Four Possible Sleep Answers for Your Senior
Trouble with sleep creates difficulties in other parts of your senior’s life. These tips can help you and she to figure out a way to help her to get the sleep that she needs.
Check in with Her Doctor
Any time your senior is experiencing something that is outside of her normal routine, there could be an underlying medical cause. It’s a good idea to talk with her doctor about what she’s experiencing and about what might be contributing. There may be a few factors related to your senior’s health that you can start looking at now that will help her to turn around her sleep problems.
Look for Relaxing Before Bed Rituals
What happens before your senior actually tries to catch some sleep is important, too. If your senior is trying to wrap up her day in a hurry or she’s saving things like exercise for later in the day, that’s going to interfere with sleep plans. Relaxing routines before going to bed are going to help a lot more. Some of the ideas she might want to consider could be herbal teas that contain chamomile or a soak in a warm, not hot, bath. Listening to music or to relaxing white noise sounds from a sound machine may also be helpful.
Focus on Some Daytime Issues, Too
It’s easy to overlook how morning routines and other activities during the day can affect sleep for your senior, too. Naps may be something she relies on to “catch up” on sleep she’s missing at night, but these can actually prolong that cycle with sleep problems for your senior. Shorter naps earlier in the day may be refreshing, but long naps close to bedtime can cause more of a problem. Being active earlier in the day, having a set wake-up time, and making sure that simple things like making the bed are done daily can all help just a little bit.
Being Too Tired to Sleep Is a Real Issue
Your senior may not realize this as a contributing factor, but if she’s trying to do too much during the day, she can actually be getting to a point where she’s too tired to sleep well. This often happens when your senior is trying to push and do more on her own, without asking for help. Bringing in senior care providers to help can be the right answer. Your senior has help and doesn’t exhaust herself during the day.
As she starts to experience better sleep overnight, your elderly family member may find that she experiences greater ease in many aspects of her day.
If you or an aging loved-one are considering hiring Home Care in Libertyville, IL, call the caring staff at LifeCare Home Health & In-Home Services. Call (888) 606-4199 LifeCare serves all of the Chicago Metro Area.
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