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Staying Healthy
What’s keeping you from getting a good night’s sleep?
- By Heidi Godman, Executive Editor, Harvard Health Letter
Identify your sleep "interrupters" with this list of potential offenders.
Remember when you could crawl into bed at night and sleep straight through until the morning? Now you wake up several times each night, wondering if you’ll ever slumber for long stretches again. This change in sleep habits, called sleep fragmentation, is a natural part of aging, and generally nothing to worry about if you can still get seven to nine hours of nightly shut-eye — the sweet spot for optimum health.
"The concern comes when sleep fragmentation regularly reduces how many hours you sleep each night or keeps you from waking up and feeling refreshed. In that case, something else is probably contributing to the problem, and we need to identify it and treat it," says Dr. Suzanne Bertisch, clinical director of Behavioral Sleep Medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
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About the Author

Heidi Godman, Executive Editor, Harvard Health Letter
Disclaimer:
As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date of last review or update on all articles.
No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
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