Abstract
Using large-scale objective sleep data derived from body acceleration signals of 68,604 Japanese residents ranging from adolescents to the elderly (10–89 years old), we found significant age- and gender-related differences in sleep properties (timing, duration, and quality) in real-life settings. Time-in-bed and total sleep time (TST) showed a U-shaped association with age, indicating their decrease in adulthood following their increase in the elderly. There was a remarkable shift in sleep phase toward earlier bedtime and earlier wake time with increasing age (> 20 years), together with worsening of sleep quality, which is estimated by sleep efficiency (SE) and wake time after sleep onset. Gender comparisons showed that TST was shorter in women than in similarly aged men, which is much evident after the age of 30 years. This was associated with later bedtimes and greater age-related deterioration of sleep quality in women. Compared to men in the same age group, women over age 50 demonstrated a greater reduction in SE with aging, due mainly to increasing durations of nighttime awakening. These differences can be attributed to several intricately intertwined causes, including biological aging as well as socio-cultural and socio-familial factors in Japan. In conclusion, our findings provide valuable insights on the characteristics of Japanese sleep habits.
Highlights
Using large-scale objective sleep data derived from body acceleration signals of 68,604 Japanese residents ranging from adolescents to the elderly (10–89 years old), we found significant age- and gender-related differences in sleep properties in real-life settings
Most previous epidemiological studies with q uestionnaires[1,2], objective measures[2,3,4], and meta-analysis[5,6], have consistently shown that sleep durations tend to decrease from childhood to adulthood, along with worsening of sleep quality, such as reductions in total sleep time (TST) and sleep efficiency (SE), as well as an increase in the amount of time spent awake after sleep onset
We examined seven sleep parameters[30,32]: in-bed time (IBT), get-up time (GUT), timein-bed (TIB), sleep latency (SL), wake time after sleep onset (WASO), total sleep time (TST), and sleep efficiency (SE)
Summary
Using large-scale objective sleep data derived from body acceleration signals of 68,604 Japanese residents ranging from adolescents to the elderly (10–89 years old), we found significant age- and gender-related differences in sleep properties (timing, duration, and quality) in real-life settings. Various surveys consistently reported both the higher frequency of sleep complaints in female and an increase of the prevalence of insomnia with a ge[12,15], as reported in most population-based studies performed in other c ountries[4,5,7,8,9,17] Those surveys provided an important knowledge on sleep profiles of Japanese population. In this study, using the objective sleep data annotated in our previous study, we examined age- and gender-differences in sleep properties (timing and quality of sleep), including timing of go to bed/wake-up and sleep quality (e.g., sleep efficiency, or wake time after sleep onset)
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