Sleep

New research from Harvard scientists suggests that sleep helps the brain strengthen newly learned motor skills by boosting spindle activity in the exact regions involved during learning. The greater the increase in this activity, the more participants improved after napping.

Can mindfulness reshape the sleeping brain? A new study finds that elderly expert meditators not only sleep longer but also show brain patterns during rest and sleep that suggest deeper stability, preserved cognition, and possibly even sustained awareness while unconscious.

Researchers have found that listening to music after learning can influence memory in unexpected ways. Emotional arousal triggered by the music may enhance either general or detailed recall—but not both—depending on the strength of the listener’s emotional response.

Sexual dreams often mirror waking psychological patterns. University students who scored higher in sensation seeking, extraversion, and neuroticism tended to report more vivid, joyful, or unusual sexual dreams, while anxiety and depression fueled more aversive and unsettling experiences.

Preliminary findings from a Canadian sleep lab indicate that cannabis use may be associated with hypersomnia-like patterns on the multiple sleep latency test. Though non-significant, the trends raise concerns about diagnostic accuracy in patients who consume cannabis near testing.

A new study indicates that adolescents who get less sleep tend to show disrupted brain connectivity—and may be more likely to develop behavioral problems over time. The findings suggest that improving sleep could be one way to reduce mental health...

A study of adults with anxiety found that cannabis products with higher cannabidiol (CBD) content tended to improve mood and sleep regardless of inflammation, while the effects of THC-dominant cannabis varied with participants’ baseline inflammatory status.

Researchers have found that children and young adolescents with higher anxiety tend to generalize negative memories more after sleep, raising questions about how nighttime memory processes could reinforce anxiety-related thought patterns during a sensitive developmental stage.

People who score higher on neuroticism are more likely to experience frequent nightmares, according to research published in Dreaming.

A randomized controlled trial has found that melatonin supplements taken after night shifts may enhance the body’s ability to repair oxidative DNA damage. The findings may offer insight into how to protect night shift workers from long-term health risks.

College students who struggle with confidence in their abilities may also struggle to get to bed on time, according to new research. The findings highlight how fear of missing out and social media use contribute to bedtime procrastination.

A new study suggests that lucid dreaming might help people reduce fear by allowing them to confront frightening scenarios in their sleep. Participants who faced their fears during lucid dreams often reported feeling less afraid after waking up.

Even in deep sleep, your brain doesn’t completely tune out. New research reveals that while sound processing in the cortex fades as sleep deepens, the brainstem keeps listening—providing insight into how the brain balances rest with environmental awareness.

Bad dreams could be aging you from the inside out. Researchers have discovered that the nightly stress from nightmares may leave a mark on our DNA, accelerating biological aging and contributing to a significantly higher risk of premature death.

A new nationally representative study reveals that the 2024 presidential campaign negatively impacted the sleep of about 45 million U.S. adults. The findings highlight how political stress can disrupt sleep health months before election day, especially for certain demographic groups.