Readers

• Fixing Delayed Sleep Phase Before School Starts

  Summer bedtimes drift late. School start times don’t. That gap is why so many kids and teens walk into the first week of school running on four to six hours of sleep. If your child can’t fall asleep before midnight and can’t wake up before...

• How Many Hours of Sleep Does an Adult Need?

  Most adults need at least 7 hours of sleep a night. That’s not a rough guess. It’s the conclusion of a joint consensus statement from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the Sleep Research Society (SRS), based on a review of more than...

• How Dust Storms Disrupt Your Sleep (And What You Can Do About It)

  If you live in a region prone to haboobs, you already know the drill. The sky turns orange, visibility drops, and you shut your windows and wait it out. What you may not know is that the storm keeps affecting you long after the dust...

• Why Permanent Daylight Saving Time Is the Wrong Fix

  Congress is close to ending the twice-a-year clock change. That part is popular. But the version moving through Congress locks in permanent daylight saving time, not permanent standard time. Sleep medicine has been warning against this exact outcome for years. Here’s the problem in one...

• Can You Trust Your Sleep Tracker? Here’s What the Research Actually Shows

  You wake up, check your watch, and see a sleep score. Maybe it says you only got 12 minutes of deep sleep. Maybe it tells you your REM sleep was low. You start the day feeling like you failed at sleeping. Here’s the problem. That...

• What is Hypersomnia

  If you sleep 9 to 12 hours a night and still feel exhausted the next day, something more than “being tired” may be going on. That’s hypersomnia. It’s not laziness and it’s not just needing an extra cup of coffee. It’s a real sleep disorder,...

• Sleep Changes During Menarche: What Every Teen and Parent Should Know

  If your daughter suddenly can’t fall asleep, feels tired all day, or seems moodier than usual after her first period, it’s not just teenage behavior. Menarche changes your biology in ways that directly disrupt sleep. Why your sleep changes when your period starts Menarche is...

• Counting Sheep Does Not Help You Fall Asleep. Imagery Beats It.

  In 2002, researchers Allison Harvey and Suzanna Payne at Oxford University tested this directly. They split 50 people with insomnia into three groups. One counted sheep. One imagined a calming scene, like a beach or a quiet walk in nature. One got no instructions at...

• Cheese Does Not Cause Nightmares. Here Is What Actually Happens

  In 2005 the British Cheese Board tested this myth directly. They gave 200 volunteers 20 grams of cheese 30 minutes before bed for a week and had them record their dreams. Not one person reported a nightmare. Most said they slept well, and two thirds...

• Does Warm Milk Actually Make You Sleepy? Here’s What the Science Says

  You’ve heard it since you were a kid. Can’t sleep? Warm up some milk and drink it before bed. Your grandmother swore by it. Movies show it. It feels like common sense. But when you look at the actual research, the story falls apart. Here’s...

• Overuse of Melatonin in the US

  As a sleep physician, most of my clinical encounters involve patients asking about melatonin or already taking it to help them sleep. Almost none of them know the risks that come with it. There is a melatonin epidemic brewing in the US, and the numbers...

• What Is Snoring? A Complete Guide

  Snoring happens when air can’t move freely through your nose and throat while you sleep. As you breathe in, air squeezes through a narrowed space at the back of your throat. This makes the soft tissue there, especially your soft palate, vibrate. That vibration is...