For the body, mind and soul, sleep is pretty essential. It’s a recalibration that allows you to renew everything from your physical strength to your mental sharpness so you can show up fully the very next day. While it has been drilled into us from a very early age that all those sleep benefits can be achieved if you get your eight hours of sleep per night, there may be more to nurturing healthy sleep habits than you might think.
The latest research has uncovered new facts about sleep that you may be less familiar with. Read on for the facts and stats that could just change everything you know about the way we sleep…
Bad news for sleep apnoea sufferers living for the weekend
Whether you intend to ‘live for the weekend’ or not, everyone has a certain spring in their step when Friday comes along, with the promise of good sleep and even long lie-ins often part of the deal. This may not be true for sleep apnoea sufferers however.
Affecting almost 1 billion people worldwide, sleep apnoea is a hidden health burden that prevents a deep, restorative rest. This common sleep disorder causes repetitive stops and starts during sleep, with pauses lasting anything from a few to over 30 seconds.
According to research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, sleep apnoea symptoms are more prevalent at the weekend, with lifestyle factors like drinking, smoking and sleep pattern changes thought to be the causes.
There’s trouble for people who are night owls too
A study in the Journal of the American Heart Association has identified links between staying up late and heart health. Around one third of Brits are ‘night owls’, and by falling into this category, you could be putting your long term health at risk.
While research showed that night owls were ‘cognitively superior’ to early birds, this study found that middle-aged and older night owls (especially women) have worse cardiovascular health. The unhealthy habits popularly adopted by those who are naturally more active in the evenings could put them at greater risk of heart attacks and strokes.
How we snooze directly impacts our mental health
There’s a reason why a bad night’s sleep puts us in a terrible mood the next morning. According to Stanford Medicine, not enough sleep can impact our mental health, with deprivation reducing our ability to control emotions and causing a long list of sleep problems.
Our mental state can influence sleep success too, with scientists identifying a “bidirectional relationship” between sleep and mood during their studies.
Sleep inducing supplements may do more harm than good
Melatonin supplements are commonly used in the US, with over 27% of adults across the pond taking these supplements. They work by mimicking a hormone your body already produces to regulate your sleep-wake cycle, raising melatonin levels artificially to shift your internal clock and shorten the time it takes to fall asleep.
While in the UK, melatonin is only recommended for short-term sleep problems, its long-term use is rising and it’s a cause for concern considering the findings of the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2025.
A review of the health records of more than 130,000 adult insomnia sufferers across a five-year period found that those taking melatonin for at least one year were 3.5 times more likely to suffer, and be hospitalised for, heart failure. Death from any cause was also more widespread, with long-term melatonin users twice as likely to suffer this fate when compared to a non-melatonin group.