Topic: Sleep in the News

According to new research, getting the proper amount of sleep starting in early childhood can lead to healthier weight in a child’s teenaged years. Researchers at Penn State identified groups of children by bedtime and sleep routines.  What they found suggests that childhood bedtime and sleep routine groups predict adolescent sleep patterns and weight. In a…
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There’s been a push over the last few years to get school systems to delay the start time for high schoolers, but one question keeps coming up.  If the schools start later, will the students get more sleep, or will they just stay up later?  A look at one school system shows it’s the former…
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It can be difficult to sleep sometimes when bright artificial lights are shining outside your bedroom, and a new first-of-its-kind study shows there is a significant association between light pollution and insomnia in older adults.   Results show that increasing nighttime levels of artificial, outdoor light exposure were associated with an increased prevalence of sleep drug…
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They say dogs are man’s best friend, but according to new research, they’re a woman’s best bed partner. According to recent research conducted by animal behaviorist, Christy Hoffman, PhD, women report that canine companions are better bed partners than humans.  They’re also better than cats, by the way.   Hoffman, associate professor of Animal Behavior,…
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You’ve heard of sleep walking and even talking in your sleep, but have you heard of sleep texting?  It’s when you manage to keep connected with your friends via text in the middle of the night, but don’t actually remember doing it.  And, according to new research, more and more people are doing it. The…
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New research shows that if you want to stay upright, you need to get a good night’s sleep. Compared with women in a recent study who slept seven to eight hours each night, women who slept for 5 hours or 10 hours had about a 25 percent increased odds of experiencing recurrent falls (falling at…
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A new study conducted among more than 177,000 students suggests that insufficient sleep duration is associated with an unhealthy lifestyle among children and adolescents. Results show that insufficient sleep duration was associated with unhealthy dietary habits such as skipping breakfast, fast-food consumption and consuming sweets regularly. Insufficient sleep duration also was associated with increased screen…
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It wasn’t all that long ago that medical researchers weren’t sure Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) was even real.  Many said it was just a figment of its sufferers imagination.  These days we know it’s real, but there hasn’t really been an effective way to treat it.  New research may change all of that. RLS is…
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For much of the history of humankind, our bodies used the sun to decide when it was time to sleep and when it was time to wake.  However, since the age of electric light and amenities like television and the internet, there’s been a great uncoupling of our sleep rhythms from nature.  A new study…
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Young athletes who don’t sleep well after a concussion can take a long time to recover — sometimes 30 days or more.  According to a new study, however, those who get good sleep after the injury can cut that recovery time down to two weeks or even less.  Researchers at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for…
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