.
Working-aged people and sleep
Refreshing and restorative sleep is a resource for humans. Refreshing sleep enables good alertness and recovery from stress. Refreshing sleep is a central foundation for brain and mental health and well-being. After a well-slept night, a person is creative and energetic.
Sleep is a key factor in ensuring both the structural integrity and functionality of the brain. Normal sleep duration, approximately 6–8 hours, supports cortical thickness, intact white matter structure, and good executive functioning (Tai et al., 2022). The impact of sleep on brain health is multifaceted, with one central aspect being related to more efficient waste clearance in the brain, which is facilitated by the glymphatic system. The brain clears waste during sleep through enhanced vasomotor and respiratory pulsatile mechanisms. These mechanisms have been extensively investigated by the research group led by Kivinen in Finland (Helakari et al., 2022). Inadequate sleep threatens both the structure and function of the brain due to partially impaired clearance mechanisms and can potentially increase the risk of dementia. Inadequate sleep also increases the risk of anxiety, depression, and many other diseases, as well as the risk of accidents. Furthermore, inadequate sleep impairs attention, memory, executive, and emotional functions. Inadequate sleep may result from insomnia or other sleep disorders, or sometimes simply from insufficient time allocated for sleep.
The elderly and sleep
Adequate, refreshing, and restorative sleep is a resource that supports resilience in coping with life's challenges and setbacks, helps alleviate and endure chronic pain, and supports good emotional regulation, mood, and information processing. Inadequate sleep, on the other hand, significantly affects brain health, mood, and quality of life, as well as the ability to be an active and vibrant participant.
For the elderly, sleep challenges are common and multifaceted. Inadequate and poor sleep can be associated with many different factors such as pain, frequent urination, sleep apnea, or other sleep disorders, or environmental factors that disrupt sleep, such as a restless caregiver. Sleep apnea typically worsens with age. Due to the multifaceted backgrounds, the assessment and treatment of sleep problems require time and commitment.
Sleep challenges and some sleep medications also cause problems with information processing and particularly memory, attention, and executive function. Sleep deprivation also exposes challenges with emotions and emotional regulation, depression, and anxiety. Insomnia increases the risk of depression and, conversely, depression causes insomnia. Pain threshold also decreases due to poor sleep. Pain complicates sleep and, conversely, poor sleep increases the experience of pain.
Inadequate and poor sleep leads to many harmful cycles and significantly weakens brain health. Musculoskeletal disorders and many other pains are common in the elderly and in addition, frequent urination in many cases leads to multiple nocturnal awakenings.
Family caregivers often also have fragmented and inadequate sleep. On the other hand, sleep routines may become disrupted in nursing homes and in elderly individuals with poor health if daytime activities are not considered or if the routine is determined by the nursing home's staff resources and not the care recipient's circadian rhythm. Sometimes even small measures enable the maintenance of a good sleep routine sufficient, refreshing, and restorative sleep from a brain health perspective.
