Abstract
Poor sleep quality has been linked to several severe physical and mental health issues. Importantly, sleep disorders become more common in older age because of developmental changes, more frequent medical issues, and various other factors. The increased risk to suffer from declines in sleep quality with increasing age and the well-documented negative health effects of such declines calls for finding ways to prevent or reduce sleep deterioration in older age. In previous studies, dispositional mindfulness has been shown to positively correlate with sleep quality, but further investigation is needed. The current study examined associations between age and sleep, dispositional mindfulness and sleep, and whether dispositional mindfulness moderates age-related sleep changes in 73 female adults aged 48 to 73. The results demonstrated that older age was associated with higher sleep quality, alertness, and hours in bed. Alternatively, dispositional mindfulness was negatively correlated with hours in bed. Importantly, this study did not reveal a significant moderation effect for dispositional mindfulness. The unexpected direction of correlations is discussed in the context of the uniqueness of this sample, and several important methodological issues related to sleep are examined. Lastly, future directions are discussed based on this initial attempt to understand the role of dispositional mindfulness in age-related sleep changes.