Senior Home Care Tips for Sleep Deprivation
Sleep Deprivation: Senior Home Care Yuba City CA
This might seem like a silly question if you’re caring for an elderly loved one while trying to balance all of life’s other responsibilities. With household chores, children’s activities, family duties, work responsibilities, and helping your elderly loved one either age in place or live with you during their final years, you probably can’t remember the last time you had a good night’s sleep.
While an occasional night without proper sleep is most likely only going to cause you to be tired the following day, consistent poor sleep due to an overloaded plate can cause other serious health complications.
If you routinely get less than seven hours of sleep a night, you have an increased risk of developing the following health conditions:
- heart disease
- diabetes
- stroke
- obesity
- depression
- arthritis
- kidney disease
Other factors also play into the risk level, but if you have a family history of any of these conditions or have other risk factors, sleep deprivation can increase that risk significantly.
So, are you simply tired or are you sleep-deprived? Let’s look at five indicators that you might be chronically sleep deprived.
Forgetfulness
Everyone forgets things occasionally, but if you find you keep forgetting everyday basic tasks, it could be sleep deprivation is robbing your ability to remember. Did you forget to cancel the home care provider this week because you’re out of town or did you forget your child’s play performance? Important things that get overlooked are often because of sleep deprivation.
Inability to make decisions
Does it seem difficult to make even relatively easier decisions like what to have for dinner? Sleep deprivation can cause confusion, making it harder to complete a thought process and come up with a solution. The brain feels like it simply stalls out in the middle of the line of thinking. It can help to have an home care provider assist with meal planning but getting enough rest is important for you to be able to make all of the decisions you need to make each day.
Catching every virus you come in contact with
Sleep is important for the body’s immune system. When you don’t get enough sleep each night, your body starts to struggle with fighting off the germs it comes across each day. If it seems like you catch every cold and flu that goes through your neighborhood, it might be because you’re sleep deprived.
Falling asleep at unplanned times
The good news is you remembered your child’s concert, the bad news is you fell asleep during most of it. When your body is sleep deprived, it’ll fight to get the sleep it needs at any chance. So, as soon as you slow down, you might find yourself nodding off, no matter how badly you want to stay awake.
Feeling irritable
Lack of sleep increases stress in the body and lowers tolerance for things that don’t go as planned. You might find yourself getting angry with the home care provider over nothing or snapping at your loved one without really knowing why.
Sleep deprivation is serious and often not taken seriously enough. To improve your life and those around you, make sleep a priority so you can do all you need to do.
If you or an aging loved one are considering hiring Home Care in Yuba City, CA, talk to the caring staff at Partners in Care today. Serving El Dorado, Nevada, Yuba, Sutter, Sacramento, Placer, Butte, Glenn, Yolo, & Colusa Counties!
Call us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! (530) 268-7423
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