Topic: Sleep in the News

The debate about Daylight Saving Time is heating up, and some states in the U.S. are doing something about it.  Last week, California passed a measure that clears the way for doing away with the twice-per-year time shift, leaving the state in Daylight Saving Time all year.  Florida passed a similar measure that was signed…
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Adults who sleep just six hours per night — as opposed to eight — may have a higher chance of being dehydrated, according to a new study. These findings suggest that those who don’t feel well after a night of poor sleep may want to consider dehydration — not simply poor sleep — as a…
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Proving that researchers are truly honing in on sleep when it comes to what they want to investigate, we now know what type of pajamas are best for sleep.   A research team at the University of Sydney carried out two studies of young and older sleepers to test the theory that wool pajamas might be better…
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People have been using the smell of lavender for hundreds of years because they find it relaxing.  You can find it everywhere — from garden borders to bath bombs to fabric softener.  Now, science has confirmed what people have thought for so long — the smell of lavender actually does work. “In folk medicine, it…
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 It’s tough for working moms to get a good night’s sleep, but working tight hours may affect their children’s sleep, too. After studying the sleep habits of children from ages five to nine, researchers found that when mothers reported less flexibility in their work schedules, their children got less sleep. When they gained flexibility in…
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Preliminary results from the world’s largest sleep study have shown that there is a “sweet spot” for how much sleep you get.  That sweet spot is between seven and eight hours, and getting less or more than that amount can reduce your cognitive abilities.  The world’s largest sleep study was launched in June 2017 and within days…
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Researchers at Harvard Medical School say they’ve confirmed that a region of the brain is a “switch” for sleep, and is essential for getting a normal night’s rest.  Their findings could someday lead to new treatments for insomnia. The discovery involves a set of nerve cells originally discovered by Clifford B. Saper, MD/PhD two years ago. …
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Wearable devices are increasingly bought to track and measure health and sports performance: from the number of steps walked each day to a person’s metabolic efficiency, from the quality of brain function to the quantity of oxygen inhaled while asleep. But the truth is we know very little about how well these sensors and machines…
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Treating insomnia with digital programs can improve insomnia symptoms, daytime functioning and overall health, a new study has found. In a year-long study from the University of Oxford and Northwestern Medicine involving 1,711 people, researchers found online cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) improved not only insomnia symptoms, but functional health, psychological well-being and sleep-related quality of life….
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Researchers at Michigan State University conducted the largest experimentally controlled study on sleep deprivation to date, revealing just how detrimental operating without sleep can be in everything from bakers adding too much salt to cookies to surgeons botching surgeries. While sleep deprivation research isn’t new, the level at which distractions hinder sleep-deprived persons’ memories and…
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