Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:50:4
Ayinde O. Chase - AHN Editor
Westchester, IL (AHN) - A recent study shows that retirement is followed by a sharp decrease in the prevalence of sleep disturbances.
Researchers suggest that this general improvement in sleep is likely the of work-related demands and stress being eliminated.
Results show that the odds of having disturbed sleep in the seven years after retirement were 26 percent lower than in the seven years before retiring. Among those studied disturbance prevalence fell from 24.2 percent in the last year before retirement to 17.8 percent in the first year after retiring.
The greatest reduction in sleep disturbances was reported by participants with depression or mental fatigue prior to retirement. The postretirement improvement in sleep also was more pronounced in men, management-level workers, employees who reported high psychological job demands, and people who occasionally or consistently worked night shifts.
Lead author Jussi Vahtera, professor in the department of public health at the University of Turku in Finland, noted that the participants enjoyed employment benefits rarely seen today, including guaranteed job stability, a statutory retirement age between 55 and 60 years, and a company-paid pension that was 80 percent of their salary.
"We believe these findings are largely applicable in situations where financial incentives not to retire are relatively weak," said Vahtera. "In countries and positions where there is no proper pension level to guarantee financial security beyond working age, however, retirement may be followed by severe stress disturbing sleep even more than before retirement."
Results also show that there is a slowly increasing prevalence of sleep disturbances with increasing age, which can be observed both before and after retirement. From the first to the seventh year after retirement, the prevalence of sleep disturbances increased from 17.8 percent to 19.7 percent but remained significantly lower than at any time point prior to retirement.
The authors conclude that in the present time when people are expected to live many years beyond the traditional age of retirement, consideration should be given to the restructuring of working life to enable older workers to remain economically active without compromising their future health.
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