https://medicalxpress.com/sleep-news/ en-us Latest health news and information about Sleep & Recovery For decades, the answer to "how much sleep does an adult need?" has been simple: eight hours. The idea dates back to the mid-19th century, when the notion of eight hours of work, eight for recreation and eight for sleep first took hold. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-eighthour.html Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:00:03 EDT news706868582 A short workout or a nap can help protect memory after a sleepless night, a McGill University-led study has found. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-workout-nap-sleepless-brain.html Mon, 24 Aug 2026 12:00:05 EDT news706790281 It's 4 a.m., you've finally drifted off, and then the phone rings. It's work calling. You have to go in. The right to disconnect from work has been protected by law in Australia since 2024. This means most employees can refuse to answer calls from work outside their regular work hours. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-oncall-disrupt.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 18:40:03 EDT news706529007 With more than 7 million Americans living with Alzheimer's dementia—a number projected to reach nearly 13 million by 2050—new Emory University research suggests that higher vitamin D supplement intake may be associated with better cognitive function in adults at elevated risk of dementia. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-high-dose-vitamin-d-cognition.html Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:40:05 EDT news706361941 Why does staying awake inevitably make us sleepy? Researchers at the University of Basel, Switzerland, have identified neuronal populations in the brains of mice that become activated during prolonged wakefulness and are crucial for sleep drive. Their findings provide new insights into how the brain generates the need for sleep. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-sleepy-neurons.html Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:00:08 EDT news706195621 Research has shown that a good night's sleep has many benefits, including memory consolidation. How sleep enables the brain to strengthen memories is still not completely understood, but a new study published in Neuron reveals how astrocytes, brain cells known for supporting neurons and their functions, can directly regulate brain circuits involved in memory consolidation. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-astrocytes-brain-circuits-memories-reveals.html Thu, 13 Aug 2026 11:40:07 EDT news705839042 Most individuals encounter their health primarily through an annual health screening, which provides a limited snapshot of their health status. A new study by the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine), challenges the way we think about health and longevity by seeking to understand what occurs between those assessments, focusing on function rather than static markers and tracking how physiology changes moment to moment. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-professor-subject-longevity-biological-age.html Thu, 13 Aug 2026 11:40:01 EDT news705839287 What if certain signs of the disease were to manifest subtly during sleep, long before the first memory problems appear? This is the line of inquiry being explored by a team of researchers at ULiège. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-people-alzheimer-disease-earlier-stage.html Tue, 11 Aug 2026 14:20:06 EDT news705668821 LMU researchers have elucidated how different organs adapt the same clock machinery to regulate their individual needs over the course of a day. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-proteins-tailor-circadian-clock-individual.html Thu, 06 Aug 2026 17:40:02 EDT news705253561 Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological condition characterized by disruptions in the regulation of sleep-wake cycles. People with this condition often experience extreme sleepiness during the day and, in some cases, a sudden but temporary loss of muscle strength while conscious, called cataplexy. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-laughter-trigger-sudden-muscle-weakness.html Wed, 05 Aug 2026 08:00:03 EDT news705056244 Sleep does not isolate the brain from the world—rather, it affects how the brain balances the processing of different types of sensory information. A Swiss study shows that as we drift off to REM sleep, signals from the outside world gradually decrease while those coming from our own body are preserved or even enhanced. Scientists from the universities of Lausanne and Geneva offer a partial explanation for this phenomenon. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-07-brain-rem-eeg.html Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:00:05 EDT news704707141 A novel AI model can use information collected during routine sleep studies to identify patients' long-term health risks, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. Developed by a multidisciplinary research team, the model uncovered hidden sleep patterns linked to risks including heart disease, cognitive decline and death. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-ai-previously-unrecognized-health-insights.html Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:40:01 EDT news704970422 REM sleep is already called "paradoxical sleep." The body is largely still, yet the brain is highly active. In humans, this is also the stage most closely associated with vivid dreaming. Our study, published in Communications Biology, has revealed another paradox hidden within REM sleep: Brain blood volume increased, but the ATP available inside neurons decreased. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-07-blood-neuronal-energy-rem.html Sun, 02 Aug 2026 11:00:04 EDT news704454464 Sleep is a crucial physiological process that supports recovery, clears metabolic waste products from the brain, regulates metabolism and supports the functioning of the immune system. Sleep is also known to play a key role in consolidating different types of memories, ranging from memories of past events and memorized facts to newly acquired skills or habits (i.e., procedural memories). https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-07-replay-skills-independently-hippocampus-mouse.html Thu, 30 Jul 2026 09:40:24 EDT news704550515 New research from the Guelph Family Health Study (GFHS) has found that circadian rhythm-related genes could influence the risk of obesity in children, highlighting an important connection between sleep and eating behavior. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-07-circadian-gene-variants-indicator-obesity.html Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:00:02 EDT news704469902 Sleep disturbances are far more common among workers in middle to later life than previously believed, according to a study that links work-related stress to a range of well-being issues. Researchers found that nearly 70% of participants experienced persistent, clinically significant sleep problems, despite having no known history of sleep disorders. Even more concerning, almost 92% met the clinical threshold for a sleep disorder at least once during the study. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-07-potential-crisis-workers-links-stress.html Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:20:03 EDT news704463781 Researchers at Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins Medicine have discovered that memory consolidation during sleep depends on coordinated activity among three brain regions, and disruptions to this activity can impair memory performance. This is the first human study to directly link interactions between the orbitofrontal cortex, thalamus and hippocampus to memory, offering new insight into how the brain strengthens memories and how epilepsy can affect the sleep-memory system. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-07-kind-reveals-memory-epilepsy-disrupt.html Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:40:05 EDT news704463182 The brain demands a lot of energy compared with other organs. However, it can also make do when energy supplies are scarce, flexibly processing information using what is available. How the brain resourcefully allocates this limited energy across internal states remains a key question in neuroscience. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-07-energy-rem-paradox.html Tue, 28 Jul 2026 09:20:01 EDT news704448841