Morning grogginess is a clue to falls in older adults, and it’s easy to act on

If someone you love wakes up groggy and unsteady, here is useful news: that feeling is a clue you can spot, and you can start acting on it tonight. A new study found that older adults with strong morning grogginess were much more likely to report repeated falls.

The grogginess has a name: sleep inertia. It is the slow, foggy feeling in the first minutes after waking. Noticing it gives you something simple to work with, like a night light and a short pause before standing.

How the study worked

Researchers used data from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort, a long-running study of sleep in adults. They looked at 392 older adults with an average age of 74.5. Each person filled out a questionnaire about grogginess after waking and a standard scale of daytime sleepiness. They also reported how many times they had fallen in the past year. The results were published Sept. 29, 2026, in Sleep Advances. The study took one snapshot in time and relied on self-reports, so it shows a link rather than proof of cause.

What they found

People in the top quarter of grogginess scores were about twice as likely to report two or more falls in the past year. The study’s number for this was 2.00, and it held up after the researchers accounted for age, sex, health, medical conditions, mood, physical ability and thinking skills. The link also showed up across the questionnaire as a whole: the higher the grogginess score, the higher the chance of repeated falls.

Some other findings:

• Daytime sleepiness, the kind that makes you nod off on the couch, was not linked to falls once everything else was accounted for. Morning grogginess stood out on its own.
• The physical side of grogginess, such as feeling heavy or unsteady, was most strongly tied to repeated falls.
• The thinking side, such as feeling confused, was most strongly tied to falls that caused injuries.

That is a clear picture. How a person feels in the first minutes after waking tells you something about their fall risk, and it is easy to ask about.

What is sleep inertia?

Everyone has felt it. You wake up and your brain and body take a few minutes to catch up. Most people shake it off quickly. For some, it is stronger or lasts longer.

That matters because many falls in older adults happen at night or early in the morning, often on the way to the bathroom. Those are the moments when grogginess is at its peak.

Usual fall prevention focuses on strength, balance, vision and medicines. This study adds one more thing worth paying attention to: how steady someone feels right after getting out of sleep.

What you can do today

Tonight, plug in a night light between the bed and the bathroom. Then practice a slow start. When you wake, sit on the edge of the bed, wiggle your feet for a few seconds, and stand up once you feel awake. If an older relative lives with you or nearby, show them the routine and do it together once so it feels natural.