Sleep Health

Most healthy adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night for optimal physical and mental health. Regularly sleeping less than seven hours has been linked to increased risks of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and depression.

Insomnia refers to difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking too early despite adequate opportunity for sleep. Occasional insomnia is common, but persistent symptoms lasting several weeks may require evaluation. Chronic insomnia can affect mood, concentration, and overall health.

Sleep allows the body and brain to recover, regulate hormones, consolidate memory, and repair tissues. High-quality sleep supports immune function, metabolic balance, and cardiovascular health. Long-term studies suggest individuals with healthy sleep patterns may live several years longer than those with chronically poor sleep.

The circadian rhythm is the body's internal biological clock that regulates sleep, hormone release, metabolism, and alertness. Disrupting this rhythm through irregular sleep schedules, shift work, or excessive late-night screen exposure can impair sleep and increase long-term health risks.

Fix your timing. The most reliable way to improve sleep quality is to stabilize the timing. Here’s how to fix your circadian rhythm - wake at the same time every day, including weekends. Get bright outdoor light within an hour of waking, which anchors the circadian rhythm. Keep the bedroom cool, dark and quiet. Stop caffeine by early afternoon, since it has a half-life of roughly five hours. Avoid alcohol close to bedtime, because it shortens the time to fall asleep but fragments your sleep. If you are awake for more than twenty minutes, get out of bed and do something quiet in dim light until you feel sleepy again.

Waking up tired despite adequate hours usually points to fragmented rather than insufficient sleep. Common causes include undiagnosed sleep apnea, alcohol in the evening, poorly timed caffeine, an inconsistent schedule, an overly warm room, or waking during a deep sleep stage rather than a light one. Untreated anaemia, thyroid dysfunction, iron deficiency, depression and certain medications can also produce persistent morning fatigue. If the pattern continues for more than a few weeks despite good sleep habits, it warrants clinical evaluation.

Deep sleep is concentrated in the first half of the night and typically makes up 13 to 23 per cent of total sleep in healthy adults. The most effective ways to get more deep sleep are to go to bed earlier rather than sleeping later, exercise regularly with aerobic activity in the morning or afternoon, avoid alcohol in the evening, and keep the bedroom cool. There is no supplement or device that reliably increases deep sleep, and consumer wearables estimate sleep stages rather than measure them.

It's not just snoring. Sleep apnea is a condition in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. It often causes loud snoring, interrupted sleep, and excessive daytime fatigue. Untreated sleep apnea symptoms increase the risk of difficult to treat hypertension, heart disease, rhythm disorders like atrial fibrillation (AFib), sudden cardiac death, stroke, and metabolic disorders.