Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
29 papers
This review looked at research on emotion dysregulation (problems managing emotions) in people with ADHD. It found three main points: emotion dysregulation is common across the lifespan and causes substantial problems; it may come from trouble noticing, recognizing, or paying attention to emotional cues tied to a brain circuit that…
This 2017 review of studies up to 2014 looked at how cannabis and related drugs affect sleep. The authors found early, mixed evidence: cannabidiol (CBD) showed possible benefit for insomnia and some sleep disorders, THC might make people fall asleep faster but could harm sleep quality over time, and some…
This review looked at 41 studies with 92,340 adults to see how sleep timing and day-to-day regularity relate to health. It found that going to bed or waking up later, and having more variable sleep patterns, were generally linked to worse health. Social jetlag was linked to worse health, while…
Many children and teens do not get enough sleep. Studies link use of screens, especially in the bedroom or in the hour before bed, to later bedtimes and less total sleep. Experts have set sleep-hour ranges for each age. Research also links short or disrupted sleep to emotional, behavioral, and…
This review combined results from 10 intervention studies to see if physical activity programs change cortisol (a stress hormone) and sleep in adults. The pooled results found lower cortisol after activity programs and some improvement in sleep quality. The authors say the evidence is moderate for cortisol and low for…
This study followed 1,356 apparently healthy, employed adults over about 18 months to see how burnout and insomnia change together. Using standard questionnaires, the researchers found that higher burnout predicted new cases of insomnia and higher insomnia predicted new cases of burnout, even after adjusting for depression and other factors.…
Sleep problems are very common in bipolar disorder, which affects about 1% of people in their lifetime. Research suggests these problems relate to disruptions in both the body’s internal clock (circadian system, “process C”) and the sleep–wake drive (homeostasis, “process S”), though this is not proven to be the single…
This observational study tested Tibetan singing bowl sound meditation with 62 adults (mean age 49.7). After the session, people reported less tension, anger, fatigue, and depressed mood, and higher spiritual well-being. People who had never tried this meditation before showed a larger drop in tension than people who had experience.…
The researchers surveyed more than 550 adults in Romania with self-report questionnaires to study links between ADHD symptoms, sleep problems, and morning/evening preference. They found that people with probable ADHD more often had insomnia-type sleep problems (over 50%), slept less, took longer to fall asleep, and woke up more at…
This review of research up to October 2023 explains many ways exercise may help people with depression. The authors describe biological changes (for example, more endorphins, less inflammation, and higher levels of brain-supporting molecules like BDNF), plus psychological and behavioral benefits (better sleep, less rumination, more self‑esteem and social contact).…
This study looked at 152 moderate cannabis users (21–70 years old) to see what they expect cannabis will do for sleep and what their reported sleep was like. Users were more likely to expect cannabis to help sleep, but the study found few clear links between cannabis use and better…
Nightmare disorder and isolated sleep paralysis are REM-related sleep problems that can cause real distress. Nightmare disorder means repeated, very upsetting, well-remembered dreams that wake a person and hurt their mood, sleep, or daily life. Isolated sleep paralysis is a state where the body stays in REM sleep muscle paralysis…
