A new study suggests that poor sleep may be affecting the vast majority of older adults, with nine out of ten reporting low-quality rest even when they are sleeping for the expert-advised six to eight hours a night.
The research also indicates that as many as seven in ten people over the age of 50 may be living with a diagnosable sleep disorder, such as insomnia or sleep apnoea.
That figure is significantly higher than earlier estimates, including NHS guidance which suggests insomnia affects around one in three people.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh say the findings point to a widespread sleep crisis among over-50s, with pressures from the workplace emerging as a major contributing factor.
The team is calling on employers and policymakers to take sleep quality more seriously, arguing that better support could help people in Britain stay healthy and remain in work for longer.
Work stress is common, but when it follows people home it can seriously disrupt sleep, leaving many with problems severe enough to meet clinical thresholds.
Long-term poor sleep has been associated with a range of serious health risks, including dementia, depression and even cancer.
‘Having spent years analysing data from patients with clinical sleep and mental health disorders, I was genuinely surprised by the sheer scale of sleep problems we uncovered in this otherwise undiagnosed group,’ said Professor Athanasios Tsanas, a data science expert and the study’s lead author.
Sleep disturbances are far more common among workers in mid-later life than previously believed, research suggests
‘Our analysis clearly demonstrates that overall wellbeing is heavily dependent on sustained work-life balance.’
The study – published in the journal Scientific Reports – tracked 45 workers aged 50 to 66-years-old over the course of a year.
Using data collected from smartwatches alongside wellbeing questionnaires, the researchers found that sleep problems such as waking up throughout the night and poor quality sleep were common across all participants.
And while many attributed their poor sleep to not getting enough rest, results showed that frequent sleep disturbances through the night were more often to blame.
Around 90 per cent of participants regularly woke up throughout the night, despite most averaging between six-and-a-half and eight hours of sleep a night.
Nearly 70 per cent experienced persistent, clinically significant sleep problems, while almost 92 per cent met the threshold for a sleep disorder at least once during the study.
The researchers concluded that disrupted sleep, rather than sleep duration, could explain why the majority of participants reported feeling not well rested.
They then used artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the factors most strongly associated with poor sleep and wellbeing from a wide range of potential influences such as stress, diet, exercise and noise pollution.
Workplace experiences were consistently flagged as a major contributing factor, suggesting work-related stress could be driving sleep deprivation in over 50s.
In the UK, around a third of workers are over 50, with the number of employees over the age of 65 expected to reach 17.7million by 2050.
And as poor health, exacerbated by poor sleep, remains one of the leading causes of unemployment, experts say supporting the health and wellbeing of older workers is crucial.
Dr Belinda Steffan, a specialist in how the workplace affects women and study co-author, added: ‘While there are certainly some age-related sleep disruptors, such as menopause and bodily ageing, there are also many wider factors such as care-related stress, financial stress and wider non-age-specific work-related stress.
‘Our study highlights that sleep is a workplace health and wellbeing issue.
‘Organisations and employers must consider the impact of work-related sleep problems on their workforce, focusing on workers over 50 in the context of our study, but relevant to all age groups.’
The findings come following calls for a wider rollout of weight loss jabs, after a study found the injections halve sickness absence from work and could dramatically ease pressure on the NHS.
Patients who used the drugs for nine months took fewer days off sick, saw their GP less and made fewer visits to A&E.
In response, former health secretary Wes Streeting has said they could be a ‘game-changer’ for the economy, getting more people back into work.
