Sleep Problems Raise Suicide Risk In The Elderly
(NBC) Elderly adults with sleep problems may have an increased risk of suicide — even if they have no symptoms of depression.
Researchers found men and women who reported poor sleep quality at the beginning of a ten year study were almost one and a half times more likely to commit suicide. Difficulty falling asleep and non-restorative sleep were most strongly associated with suicide risk.
Questioning elderly patients about their perceived sleep quality may help doctors identify those at risk for suicide. (source)
I heard this on the radio and thought, seriously? Why was there no mention of the all-important cause behind it all? Whatever the cause behind sleeplessness in elderly adults was, wasn’t that more likely to cause a suicide? Isn’t discovering and addressing that cause more important than measuring symptoms like perceived sleep quality?
I mean, think about it. This was a study of elderly adults. What are they like? Maybe some are in pain, restless, bored, or just plain tired of living because they feel they’ve already lived for too damn long. Any one of these can be the reason behind sleeplessness. Any one of them can be more likely to contribute to suicide than sleeplessness.
Thing is, we spend most of our childhood in school and adulthood at work, so we never really have to look far for something to keep us occupied. We’re always busy doing something. Once we get older and then old, we have all the time in the world. But to do what? Suddenly, it’s too much time. I say, give the elderly a community to be a part of, give them something to do. It gives them something to look forward to, makes them exhausted enough to sleep at night. Maybe they’ll be too busy to think about suicide.
But even these measures won’t eliminate the probability of suicide, because suicide comes from the wrong view that physical death will end emotional suffering. In truth death doesn’t solve the pain or anguish. We are merely reborn and repeat those same forms of suffering because we still haven’t addressed the cause. Until we can change our wrong views and see the truth of how karma and rebirth works in this world, suicide will still be an option.
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