Tolerance of chronic 90-minute time-in-bed restriction in older long sleepers.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the influence of chronic time-in-bed (TIB) restriction on selected health-related outcome variables in older long sleepers.


METHODS
Randomized, controlled trial.


METHODS
Home-based.


METHODS
Forty-two older adults (aged 50-70 y) who reported sleeping at least 8.5 hours. Following extensive screening, participants were assessed for 10 weeks.


METHODS
During a two-week baseline, participants followed their usual sleep-wake habits. Participants were then randomized to one of two eight-week treatments: (1) TIB restriction, in which participants were asked to follow a fixed sleep schedule with a TIB of 90 minutes less than recorded during baseline or (2) a control treatment, which involved following a fixed sleep schedule (consistent with average baseline) but no TIB restriction.


RESULTS
Continuous wrist actigraphic sleep estimation indicated that TIB restriction elicited significant reductions in TIB and total sleep time compared with the control treatment and significant (albeit modest) improvements in sleep efficiency and sleep latency. However, compared with the control treatment, TIB restriction elicited no significant change in depression, sleepiness, health-related quality of life, or neurobehavioral performance. Moreover, follow-up assessments for one year indicated that, after completing the experiment, the participants assigned to TIB restriction continued to restrict their TIB (at their own initiative) by an average of approximately one hour.


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest good tolerance of chronic moderate TIB restriction, without detrimental effects, among older long sleepers.
Youngstedt
Shawn D
SD
Department of Exercise Science, Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA. syoungstedt@sc.edu
Kline
Christopher E
CE
Zielinski
Mark R
MR
Kripke
Daniel F
DF
Devlin
Tina M
TM
Bogan
Richard K
RK
Wilcox
Sara
S
Hardin
James W
JW
D056044:Actigraphy; D000368:Aged; D001510:Bed Rest / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011788:Quality of Life; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome