#sleep-science — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #sleep-science, aggregated by home.social.
-
DATE: July 20, 2026 at 06:05AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEEDTITLE: Alzheimer’s breakthrough: Scientists restore two hours of sleep without clearing brain plaques
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260719035931.htm
Researchers have uncovered a surprising culprit behind sleep loss in Alzheimer’s disease: the brain’s own immune cells. In mice with amyloid plaques, overactive microglia triggered inflammation that kept the brain from getting enough deep, restorative sleep. Temporarily removing most of these cells restored more than two hours of sleep per day, even though the plaques remained unchanged.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260719035931.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AlzheimersBreakthrough #SleepScience #Microglia #BrainInflammation #DeepSleep #AmyloidPlague #NeuroscienceNews #SleepHealth #AlzheimersResearch #BrainHealth
-
DATE: July 20, 2026 at 06:05AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEEDTITLE: Alzheimer’s breakthrough: Scientists restore two hours of sleep without clearing brain plaques
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260719035931.htm
Researchers have uncovered a surprising culprit behind sleep loss in Alzheimer’s disease: the brain’s own immune cells. In mice with amyloid plaques, overactive microglia triggered inflammation that kept the brain from getting enough deep, restorative sleep. Temporarily removing most of these cells restored more than two hours of sleep per day, even though the plaques remained unchanged.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260719035931.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AlzheimersBreakthrough #SleepScience #Microglia #BrainInflammation #DeepSleep #AmyloidPlague #NeuroscienceNews #SleepHealth #AlzheimersResearch #BrainHealth
-
DATE: July 20, 2026 at 06:05AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Alzheimer’s breakthrough: Scientists restore two hours of sleep without clearing brain plaques
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260719035931.htm
Researchers have uncovered a surprising culprit behind sleep loss in Alzheimer’s disease: the brain’s own immune cells. In mice with amyloid plaques, overactive microglia triggered inflammation that kept the brain from getting enough deep, restorative sleep. Temporarily removing most of these cells restored more than two hours of sleep per day, even though the plaques remained unchanged.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260719035931.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AlzheimersResearch #SleepScience #Microglia #BrainHealth #Neuroscience #AlzheimersBreakthrough #SleepRecovery #Neurology #Inflammation #PlagueFreeSleep
-
DATE: July 20, 2026 at 06:05AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Alzheimer’s breakthrough: Scientists restore two hours of sleep without clearing brain plaques
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260719035931.htm
Researchers have uncovered a surprising culprit behind sleep loss in Alzheimer’s disease: the brain’s own immune cells. In mice with amyloid plaques, overactive microglia triggered inflammation that kept the brain from getting enough deep, restorative sleep. Temporarily removing most of these cells restored more than two hours of sleep per day, even though the plaques remained unchanged.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260719035931.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AlzheimersResearch #SleepScience #Microglia #BrainHealth #Neuroscience #AlzheimersBreakthrough #SleepRecovery #Neurology #Inflammation #PlagueFreeSleep
-
“The race to get to sleep starts as soon as the day's #TourDeFrance racing ends. Riders will cross the line and be met with various measures to cool them down, then they'll be fed two meals […]. The riders drink cherry juice after the race and take magnesium before bed […].
“Each rider has a custom pillow, made for their preferred sleeping position and physiology. One quirk of working with cyclists is that they have particularly sensitive necks that need to be kept limber.”
https://defector.com/how-cycling-solved-sleep
(attn. @mherbert, relevant to your interests)
-
“The race to get to sleep starts as soon as the day's #TourDeFrance racing ends. Riders will cross the line and be met with various measures to cool them down, then they'll be fed two meals […]. The riders drink cherry juice after the race and take magnesium before bed […].
“Each rider has a custom pillow, made for their preferred sleeping position and physiology. One quirk of working with cyclists is that they have particularly sensitive necks that need to be kept limber.”
https://defector.com/how-cycling-solved-sleep
(attn. @mherbert, relevant to your interests)
-
DATE: July 18, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: A tactile wearable device suggests promising results for extending total sleep time
Recent research published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth suggests that a wearable device delivering gentle vibrations to the body can help people sleep longer. The findings provide evidence that this non-invasive technology tends to significantly increase total sleep time, especially for individuals who typically struggle to get a full night of rest. This approach offers a promising, medication-free option for addressing chronic sleep shortages and improving overall health.
A significant portion of the global population fails to get enough sleep each night. In the United States, roughly 70 million adults sleep six hours or less on a regular basis. Medical professionals refer to this condition as chronic short sleep. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that adults obtain at least seven hours of sleep per night to maintain optimal physical and mental well-being.
Falling short of this recommendation is associated with a variety of negative health outcomes. Chronic lack of sleep tends to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and mood disturbances. It can also impair cognitive functions like memory consolidation and daily concentration. Because of these substantial health risks, many individuals actively seek out methods to extend their nightly rest.
Historically, people have turned to behavioral changes, cognitive behavioral therapy, or medications to improve their rest. Prescription sleep medications can be highly effective at inducing sleep, but they often come with unwanted side effects like dizziness, next-day drowsiness, or even bizarre nighttime behaviors. Over-the-counter supplements like melatonin offer a milder alternative, but they tend to yield only modest increases in actual sleep time. Scientists are actively exploring alternative interventions that require minimal user effort and completely avoid pharmacological side effects.
One emerging technology is transcutaneous vibratory stimulation, which involves applying rhythmic, tactile vibrations directly to the skin. The concept is based on the idea that gentle, low-frequency sound waves can mimic the calming sensation of soothing human touch. This kind of tactile stimulation is thought to influence the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary bodily functions like heart rate and digestion. By shifting the body away from a state of stress and into a state of relaxation, this technology might help the nervous system prepare for sleep.
The authors of the new study wanted to examine how this specific type of vibratory stimulation impacts sleep patterns in a real-world setting. A previous trial had shown that the technology improved sleep in patients with a specific autoimmune condition. The researchers aimed to build on that earlier work by quantifying the device’s impact on a much larger, general population over an extended period. They specifically focused on whether the duration of the device’s use correlated with measurable extensions in total sleep time.
To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed retrospective data from a community of individuals who used both the Apollo wearable device and the Oura Ring. The Apollo device is a consumer wellness product worn on the wrist or ankle that delivers targeted vibratory stimulation through the skin. The Oura Ring is a separate biometric tracking device worn on the finger that uses movement, heart rate, and temperature sensors to monitor sleep phases. The study relied on data collected naturally as users interacted with these commercial devices in their everyday lives between January 2019 and May 2022.
The final sample included 935 users, which provided an extensive dataset of 474,852 nights of observation. Most of the participants were between the ages of 36 and 64, and about 52 percent of the sample identified as male. To establish a baseline for each user, the researchers required participants to have at least seven nights of recorded sleep data before they ever used the vibratory wearable at night. The research team then grouped the participants based on their baseline sleep habits, creating specific categories for those who naturally slept less than six hours, six to seven hours, seven to eight hours, and eight to nine hours.
The researchers measured the nightly use of the Apollo device in minutes, categorizing the usage into distinct levels ranging from zero minutes to over 240 minutes. They then used advanced statistical frameworks, including linear mixed-effects models, to analyze how different amounts of nighttime vibration influenced total sleep time. This type of statistical model allows researchers to control for individual differences, ensuring that a user with hundreds of logged nights does not incorrectly skew the data compared to a user with fewer nights. The primary outcome measured was the change in total sleep time, recorded in minutes by the smart ring.
The analysis revealed that nighttime use of the vibratory wearable was significantly associated with an increase in total sleep time. This effect was dose-dependent, meaning that longer use of the device generally corresponded to greater extensions in sleep. For the group of short sleepers who normally received six hours of rest or less, using the device for more than 240 minutes per night resulted in an average sleep extension of about 46 minutes. The median total sleep time for these individuals increased from 350 minutes to 381 minutes on nights they used the maximum level of stimulation.
Participants who already had longer baseline sleep durations also experienced benefits, though the absolute increases were slightly smaller. For instance, people who typically slept between six and seven hours gained an average of 35 additional minutes of sleep when using the device for over 240 minutes. Those sleeping seven to eight hours gained an estimated 13 additional minutes. This indicates that the vibratory stimulation provides evidence of sleep enhancement across several different baseline habits.
The researchers also looked at how the extra sleep was distributed across different sleep phases, such as light sleep, deep sleep, and rapid eye movement sleep. Rapid eye movement, or REM, is a stage of sleep associated with dreaming and emotional processing. For the short sleepers, the data showed an approximate six percent increase in the proportion of time spent in the REM phase. This increase in REM sleep came at the expense of light sleep, suggesting the additional rest maintained a healthy overall sleep architecture.
In addition to extending total sleep time, the vibratory stimulation was linked to a lower probability of experiencing a severely shortened night of rest. The authors calculated the odds of a participant sleeping six hours or less on any given night. For short sleepers, using the device for more than 240 minutes was associated with a 77 percent reduction in the odds of having a short sleep night. Even moderate use of the device, between 181 and 240 minutes, was associated with a 49 percent reduction in these odds.
A few limitations must be considered when interpreting these findings. The study used an observational design based on retrospective data, which means it can identify correlations but cannot definitively prove that the device directly caused the sleep improvements. Because the researchers analyzed existing commercial data, they could not control for outside factors that might influence sleep, such as caffeine intake, alcohol consumption, or daily medication use. The lack of direct interaction with participants also means the team could not verify if the devices were always used exactly as the manufacturer intended.
The reliance on biometric wearable devices presents another constraint for the research team. Although the smart ring provides validated, objective measurements of sleep phases, the study did not include subjective assessments from the users. Subjective measures, like structured sleep quality questionnaires, help scientists understand how rested a person actually feels the next day. Relying purely on device data means the psychological perception of sleep quality remains unknown for this specific sample.
Future research will need to address these gaps by conducting randomized controlled trials in clinical settings. Such trials would involve specific, supervised protocols to establish a direct causal relationship between vibratory stimulation and sleep extension. Scientists also suggest examining how this technology affects diverse populations, including people diagnosed with clinical sleep disorders or distinct neurological conditions. Integrating standardized sleep quality surveys into future studies would help provide a complete picture of how transcutaneous vibratory stimulation impacts human health.
The study, “Association Between Duration of Transcutaneous Vibratory Stimulation Delivered by the Apollo Neuro Device and Extension of Total Sleep Time,” was authored by Mahender Mandala, Shilpa Krishnan, Nathanial Weathington, Michael Breus, and David Rabin.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SleepExtension #VibratoryStimulation #ApolloNeuro #WearableTechnology #SleepScience #TranscutaneousStimulation #RemSleep boost #ChronicSleepDebt #NonPharmacologicalSleepAid #BiohackingSleep
-
DATE: July 18, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: A tactile wearable device suggests promising results for extending total sleep time
Recent research published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth suggests that a wearable device delivering gentle vibrations to the body can help people sleep longer. The findings provide evidence that this non-invasive technology tends to significantly increase total sleep time, especially for individuals who typically struggle to get a full night of rest. This approach offers a promising, medication-free option for addressing chronic sleep shortages and improving overall health.
A significant portion of the global population fails to get enough sleep each night. In the United States, roughly 70 million adults sleep six hours or less on a regular basis. Medical professionals refer to this condition as chronic short sleep. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that adults obtain at least seven hours of sleep per night to maintain optimal physical and mental well-being.
Falling short of this recommendation is associated with a variety of negative health outcomes. Chronic lack of sleep tends to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and mood disturbances. It can also impair cognitive functions like memory consolidation and daily concentration. Because of these substantial health risks, many individuals actively seek out methods to extend their nightly rest.
Historically, people have turned to behavioral changes, cognitive behavioral therapy, or medications to improve their rest. Prescription sleep medications can be highly effective at inducing sleep, but they often come with unwanted side effects like dizziness, next-day drowsiness, or even bizarre nighttime behaviors. Over-the-counter supplements like melatonin offer a milder alternative, but they tend to yield only modest increases in actual sleep time. Scientists are actively exploring alternative interventions that require minimal user effort and completely avoid pharmacological side effects.
One emerging technology is transcutaneous vibratory stimulation, which involves applying rhythmic, tactile vibrations directly to the skin. The concept is based on the idea that gentle, low-frequency sound waves can mimic the calming sensation of soothing human touch. This kind of tactile stimulation is thought to influence the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary bodily functions like heart rate and digestion. By shifting the body away from a state of stress and into a state of relaxation, this technology might help the nervous system prepare for sleep.
The authors of the new study wanted to examine how this specific type of vibratory stimulation impacts sleep patterns in a real-world setting. A previous trial had shown that the technology improved sleep in patients with a specific autoimmune condition. The researchers aimed to build on that earlier work by quantifying the device’s impact on a much larger, general population over an extended period. They specifically focused on whether the duration of the device’s use correlated with measurable extensions in total sleep time.
To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed retrospective data from a community of individuals who used both the Apollo wearable device and the Oura Ring. The Apollo device is a consumer wellness product worn on the wrist or ankle that delivers targeted vibratory stimulation through the skin. The Oura Ring is a separate biometric tracking device worn on the finger that uses movement, heart rate, and temperature sensors to monitor sleep phases. The study relied on data collected naturally as users interacted with these commercial devices in their everyday lives between January 2019 and May 2022.
The final sample included 935 users, which provided an extensive dataset of 474,852 nights of observation. Most of the participants were between the ages of 36 and 64, and about 52 percent of the sample identified as male. To establish a baseline for each user, the researchers required participants to have at least seven nights of recorded sleep data before they ever used the vibratory wearable at night. The research team then grouped the participants based on their baseline sleep habits, creating specific categories for those who naturally slept less than six hours, six to seven hours, seven to eight hours, and eight to nine hours.
The researchers measured the nightly use of the Apollo device in minutes, categorizing the usage into distinct levels ranging from zero minutes to over 240 minutes. They then used advanced statistical frameworks, including linear mixed-effects models, to analyze how different amounts of nighttime vibration influenced total sleep time. This type of statistical model allows researchers to control for individual differences, ensuring that a user with hundreds of logged nights does not incorrectly skew the data compared to a user with fewer nights. The primary outcome measured was the change in total sleep time, recorded in minutes by the smart ring.
The analysis revealed that nighttime use of the vibratory wearable was significantly associated with an increase in total sleep time. This effect was dose-dependent, meaning that longer use of the device generally corresponded to greater extensions in sleep. For the group of short sleepers who normally received six hours of rest or less, using the device for more than 240 minutes per night resulted in an average sleep extension of about 46 minutes. The median total sleep time for these individuals increased from 350 minutes to 381 minutes on nights they used the maximum level of stimulation.
Participants who already had longer baseline sleep durations also experienced benefits, though the absolute increases were slightly smaller. For instance, people who typically slept between six and seven hours gained an average of 35 additional minutes of sleep when using the device for over 240 minutes. Those sleeping seven to eight hours gained an estimated 13 additional minutes. This indicates that the vibratory stimulation provides evidence of sleep enhancement across several different baseline habits.
The researchers also looked at how the extra sleep was distributed across different sleep phases, such as light sleep, deep sleep, and rapid eye movement sleep. Rapid eye movement, or REM, is a stage of sleep associated with dreaming and emotional processing. For the short sleepers, the data showed an approximate six percent increase in the proportion of time spent in the REM phase. This increase in REM sleep came at the expense of light sleep, suggesting the additional rest maintained a healthy overall sleep architecture.
In addition to extending total sleep time, the vibratory stimulation was linked to a lower probability of experiencing a severely shortened night of rest. The authors calculated the odds of a participant sleeping six hours or less on any given night. For short sleepers, using the device for more than 240 minutes was associated with a 77 percent reduction in the odds of having a short sleep night. Even moderate use of the device, between 181 and 240 minutes, was associated with a 49 percent reduction in these odds.
A few limitations must be considered when interpreting these findings. The study used an observational design based on retrospective data, which means it can identify correlations but cannot definitively prove that the device directly caused the sleep improvements. Because the researchers analyzed existing commercial data, they could not control for outside factors that might influence sleep, such as caffeine intake, alcohol consumption, or daily medication use. The lack of direct interaction with participants also means the team could not verify if the devices were always used exactly as the manufacturer intended.
The reliance on biometric wearable devices presents another constraint for the research team. Although the smart ring provides validated, objective measurements of sleep phases, the study did not include subjective assessments from the users. Subjective measures, like structured sleep quality questionnaires, help scientists understand how rested a person actually feels the next day. Relying purely on device data means the psychological perception of sleep quality remains unknown for this specific sample.
Future research will need to address these gaps by conducting randomized controlled trials in clinical settings. Such trials would involve specific, supervised protocols to establish a direct causal relationship between vibratory stimulation and sleep extension. Scientists also suggest examining how this technology affects diverse populations, including people diagnosed with clinical sleep disorders or distinct neurological conditions. Integrating standardized sleep quality surveys into future studies would help provide a complete picture of how transcutaneous vibratory stimulation impacts human health.
The study, “Association Between Duration of Transcutaneous Vibratory Stimulation Delivered by the Apollo Neuro Device and Extension of Total Sleep Time,” was authored by Mahender Mandala, Shilpa Krishnan, Nathanial Weathington, Michael Breus, and David Rabin.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SleepExtension #VibratoryStimulation #ApolloNeuro #WearableTechnology #SleepScience #TranscutaneousStimulation #RemSleep boost #ChronicSleepDebt #NonPharmacologicalSleepAid #BiohackingSleep
-
Scientists discovered a fascinating trick to feeling like you slept great even if you didn’t
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/placebo-sleep-study-ex1/
-
Scientists discovered a fascinating trick to feeling like you slept great even if you didn’t
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/placebo-sleep-study-ex1/
-
DATE: July 5, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Your brain can start dreaming while you are still awake, and scientists just mapped how it happens
Tonight, as you close your eyes in bed, something strange will happen to you: your mind will drift from an ordinary thought to a dream, but it will be impossible to say exactly when it happened. We tend to imagine that the boundary between being asleep and awake is clear: when we are awake, we think; when we are asleep, we dream. Yet, in our study, published in Cell Reports, we show that this boundary is more porous than you think. You can dream before falling asleep, and plan your day ahead after drifting off.
From thought to dream and everything in between
Think about what it means to be awake. Right now, as you read these lines: sounds reach you, light falls on you, fabric touches your skin. You are anchored in the world. Sleeping is somewhat the opposite. You are still, cut off from the outside world and inhabited by experiences constructed from within: dreams.
Between the two, there is a lapse of time. We do not switch from one state to the other, like flipping a light switch. It is a gradual transition in which brain activity slows down, muscles relax, breathing deepens. And the mind does not cease to function; it takes on other forms by producing thoughts related to the day or the day ahead, fleeting images, a few scraps of music, fragments of dreams… Researchers call this half-awake, half-asleep state of consciousness “hypnagogia”.
The problem is that these experiences are fleeting and ever-changing, hard to report, and even harder to classify. How do we move from “What am I going to eat tomorrow?” to “I am sitting on a train moving underwater”? Until now, researchers have tried to sort them into categories based on what they are (“This one seems bizarre, it must be a dream”) or on when they occur (“I exclude anything that happens during wakefulness”).
The result: we knew that a multitude of experiences pass through the mind during the sleep onset period, but without being sure which ones, nor when or how the brain produces them. That is exactly what we set out to understand.
Letting the data speak
To get a clearer picture, we had to abandon predefined categories and let the data speak. We recorded the brain activity of 103 participants while they took a nap in the lab, using electroencephalography, or EEG: electrodes were placed across the scalp to capture neural signals and make it possible to distinguish wakefulness (fast alpha waves) from light sleep (slower theta and sigma waves, with sudden very slow waves and brief rhythmic bursts called sleep spindles).
We interrupted them with a sound at several intervals and asked a very simple question: “What was going through your mind just before the alarm?” Then we asked them to rate their experience along four dimensions: how bizarre (and non-ordinary), how fluid and continuous (or, on the contrary, fragmented) and how spontaneous it was (without voluntary control), as well as their impression of being awake or asleep.
In total, we collected 375 experiences during the sleep onset period. Rather than deciding ourselves what counted as a dream or a waking thought, we used a Machine Learning algorithm to group these experiences into “mental states” without defining in advance what they were supposed to be.
Taking the participants’ ratings on all four dimensions into account, the algorithm searched for groups of experiences that resembled one another – a bit as if it were looking for “families” on a four-coordinate map. Broadly speaking: fragments of memory (“an image of my father came to mind”), thoughts related to the surroundings (“I was listening to the sounds of the street”), dream-like imagery (“I was seeing little aliens”), and deliberate reflections (“I was thinking about what I was going to do tomorrow”).
The next question followed naturally: at what point between wakefulness and sleep does each of these states arise?
Dreaming while awake, thinking while asleep
This is where the results become surprising. We expected a simple scenario: rational thoughts during wakefulness, bizarre imagery during sleep. And some patterns did go in that direction: as people fell fast asleep, the mental state linked to the surroundings and the one linked to deliberate reflection became rarer.
But here is the core of our discovery: all four states appeared across the board – during wakefulness, sleep onset (stage N1), and in more established sleep (stage N2). What passes through our mind is not dictated by whether we are awake or asleep.
In practice, some cases turned out to be, frankly, paradoxical. One participant, who was perfectly awake (alpha waves on the EEG, a signature of wakefulness), reported: “Ants were climbing on me with crossword puzzles in the background.” Another participant asleep in stage N2 (sudden large slow waves on the EEG recording, a classic marker of sleep) simply said: “I was thinking about work.” We dream before falling asleep; we reflect while asleep.
One point still needed clarifying: the brain does not function in the same way during wakefulness and sleep; during sleep, it slows down, it becomes synchronised. So how can a dream-like experience arise both in wakefulness and in sleep? To understand this, we zoomed in: shorter time windows to capture rapid shifts in brain waves, 64 electrodes to cover the cortex precisely, and finer metrics of brain signals than those traditionally used.
We found brain signatures of mental states. Dream-like imagery, for example, was accompanied by weaker communication between distant brain regions, as if these areas of the brain were less able to talk to one another. The key point: these signatures were the same whether the person was awake or asleep. In other words, the brain can produce the same type of mental experience regardless of the state of vigilance.
How about you? What goes through your mind as you fall asleep? These results pose the following equally interesting questions: Do all people have the same mental experiences? In the same order? And does this tell us something about who we are?
To find out, we designed Drifting Minds, an online questionnaire of about twenty minutes that explores your mental experiences during the sleep onset period. Close to 5 000 people across five continents have already taken part. The goal is to identify sleep-onset profiles in the population and to see whether they depend on age, sex, and culture, but also whether they are linked to traits such as creativity, anxiety, mental imagery ability, or sleep quality.
At the end of the questionnaire, you discover your own sleep onset profile and can compare yourself with others. Take part here!
Deep down what we are trying to do is understand what the brain generates in this “in between” zone, and what it says about us. So tonight, as you close your eyes, you will once again pass through that strange corridor. Pay attention to that moment and what’s going through your mind just before you drift off…
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DreamingWhileAwake #Hypnagogia #SleepOnset #WakefulDreams #BrainStudy #EEGResearch #DreamLikeImagery #MindStates #SleepScience #DriftingMinds
-
DATE: July 5, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Your brain can start dreaming while you are still awake, and scientists just mapped how it happens
Tonight, as you close your eyes in bed, something strange will happen to you: your mind will drift from an ordinary thought to a dream, but it will be impossible to say exactly when it happened. We tend to imagine that the boundary between being asleep and awake is clear: when we are awake, we think; when we are asleep, we dream. Yet, in our study, published in Cell Reports, we show that this boundary is more porous than you think. You can dream before falling asleep, and plan your day ahead after drifting off.
From thought to dream and everything in between
Think about what it means to be awake. Right now, as you read these lines: sounds reach you, light falls on you, fabric touches your skin. You are anchored in the world. Sleeping is somewhat the opposite. You are still, cut off from the outside world and inhabited by experiences constructed from within: dreams.
Between the two, there is a lapse of time. We do not switch from one state to the other, like flipping a light switch. It is a gradual transition in which brain activity slows down, muscles relax, breathing deepens. And the mind does not cease to function; it takes on other forms by producing thoughts related to the day or the day ahead, fleeting images, a few scraps of music, fragments of dreams… Researchers call this half-awake, half-asleep state of consciousness “hypnagogia”.
The problem is that these experiences are fleeting and ever-changing, hard to report, and even harder to classify. How do we move from “What am I going to eat tomorrow?” to “I am sitting on a train moving underwater”? Until now, researchers have tried to sort them into categories based on what they are (“This one seems bizarre, it must be a dream”) or on when they occur (“I exclude anything that happens during wakefulness”).
The result: we knew that a multitude of experiences pass through the mind during the sleep onset period, but without being sure which ones, nor when or how the brain produces them. That is exactly what we set out to understand.
Letting the data speak
To get a clearer picture, we had to abandon predefined categories and let the data speak. We recorded the brain activity of 103 participants while they took a nap in the lab, using electroencephalography, or EEG: electrodes were placed across the scalp to capture neural signals and make it possible to distinguish wakefulness (fast alpha waves) from light sleep (slower theta and sigma waves, with sudden very slow waves and brief rhythmic bursts called sleep spindles).
We interrupted them with a sound at several intervals and asked a very simple question: “What was going through your mind just before the alarm?” Then we asked them to rate their experience along four dimensions: how bizarre (and non-ordinary), how fluid and continuous (or, on the contrary, fragmented) and how spontaneous it was (without voluntary control), as well as their impression of being awake or asleep.
In total, we collected 375 experiences during the sleep onset period. Rather than deciding ourselves what counted as a dream or a waking thought, we used a Machine Learning algorithm to group these experiences into “mental states” without defining in advance what they were supposed to be.
Taking the participants’ ratings on all four dimensions into account, the algorithm searched for groups of experiences that resembled one another – a bit as if it were looking for “families” on a four-coordinate map. Broadly speaking: fragments of memory (“an image of my father came to mind”), thoughts related to the surroundings (“I was listening to the sounds of the street”), dream-like imagery (“I was seeing little aliens”), and deliberate reflections (“I was thinking about what I was going to do tomorrow”).
The next question followed naturally: at what point between wakefulness and sleep does each of these states arise?
Dreaming while awake, thinking while asleep
This is where the results become surprising. We expected a simple scenario: rational thoughts during wakefulness, bizarre imagery during sleep. And some patterns did go in that direction: as people fell fast asleep, the mental state linked to the surroundings and the one linked to deliberate reflection became rarer.
But here is the core of our discovery: all four states appeared across the board – during wakefulness, sleep onset (stage N1), and in more established sleep (stage N2). What passes through our mind is not dictated by whether we are awake or asleep.
In practice, some cases turned out to be, frankly, paradoxical. One participant, who was perfectly awake (alpha waves on the EEG, a signature of wakefulness), reported: “Ants were climbing on me with crossword puzzles in the background.” Another participant asleep in stage N2 (sudden large slow waves on the EEG recording, a classic marker of sleep) simply said: “I was thinking about work.” We dream before falling asleep; we reflect while asleep.
One point still needed clarifying: the brain does not function in the same way during wakefulness and sleep; during sleep, it slows down, it becomes synchronised. So how can a dream-like experience arise both in wakefulness and in sleep? To understand this, we zoomed in: shorter time windows to capture rapid shifts in brain waves, 64 electrodes to cover the cortex precisely, and finer metrics of brain signals than those traditionally used.
We found brain signatures of mental states. Dream-like imagery, for example, was accompanied by weaker communication between distant brain regions, as if these areas of the brain were less able to talk to one another. The key point: these signatures were the same whether the person was awake or asleep. In other words, the brain can produce the same type of mental experience regardless of the state of vigilance.
How about you? What goes through your mind as you fall asleep? These results pose the following equally interesting questions: Do all people have the same mental experiences? In the same order? And does this tell us something about who we are?
To find out, we designed Drifting Minds, an online questionnaire of about twenty minutes that explores your mental experiences during the sleep onset period. Close to 5 000 people across five continents have already taken part. The goal is to identify sleep-onset profiles in the population and to see whether they depend on age, sex, and culture, but also whether they are linked to traits such as creativity, anxiety, mental imagery ability, or sleep quality.
At the end of the questionnaire, you discover your own sleep onset profile and can compare yourself with others. Take part here!
Deep down what we are trying to do is understand what the brain generates in this “in between” zone, and what it says about us. So tonight, as you close your eyes, you will once again pass through that strange corridor. Pay attention to that moment and what’s going through your mind just before you drift off…
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DreamingWhileAwake #Hypnagogia #SleepOnset #WakefulDreams #BrainStudy #EEGResearch #DreamLikeImagery #MindStates #SleepScience #DriftingMinds
-
For years, blue light has been blamed for sleepless nights. But new research suggests your bedtime Netflix habit may not be the real problem. Here's what sleep experts actually found. https://english.mathrubhumi.com/lifestyle/health/is-watching-screens-before-bed-really-ruining-your-sleep-heres-what-science-actually-says-laiig46q?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #SleepScience #BlueLight #SleepTips #ScreenTime
-
DATE: July 5, 2026 at 03:39AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists discover the deep sleep circuit that builds muscle, burns fat, and boosts the brain
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260626030433.htm
Researchers have identified the brain circuitry that links deep sleep with the release of growth hormone, revealing how the two regulate each other. The newly discovered feedback loop helps explain why poor sleep can interfere with growth, muscle repair, fat metabolism, and brain function. Understanding this system could pave the way for new therapies for sleep disorders and diseases tied to metabolism and the brain, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260626030433.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DeepSleep #SleepScience #GrowthHormone #MuscleRecovery #FatMetabolism #BrainHealth #SleepResearch #Neuroendocrine #MetabolicHealth #NeurodegenerativeDisease
-
DATE: July 5, 2026 at 03:39AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists discover the deep sleep circuit that builds muscle, burns fat, and boosts the brain
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260626030433.htm
Researchers have identified the brain circuitry that links deep sleep with the release of growth hormone, revealing how the two regulate each other. The newly discovered feedback loop helps explain why poor sleep can interfere with growth, muscle repair, fat metabolism, and brain function. Understanding this system could pave the way for new therapies for sleep disorders and diseases tied to metabolism and the brain, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260626030433.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DeepSleep #SleepScience #GrowthHormone #MuscleRecovery #FatMetabolism #BrainHealth #SleepResearch #Neuroendocrine #MetabolicHealth #NeurodegenerativeDisease
-
You'll wake up sharper and actually get through the rest of your day without crashing. #Biohacking #Optimization #MentalClarity #Productivity #Focus #Efficiency #Wellness #Recovery #Energy #Performance #SleepScience (3/3)
-
DATE: June 23, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: What is the best exercise to improve sleep? The answer depends on your age, gender, and mental health
A lack of restful slumber affects millions of people globally, prompting many to seek natural remedies over prescription medications. A suite of four recent comprehensive analyses, published in Sleep and Biological Rhythms, BMC Geriatrics, Complementary Therapies in Medicine, and Frontiers in Psychology, outlines exactly which types of physical activity appear to provide the best rest for different groups of people.
The results reveal that tailoring the type, duration, and intensity of a workout to a specific demographic yields the best nights of rest. For years, general fitness advice has treated all exercise as equally beneficial for rest, but these new studies break down the data to show that age, mental health, and existing diagnoses dictate what kind of movement works best.
Sleep disturbances range from difficulty falling asleep to waking up frequently during the night. Chronic lack of rest can increase the risk of heart disease, weaken the immune system, and worsen mental health conditions like depression. Sleep architecture, which includes the cycling between light rest, deep rest, and dreaming states, becomes easily fragmented by stress or aging. Medical providers frequently prescribe sedative medications to help patients find relief from these exhausting nighttime disruptions.
However, long-term use of sleeping pills carries known risks, including dependency, tolerance, and daytime grogginess. These chemical drawbacks lead many individuals to seek non-pharmacological alternatives to restore their energy. Physical activity is widely recommended to improve health, but medical guidelines often offer broad advice without specifying the best exercise formats. Patients are frequently told simply to move more, leaving them to guess whether they should be lifting weights, jogging, or stretching.
To provide clearer guidance, four independent research teams investigated how specific workout routines affect nighttime rejuvenation. Li Li of Harbin Sport University led a team evaluating adults with general sleep disorders. Separately, Zhiyu Xiong, Yuan Yuan and Bopeng Qiu, along with colleagues from various medical and research institutions, spearheaded a project focusing on older adults. These groups often have distinct physiological needs that require customized approaches to physical exertion.
Baoyi Ouyang of Beijing Sport University directed a team researching individuals with emotion-related insomnia, which occurs when anxiety or depression disrupts rest. Shuang Li of Zhaoqing University and colleagues focused specifically on healthy adult women. Together, these researchers sought to replace generic fitness advice with targeted, evidence-based exercise prescriptions. Their goal was to find the exact dosage of activity that maximizes health benefits without causing excessive physical strain.
To find the best workout routines, the four research teams relied on network meta-analyses. A network meta-analysis is a statistical method that pools data from dozens of smaller studies to compare multiple treatments simultaneously. This approach allows researchers to rank different interventions against one another, even if those specific workouts were never directly compared in a single original trial. It creates a hierarchy of effectiveness based on massive amounts of combined patient data.
The researchers exclusively analyzed randomized controlled trials. In this type of trial, human volunteers are assigned to a treatment group or a control group completely by chance. This design helps prevent bias and is considered the highest standard for testing medical or behavioral interventions. By filtering out lower-quality observational studies, the researchers ensured their conclusions rested on a solid scientific foundation.
All four teams evaluated rest using established questionnaires, predominantly the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. This questionnaire asks patients to rate their own bedtime habits, including how long it takes them to drift off and how often they wake up. By tracking changes in these scores over weeks or months, the researchers measured exactly how much each exercise routine helped. They also translated these subjective scores into standardized statistical formats to compare completely different types of fitness programs.
Li and colleagues focused their attention on individuals already diagnosed with clinical sleep disorders. They aggregated data from 30 trials encompassing 2576 participants. The team categorized the workouts by type, frequency, duration, and intensity to identify the most effective combination. They wanted to know if short bursts of heavy exertion worked better than long, slow sessions of gentle movement.
The analysis showed that yoga produced the best outcomes for this clinically diagnosed group. The optimal routine involved practicing yoga twice a week for no more than 30 minutes per session. This routine yielded the best results when sustained for eight to ten weeks at a high intensity. The researchers determined that this exact combination of factors provided the strongest therapeutic effect.
The researchers noted that yoga incorporates specific breath control techniques that activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This part of the nervous system controls the body’s ability to relax, slowing the heart rate and lowering blood pressure. By triggering this relaxation response, yoga helps transition the brain into the deeper, most restorative stages of the sleep cycle. It essentially trains the nervous system to calm down on command.
The short duration of the sessions also played an important role in the positive results. Workouts lasting longer than 30 minutes can cause elevated levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress and alertness. Keeping the yoga sessions brief prevents these cortisol spikes, ensuring the body remains primed for rest. It avoids the prolonged physical stress that might otherwise keep a person awake.
Exercising just twice a week provided enough physical stimulus without causing overtraining fatigue. The eight-to-ten-week timeframe aligns with the period it typically takes for human beings to form new behavioral habits. Maintaining the routine for this length of time helps stabilize the body’s internal clock. It creates a predictable rhythm that the brain can rely on to regulate wakefulness.
Xiong and colleagues shifted the focus to older adults, analyzing 62 trials with a total of 5005 participants over the age of 60. This demographic frequently experiences a natural decline in rest quality due to aging processes and physical ailments. The team ranked nine different categories of exercise, including walking, mind-body exercises, and virtual reality games. They wanted to figure out how aging bodies respond differently to various types of physical strain.
The results indicated that a combination of aerobic exercise and resistance training ranked highest for older adults. Aerobic exercises, like brisk walking or cycling, elevate the heart rate and improve oxygen flow throughout the bloodstream. Resistance training involves lifting weights or using elastic bands to build muscle strength. Doing both types of exercise together provided a synergistic effect that outperformed any single activity.
The research team also calculated the best weekly dose of activity using a metric called metabolic equivalent of task minutes. This measurement tracks how much energy a person expends during physical activity, accounting for both the intensity and the length of the workout. The optimal dose landed at 990 metabolic equivalent minutes per week. This precise calculation gives doctors a clear numerical target when writing exercise prescriptions.
This specific energy expenditure aligns perfectly with World Health Organization guidelines, which recommend a range between 600 and 1200 metabolic equivalent minutes weekly. Achieving this optimal dose equates to about three 40-minute sessions or five 30-minute sessions per week. The researchers found that improvements peaked at around 15 weeks of consistent training. Pushing past this timeframe did not yield vast additional benefits, suggesting the body adapts to the routine.
Combining aerobic and resistance exercises addresses multiple aging-related issues at once. Resistance training helps relieve joint and muscle pain, reducing physical discomfort that might wake an older adult in the night. Meanwhile, aerobic activity regulates the body’s internal temperature rhythms, which often become disrupted in later life. Together, they tackle both the mechanical and metabolic barriers to a good night of rest.
Ouyang and colleagues looked at the intersection of mental health and rest. They reviewed 23 trials involving 1836 patients dealing with emotion-related insomnia. These individuals experience sleep disruptions driven by underlying emotional distress, such as clinical anxiety or depression. Treating the physical symptoms of insomnia in this group often requires addressing the psychological distress simultaneously.
This team found that combined exercise programs, which mix aerobic and resistance training, ranked as the most likely to improve subjective rest ratings. Mind-body exercises like tai chi and standalone aerobic routines also offered substantial benefits. The researchers noted that combined exercise helps regulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, a complex system of glands that controls how the body reacts to stress. Stabilizing this system prevents the brain from entering a state of hyperarousal.
By regulating this glandular system, combined exercise lowers resting cortisol levels. Physical activity also promotes the release of serotonin and dopamine, brain chemicals that elevate mood and induce feelings of calmness. Modulating these chemicals helps quiet the racing thoughts that keep anxious individuals awake. The physical exertion essentially burns off the excess nervous energy associated with anxiety disorders.
The researchers also looked at how quickly participants could fall asleep, a metric known as sleep onset latency. They found that exercising more frequently throughout the week led to faster sleep onset. High-frequency exercise promotes the accumulation of adenosine, a natural chemical in the brain that builds up during waking hours and creates the urge to sleep. By increasing adenosine levels, frequent exercise helps the brain power down more efficiently at night.
The team noted that objective measurements recorded by sleep clinic monitors were not statistically significant in showing improvements. They suspect this lack of objective proof stems from the small number of studies using clinical monitors rather than self-reported questionnaires. The subjective feeling of better rest, however, remained clear among the participants. The patients genuinely felt more rested, even if the brain wave data lacked statistical power.
Li and colleagues focused their investigation on healthy adult women without chronic diseases or severe clinical insomnia. Women generally experience higher rates of sleep disturbances than men. These issues often arise from hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, or menopause. Finding a non-pharmacological way to manage these natural disruptions is a major public health priority.
The researchers pooled 15 trials involving 261 women to see how exercise could act as a preventive health measure. They aimed to provide advice for the general female population to optimize their daily routines. The results pointed to aerobic exercise as the top-ranking intervention. This group did not need the complex interventions required by clinical populations, responding well to straightforward cardiovascular workouts.
Aerobic exercise provided the highest probability of success, with multimodal exercise ranking close behind. The researchers explained that aerobic workouts raise the body’s core temperature rapidly. Following the workout, the body temperature gradually drops over several hours. This thermal regulation is a key driver of biological rhythms.
This post-exercise cooling process mimics the natural temperature drop that occurs in the human body just before falling asleep. This biological mimicry helps extend the duration of deep, restorative sleep. Aerobic exercise also reduces widespread bodily inflammation, which is another hidden factor that can disrupt normal sleep patterns. By cooling the body and reducing inflammation, cardiovascular workouts create the perfect internal environment for slumber.
Stretching exercises ranked last in effectiveness among the evaluated interventions. The researchers noted that stretching only improves joint flexibility and muscle stiffness. It does not trigger the hormonal or temperature changes required to reset a person’s biological rhythm or alleviate bedtime anxiety. While stretching remains good for overall mobility, it falls short as a primary tool for fighting insomnia.
While these four analyses provide tailored guidance, the research teams highlighted a few caveats regarding their methodologies. The vast majority of the analyzed trials relied on subjective questionnaires rather than objective clinical data. Patients filling out self-rating forms may unintentionally overestimate or underestimate their improvements based on their mood that day. This reliance on memory and perception can introduce slight inaccuracies into the final data pool.
To build on these findings, future clinical trials should incorporate polysomnography. Polysomnography is a comprehensive test used to diagnose sleep disorders by recording brain waves, oxygen levels, and heart rates in a laboratory setting. Using these clinical tools would provide concrete biological evidence to back up the subjective reports of better rest. It would also reveal exactly which stages of the sleep cycle are being altered by different workouts.
Another limitation is the potential for publication bias across the medical literature. Scientific journals are historically more likely to publish trials that show positive results, while studies showing no improvement often remain unpublished. The researchers applied statistical tests to check for this bias and determined it did not entirely invalidate their results, but it remains a factor to consider. Missing data from unsuccessful trials can sometimes make a treatment look slightly more effective than it actually is.
Future research must also pinpoint the best time of day to work out. The current data does not specify whether morning, afternoon, or evening routines yield the greatest benefits. Some scientists suspect that exercising too close to bedtime might actually cause wakefulness by elevating the heart rate too late in the day. Determining the ideal timing will allow doctors to create even more precise behavioral prescriptions for their patients.
The study, “Which exercise prescription is most effective for patients with sleep disorders?: a network meta-analysis of 30 randomized controlled trials,” was authored by Li Li, Jing An, Dandan Wang, and Hua Li.
The study, “Optimal exercise type and dose to improve sleep quality in older adults: a systematic review and network meta-analysis,” was authored by Zhiyu Xiong, Yuan Yuan, Bopeng Qiu, Yong Yang, Ying Bai, Junyu Wang, Tao Wang, Hao Liu, Yuwen ShangGuan, Shihua Jiang, Fuhong Wang, Wu Ding, ZhongLi Wang, Yiqi Li, and Lin Zhang.
The study, “The effects of exercise interventions on sleep quality in patients with emotion-related insomnia (ERI)：A systematic review and network meta-analysis,” was authored by Baoyi Ouyang, Jianan Gao, Xiaojie Zhou, Liang Gao, and Hui He.
The study, “Effects of different physical activity interventions on women’s sleep: a systematic review and network meta-analysis,” was authored by Shuang Li, Zixian Xiao, Hongyu Wang, Xiaolin Zhang, Kelei Guo, Ying Zhu, Jingtao Wu, Chenmu Li, Yuwen Shangguan, Junlai Zhou, and Dong Li.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SleepQuality #ExerciseForSleep #YogaForSleep #OlderAdultsFitness #AnxietySleep #WomenSleepHealth #AerobicAndStrength #MindBodyExercise #SleepScience #NonPharmacologicalSleepAid
-
DATE: June 23, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: What is the best exercise to improve sleep? The answer depends on your age, gender, and mental health
A lack of restful slumber affects millions of people globally, prompting many to seek natural remedies over prescription medications. A suite of four recent comprehensive analyses, published in Sleep and Biological Rhythms, BMC Geriatrics, Complementary Therapies in Medicine, and Frontiers in Psychology, outlines exactly which types of physical activity appear to provide the best rest for different groups of people.
The results reveal that tailoring the type, duration, and intensity of a workout to a specific demographic yields the best nights of rest. For years, general fitness advice has treated all exercise as equally beneficial for rest, but these new studies break down the data to show that age, mental health, and existing diagnoses dictate what kind of movement works best.
Sleep disturbances range from difficulty falling asleep to waking up frequently during the night. Chronic lack of rest can increase the risk of heart disease, weaken the immune system, and worsen mental health conditions like depression. Sleep architecture, which includes the cycling between light rest, deep rest, and dreaming states, becomes easily fragmented by stress or aging. Medical providers frequently prescribe sedative medications to help patients find relief from these exhausting nighttime disruptions.
However, long-term use of sleeping pills carries known risks, including dependency, tolerance, and daytime grogginess. These chemical drawbacks lead many individuals to seek non-pharmacological alternatives to restore their energy. Physical activity is widely recommended to improve health, but medical guidelines often offer broad advice without specifying the best exercise formats. Patients are frequently told simply to move more, leaving them to guess whether they should be lifting weights, jogging, or stretching.
To provide clearer guidance, four independent research teams investigated how specific workout routines affect nighttime rejuvenation. Li Li of Harbin Sport University led a team evaluating adults with general sleep disorders. Separately, Zhiyu Xiong, Yuan Yuan and Bopeng Qiu, along with colleagues from various medical and research institutions, spearheaded a project focusing on older adults. These groups often have distinct physiological needs that require customized approaches to physical exertion.
Baoyi Ouyang of Beijing Sport University directed a team researching individuals with emotion-related insomnia, which occurs when anxiety or depression disrupts rest. Shuang Li of Zhaoqing University and colleagues focused specifically on healthy adult women. Together, these researchers sought to replace generic fitness advice with targeted, evidence-based exercise prescriptions. Their goal was to find the exact dosage of activity that maximizes health benefits without causing excessive physical strain.
To find the best workout routines, the four research teams relied on network meta-analyses. A network meta-analysis is a statistical method that pools data from dozens of smaller studies to compare multiple treatments simultaneously. This approach allows researchers to rank different interventions against one another, even if those specific workouts were never directly compared in a single original trial. It creates a hierarchy of effectiveness based on massive amounts of combined patient data.
The researchers exclusively analyzed randomized controlled trials. In this type of trial, human volunteers are assigned to a treatment group or a control group completely by chance. This design helps prevent bias and is considered the highest standard for testing medical or behavioral interventions. By filtering out lower-quality observational studies, the researchers ensured their conclusions rested on a solid scientific foundation.
All four teams evaluated rest using established questionnaires, predominantly the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. This questionnaire asks patients to rate their own bedtime habits, including how long it takes them to drift off and how often they wake up. By tracking changes in these scores over weeks or months, the researchers measured exactly how much each exercise routine helped. They also translated these subjective scores into standardized statistical formats to compare completely different types of fitness programs.
Li and colleagues focused their attention on individuals already diagnosed with clinical sleep disorders. They aggregated data from 30 trials encompassing 2576 participants. The team categorized the workouts by type, frequency, duration, and intensity to identify the most effective combination. They wanted to know if short bursts of heavy exertion worked better than long, slow sessions of gentle movement.
The analysis showed that yoga produced the best outcomes for this clinically diagnosed group. The optimal routine involved practicing yoga twice a week for no more than 30 minutes per session. This routine yielded the best results when sustained for eight to ten weeks at a high intensity. The researchers determined that this exact combination of factors provided the strongest therapeutic effect.
The researchers noted that yoga incorporates specific breath control techniques that activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This part of the nervous system controls the body’s ability to relax, slowing the heart rate and lowering blood pressure. By triggering this relaxation response, yoga helps transition the brain into the deeper, most restorative stages of the sleep cycle. It essentially trains the nervous system to calm down on command.
The short duration of the sessions also played an important role in the positive results. Workouts lasting longer than 30 minutes can cause elevated levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress and alertness. Keeping the yoga sessions brief prevents these cortisol spikes, ensuring the body remains primed for rest. It avoids the prolonged physical stress that might otherwise keep a person awake.
Exercising just twice a week provided enough physical stimulus without causing overtraining fatigue. The eight-to-ten-week timeframe aligns with the period it typically takes for human beings to form new behavioral habits. Maintaining the routine for this length of time helps stabilize the body’s internal clock. It creates a predictable rhythm that the brain can rely on to regulate wakefulness.
Xiong and colleagues shifted the focus to older adults, analyzing 62 trials with a total of 5005 participants over the age of 60. This demographic frequently experiences a natural decline in rest quality due to aging processes and physical ailments. The team ranked nine different categories of exercise, including walking, mind-body exercises, and virtual reality games. They wanted to figure out how aging bodies respond differently to various types of physical strain.
The results indicated that a combination of aerobic exercise and resistance training ranked highest for older adults. Aerobic exercises, like brisk walking or cycling, elevate the heart rate and improve oxygen flow throughout the bloodstream. Resistance training involves lifting weights or using elastic bands to build muscle strength. Doing both types of exercise together provided a synergistic effect that outperformed any single activity.
The research team also calculated the best weekly dose of activity using a metric called metabolic equivalent of task minutes. This measurement tracks how much energy a person expends during physical activity, accounting for both the intensity and the length of the workout. The optimal dose landed at 990 metabolic equivalent minutes per week. This precise calculation gives doctors a clear numerical target when writing exercise prescriptions.
This specific energy expenditure aligns perfectly with World Health Organization guidelines, which recommend a range between 600 and 1200 metabolic equivalent minutes weekly. Achieving this optimal dose equates to about three 40-minute sessions or five 30-minute sessions per week. The researchers found that improvements peaked at around 15 weeks of consistent training. Pushing past this timeframe did not yield vast additional benefits, suggesting the body adapts to the routine.
Combining aerobic and resistance exercises addresses multiple aging-related issues at once. Resistance training helps relieve joint and muscle pain, reducing physical discomfort that might wake an older adult in the night. Meanwhile, aerobic activity regulates the body’s internal temperature rhythms, which often become disrupted in later life. Together, they tackle both the mechanical and metabolic barriers to a good night of rest.
Ouyang and colleagues looked at the intersection of mental health and rest. They reviewed 23 trials involving 1836 patients dealing with emotion-related insomnia. These individuals experience sleep disruptions driven by underlying emotional distress, such as clinical anxiety or depression. Treating the physical symptoms of insomnia in this group often requires addressing the psychological distress simultaneously.
This team found that combined exercise programs, which mix aerobic and resistance training, ranked as the most likely to improve subjective rest ratings. Mind-body exercises like tai chi and standalone aerobic routines also offered substantial benefits. The researchers noted that combined exercise helps regulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, a complex system of glands that controls how the body reacts to stress. Stabilizing this system prevents the brain from entering a state of hyperarousal.
By regulating this glandular system, combined exercise lowers resting cortisol levels. Physical activity also promotes the release of serotonin and dopamine, brain chemicals that elevate mood and induce feelings of calmness. Modulating these chemicals helps quiet the racing thoughts that keep anxious individuals awake. The physical exertion essentially burns off the excess nervous energy associated with anxiety disorders.
The researchers also looked at how quickly participants could fall asleep, a metric known as sleep onset latency. They found that exercising more frequently throughout the week led to faster sleep onset. High-frequency exercise promotes the accumulation of adenosine, a natural chemical in the brain that builds up during waking hours and creates the urge to sleep. By increasing adenosine levels, frequent exercise helps the brain power down more efficiently at night.
The team noted that objective measurements recorded by sleep clinic monitors were not statistically significant in showing improvements. They suspect this lack of objective proof stems from the small number of studies using clinical monitors rather than self-reported questionnaires. The subjective feeling of better rest, however, remained clear among the participants. The patients genuinely felt more rested, even if the brain wave data lacked statistical power.
Li and colleagues focused their investigation on healthy adult women without chronic diseases or severe clinical insomnia. Women generally experience higher rates of sleep disturbances than men. These issues often arise from hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, or menopause. Finding a non-pharmacological way to manage these natural disruptions is a major public health priority.
The researchers pooled 15 trials involving 261 women to see how exercise could act as a preventive health measure. They aimed to provide advice for the general female population to optimize their daily routines. The results pointed to aerobic exercise as the top-ranking intervention. This group did not need the complex interventions required by clinical populations, responding well to straightforward cardiovascular workouts.
Aerobic exercise provided the highest probability of success, with multimodal exercise ranking close behind. The researchers explained that aerobic workouts raise the body’s core temperature rapidly. Following the workout, the body temperature gradually drops over several hours. This thermal regulation is a key driver of biological rhythms.
This post-exercise cooling process mimics the natural temperature drop that occurs in the human body just before falling asleep. This biological mimicry helps extend the duration of deep, restorative sleep. Aerobic exercise also reduces widespread bodily inflammation, which is another hidden factor that can disrupt normal sleep patterns. By cooling the body and reducing inflammation, cardiovascular workouts create the perfect internal environment for slumber.
Stretching exercises ranked last in effectiveness among the evaluated interventions. The researchers noted that stretching only improves joint flexibility and muscle stiffness. It does not trigger the hormonal or temperature changes required to reset a person’s biological rhythm or alleviate bedtime anxiety. While stretching remains good for overall mobility, it falls short as a primary tool for fighting insomnia.
While these four analyses provide tailored guidance, the research teams highlighted a few caveats regarding their methodologies. The vast majority of the analyzed trials relied on subjective questionnaires rather than objective clinical data. Patients filling out self-rating forms may unintentionally overestimate or underestimate their improvements based on their mood that day. This reliance on memory and perception can introduce slight inaccuracies into the final data pool.
To build on these findings, future clinical trials should incorporate polysomnography. Polysomnography is a comprehensive test used to diagnose sleep disorders by recording brain waves, oxygen levels, and heart rates in a laboratory setting. Using these clinical tools would provide concrete biological evidence to back up the subjective reports of better rest. It would also reveal exactly which stages of the sleep cycle are being altered by different workouts.
Another limitation is the potential for publication bias across the medical literature. Scientific journals are historically more likely to publish trials that show positive results, while studies showing no improvement often remain unpublished. The researchers applied statistical tests to check for this bias and determined it did not entirely invalidate their results, but it remains a factor to consider. Missing data from unsuccessful trials can sometimes make a treatment look slightly more effective than it actually is.
Future research must also pinpoint the best time of day to work out. The current data does not specify whether morning, afternoon, or evening routines yield the greatest benefits. Some scientists suspect that exercising too close to bedtime might actually cause wakefulness by elevating the heart rate too late in the day. Determining the ideal timing will allow doctors to create even more precise behavioral prescriptions for their patients.
The study, “Which exercise prescription is most effective for patients with sleep disorders?: a network meta-analysis of 30 randomized controlled trials,” was authored by Li Li, Jing An, Dandan Wang, and Hua Li.
The study, “Optimal exercise type and dose to improve sleep quality in older adults: a systematic review and network meta-analysis,” was authored by Zhiyu Xiong, Yuan Yuan, Bopeng Qiu, Yong Yang, Ying Bai, Junyu Wang, Tao Wang, Hao Liu, Yuwen ShangGuan, Shihua Jiang, Fuhong Wang, Wu Ding, ZhongLi Wang, Yiqi Li, and Lin Zhang.
The study, “The effects of exercise interventions on sleep quality in patients with emotion-related insomnia (ERI)：A systematic review and network meta-analysis,” was authored by Baoyi Ouyang, Jianan Gao, Xiaojie Zhou, Liang Gao, and Hui He.
The study, “Effects of different physical activity interventions on women’s sleep: a systematic review and network meta-analysis,” was authored by Shuang Li, Zixian Xiao, Hongyu Wang, Xiaolin Zhang, Kelei Guo, Ying Zhu, Jingtao Wu, Chenmu Li, Yuwen Shangguan, Junlai Zhou, and Dong Li.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SleepQuality #ExerciseForSleep #YogaForSleep #OlderAdultsFitness #AnxietySleep #WomenSleepHealth #AerobicAndStrength #MindBodyExercise #SleepScience #NonPharmacologicalSleepAid
-
Follow @biohackingpathway for more
#SleepMatters #CircadianHealth #SleepScience #SleepBetter #HealthyHabits #Wellness #Wellbeing #Biohacking #HealthAndWellbeing #WellnessGoals #EmotionalWellbeing #WellnessCommunity #WellnessLifestyle #HealthyAging #WellnessWins https://mastodon.social/@biohackingpathway/116799841117303751 -
Pro Tips: Avoid charging your phone on the nightstand—out of sight, out of mind. Use amber lighting after sunset to signal your brain it's wind-down time.
Expected Results: Deeper sleep, faster recovery, and sustained mental clarity throughout your day.
#Biohacking #PeakPerformance #Optimization #SleepScience #Recovery #MentalClarity #Wellness #Lifestyle #Energy #Focus (2/2)
-
😴 Night is not always silent. Sometimes, breath becomes a snoring sound, shaped by airflow, soft tissues, and a partially narrowed upper airway.
What hidden patterns shape that familiar sound in the dark?
✍️ Explore how airflow, anatomy, and acoustics meet in sleep: https://www.theperpetuallycurious.org/snoring/
Quiet rooms, restless air, and the quiet science inside a familiar sleep sound.
-
😴 Night is not always silent. Sometimes, breath becomes a snoring sound, shaped by airflow, soft tissues, and a partially narrowed upper airway.
What hidden patterns shape that familiar sound in the dark?
✍️ Explore how airflow, anatomy, and acoustics meet in sleep: https://www.theperpetuallycurious.org/snoring/
Quiet rooms, restless air, and the quiet science inside a familiar sleep sound.
-
🌿 Morning stretches arrive before thought, a quiet reflex shared by humans and other animals. What is the body restoring when you first wake?
✍️ Explore the science of pandiculation: https://www.theperpetuallycurious.org/wake-up-stretch/
A small movement, a vast biological story.
-
🌿 Morning stretches arrive before thought, a quiet reflex shared by humans and other animals. What is the body restoring when you first wake?
✍️ Explore the science of pandiculation: https://www.theperpetuallycurious.org/wake-up-stretch/
A small movement, a vast biological story.
-
Japan averages 6h18m of sleep a night. France averages nearly 8h. Neither country is worse off for it. A ‘25 PNAS study + evolutionary anthropology suggest “enough sleep” isn’t a number, it’s a fit to where you live. 🧵 #SleepScience #Anthropology #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/japan-sleeps-six-hours-and-eighteen
-
Japan averages 6h18m of sleep a night. France averages nearly 8h. Neither country is worse off for it. A ‘25 PNAS study + evolutionary anthropology suggest “enough sleep” isn’t a number, it’s a fit to where you live. 🧵 #SleepScience #Anthropology #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/japan-sleeps-six-hours-and-eighteen
-
What you'll notice:
You'll fall asleep faster, get more deep sleep, and actually feel recovered when you wake up. It's a small change that can make a real difference in your performance.
#SleepBiohacking #Optimization #PeakPerformance #SleepQuality #Recovery #TemperatureDrop #TimeManagement #Focus #Energy #SleepScience (3/3)
-
After 3-5 nights of consistent cooling, most people notice they wake up sharper, fall asleep 10-20 minutes faster, and need less willpower to start the day at full capacity.
#Biohacking #SleepOptimization #PeakPerformance #Productivity #RecoveryHack #SleepScience #Wellness #Performance #Energy #Focus (4/4)
-
Pro Tip: Skip generic magnesium oxide. It doesn't absorb well.
Expected Results: Wake up with sharper focus and more energy to start your day.
#Biohacking #PeakPerformance #Optimization #Productivity #Focus #TimeManagement #SleepScience #Energy #Recovery #MentalClarity (2/2)
-
Sleep. If you want to get the most from your pre-workout meal, aim for 7 to 8 hours of solid rest the night before. Being short on sleep hurts your performance more than a slightly off meal plan.
Most people notice better focus and more consistent energy almost right away.
#Biohacking #PreWorkoutNutrition #PeakPerformance #SleepScience #Productivity #Energy #Optimization #Performance #Fitness #Wellness (3/3)
-
Why Good Sleep Is Your Secret Weapon
Uncover the secrets to a good night's rest! We explore different sleep types (REM, deep, light) and their importance, plus how social pressures and nighttime creativity affect our sleep. Learn how to prioritize sleep for peak performance!
Follow @biohackingpathway for more
#sleepscience #sleephealth #sleephygiene #antiaging #antiage #antiagingskincare #healthyaging #nightsleep #creativity #socialpressure #podcast #wellbeing #mentalhealth #sleeptips
-
Why Good Sleep Is Your Secret Weapon
Uncover the secrets to a good night's rest! We explore different sleep types (REM, deep, light) and their importance, plus how social pressures and nighttime creativity affect our sleep. Learn how to prioritize sleep for peak performance!
Follow @biohackingpathway for more
#sleepscience #sleephealth #sleephygiene #antiaging #antiage #antiagingskincare #healthyaging #nightsleep #creativity #socialpressure #podcast #wellbeing #mentalhealth #sleeptips
-
One thing people miss: messing up your weekend sleep schedule hurts more than you'd expect. Try staying consistent even on Saturdays.
What you'll notice: better retention, sharper focus during exams, and steady energy all day.
#SleepScience #StudentHacks #Biohacking #Focus #PeakPerformance #Productivity #Wellness #Optimization #MentalClarity #Energy (2/2)
-
Uykunu kaçırıyor musun? Bilim, el ve ayak sıcaklığının uyku modunu hızlandırdığını söylüyor. Melatonin yerine vücut ısısını hafifçe düşür, derin uykuya ulaş! Geceleri 1-2 derece daha soğuk bir ortam, daha erken uyku ve daha uzun, kaliteli bir uyku süresi sunar. Deneyip farkı gör! 🛏️ #UykuTipi #SleepScience #UykuSağlığı #HealthySleep
-
DREAMS ARE NOT RANDOM, RESEARCHERS CLAIM
Researchers found that personal traits, experiences, and emotions influence dream content. Learn how your personality affects your dreams.
#DreamResearch, #Psychology, #Mindfulness, #PersonalGrowth, #SleepScience
https://newsletter.tf/personality-shapes-dreams-new-research-shows/
-
DREAMS ARE NOT RANDOM, RESEARCHERS CLAIM
Researchers found that personal traits, experiences, and emotions influence dream content. Learn how your personality affects your dreams.
#DreamResearch, #Psychology, #Mindfulness, #PersonalGrowth, #SleepScience
https://newsletter.tf/personality-shapes-dreams-new-research-shows/
-
Dreams are not random! New research shows your personality and life experiences directly shape what you dream about, challenging old ideas.
#DreamResearch, #Psychology, #Mindfulness, #PersonalGrowth, #SleepScience
https://newsletter.tf/personality-shapes-dreams-new-research-shows/ -
Dreams are not random! New research shows your personality and life experiences directly shape what you dream about, challenging old ideas.
#DreamResearch, #Psychology, #Mindfulness, #PersonalGrowth, #SleepScience
https://newsletter.tf/personality-shapes-dreams-new-research-shows/ -
How scientists changed their view of insomnia
#Insomnia #SleepHealth #Health #MentalHealth #Wellness #Stress #PublicHealth #Psychology #Sleep #SleepDisorder #Healthcare #CBTI #Tiredness #ChronicIllness #Lifestyle #SleepScience #Medicine #Science
https://the-14.com/how-scientists-changed-their-view-of-insomnia/ -
How scientists changed their view of insomnia
#Insomnia #SleepHealth #Health #MentalHealth #Wellness #Stress #PublicHealth #Psychology #Sleep #SleepDisorder #Healthcare #CBTI #Tiredness #ChronicIllness #Lifestyle #SleepScience #Medicine #Science
https://the-14.com/how-scientists-changed-their-view-of-insomnia/ -
Crazy Sleep Syndrome: Genetics vs. Night Owls
Uncover the secrets of sleep! Join our captivating podcast discussion on sleep patterns, internal clocks, and the fascinating familial advanced sleep phase syndrome. Discover how genetics and lifestyle impact our sleep.
Follow @biohackingpathway for more
#sleepscience #sleepdisorders #circadianrhythm #genetics #podcast #sleephacks #healthpodcast #wellbeing #sleephealth #familialadvancedsleepphasesyndrome
-
This week I had some of the wildest, most vivid dreams.
On three different nights, the dreams were so immersive that I could feel sensations like rain and wind. Emotionally, they were incredibly raw. I woke up one morning crying, and another morning, livid. I often have lucid dreams, but these felt more real.
I kept thinking, what’s changed? After some reflection, I realized the only thing different about those nights was that I took 1000mg of Tylenol (acetaminophen) right before bed. I’d been taking it regularly for a few weeks due to a serious injury, but recently had stopped, except for those three nights.
Curious, I did some digging and found out that taking Tylenol before bed has actually been linked, for some people, to more vivid or emotionally intense dreams. 😮 I had never heard of this before!
Just wanted to share in case anyone else has noticed something similar. The power of these dreams has really stayed with me and given me a lot to reflect on.
*Note: This IS NOT medical advice or a recommendation. Taking any kind of medication, over the counter or not, has real risks, especially at higher doses. Please use only as directed and talk to a doctor if you have any questions.*
#Dreams #LucidDreaming #VividDreams #Acetaminophen #Tylenol #DreamJournal #SleepScience
-
Is oversleeping killing you? 🚨 New 2025 data shows 9+ hours of sleep is linked to a 34% higher mortality risk. Find out why 7–8 hours is the "Goldilocks Zone" for your brain and heart.
#SleepScience #Longevity #HealthyAging #VitalAgingWorld
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii_cFl0jqvE&list=PLCFAL8lW1qRcg33UuQIxYHOaTQX12LurR&index=5
-
Waking up at 3AM isn’t broken sleep—it’s ancient biology. Humans once slept in two phases. Maybe your body hasn’t forgotten what modern life erased.
#SleepScience #DidYouKnow #HumanHistory #SleepFacts #HiddenTruth #MindBlown
Read more:https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/segmented-sleep-history-00102262 -
Trapped by the alarm? Beat the snooze cycle and wake up feeling energised https://english.mathrubhumi.com/lifestyle/alarm-hitting-snooze-button-morning-jlw0g8fi?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #SleepHealth #MorningRoutine #SleepScience #HealthyLifestyle
-
Dream engineering aims to craft what people dream about, with a view to reducing nightmares, and cultivating calm sleep to help with waking health and creativity. Karen Van Kampen talked to some of the scientists working on it for her upcoming book, "The Brain Never Sleeps," excerpted in The Walrus.
