61
votes
Accepted
Do teenagers fall asleep and rise up later than kids or adults for biological reasons?
There does appear to be fairly solid research backing this claim.
A summary page from UCLA:
Sleep and Teens
One change in the body during puberty is closely related to how you sleep. There is a shift ...
- 741
58
votes
Accepted
Are blue light filters, not blue lights, on phones and computer screens harmful to sleep?
This is the study itself if you want to read it. Yes it is a study in mice. It is evidence but not proof that blue filters are counter-productive, at least according to the authors of this single, ...
- 7,194
38
votes
Accepted
Has "the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger... been linked to insufficient sleep"?
On the headline question
Has “the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger… been linked to insufficient sleep”
There probably was a link, as it was important enough included in the Rogers ...
- 9,004
34
votes
Accepted
Are there people who do not sleep at all?
Even though sleep science has only existed for a few decades it doesn't seem likely to be possible
Almost every experiment conducted in humans, resulted in psychotic symptoms like paranoia, ...
- 648
19
votes
Does Earthing Therapy reduce cortisol secretion and help sleep?
Short version:
The quoted study is poor quality, and is not sufficient to accept the claims.
Earthing in general is pseudo-scientific nonsense.
Longer Version:
Flawed Journal
The study that ...
- 140k
13
votes
Accepted
Does sleeping on your left side improve digestion?
Sleeping positions on the right or left might have an influence on digestion if the digestive problems are related to gastroesophageal reflux per research mentioned below.
Per Katz LC et.al.'s ...
- 22.7k
13
votes
Accepted
Can you increase sleep quality by removing static electricity from the body with a specialized mattress/quilt?
Skeptoid episode #611 covers this claim and its foundation, specifically that static electricity builds up throughout the day. This is false. Fortunately, Skeptoid even covers the bedding aspect:
...
- 254
12
votes
Accepted
Can anyone function on just 2 hours sleep per night?
Short version:
A short-sleep human phenotype has been described in the literature. However, the reported sleep times I found in the scientific literature for those people are around 6h / day vs. 8h ...
12
votes
Accepted
Does radiation from sleeping next to your smartphone affect your brain patterns negatively?
Seeing this question pop up again, I want to share something. I did not write an answer before because I did not want to dig up an old question without a conclusive answer.
While the claim is ...
- 14.1k
11
votes
Accepted
Does using the computer before sleeping affect sleep patterns?
Make your own conclusion from the sources mentioned
This is evidence showing that using face-to-screen electronics before going to bed could harm your sleep.
For instance, this study, published in ...
- 30.2k
11
votes
Is charging your phone overnight dangerous?
Lithium batteries are based on a chemistry that can fail in combustive fashion. To avoid this, elaborate safeguards are in place to avoid those exact failure modes.
A defective battery can still self-...
- 19k
8
votes
Accepted
Does it take 30 seconds for a person to consciously realize that they're awake?
The problem is that even specialists in this field of sleep medicine use terms like "awake" or "arousal" with different meanings.
In the sentence emphasized in the question "awake" almost certainly ...
- 57.1k
7
votes
Is charging your phone overnight dangerous?
No. The module that controls the rate of charge and whether any charge is drawn from the power source and the AC power adapter resides in the iPhone, itself. As such, it's really not possible to &...
- 9,668
7
votes
Do ultra-heavy blankets reduce stress and anxiety?
Honestly, more research is needed. Some research has already been done in the past 10 years, but not enough to really make solid conclusions. For example, there's no research to support the "10% ...
- 30.2k
6
votes
Do ultra-heavy blankets reduce stress and anxiety?
This heavy blanket may be another version of the so called 'Hug machine'. The hug machine consists of two padded boards, arranged in a V-shape. The user lies or squats between the boards, adjusts the ...
- 315
6
votes
Does Daylight Savings Time lead to an increase in car accidents and work related injuries the week afterwards?
Here's one 2001 study that shows a small, but notable, increase:
Fatal accidents following changes in daylight savings time: the American experience
Conclusions: The sleep deprivation on the ...
- 6,558
6
votes
Accepted
Is sleep "defragmentation" for your brain?
There is a plethora of scientific work that all points towards sleep being very important for the kind of cleanup and reorganisation you are referring to.
Information like this is readily available e....
- 19k
6
votes
Does having your bedroom door closed while sleeping improve fire safety?
I looked for research into this issue which was independent from the UL FSRI.
In 1999, there was a Master of Engineering student's project report:
Deborah L Palmer, Should bedroom doors be open or ...
- 140k
5
votes
Death by lack of sleep -- is it possible?
Fruit flies were one of the key organisms to cracking the sleep cycle. They have a fond spot in my heart, because I started real lab work (as opposed to student lab work) in 1989 with D. Melanogaster....
- 1,146
5
votes
Does having your bedroom door closed while sleeping improve fire safety?
Certainly UK fire regulations and analysis support this claim. Residential institutions are required to have automatic closers on bedroom doors because of this.
On taller buildings there is a ...
- 344
4
votes
Is sleepiness after a goods night's sleep a sign of dehydration?
It could be a sign but it could also mean other things. When it comes to your health and symptoms you see there can be many causes.
https://www.risescience.com/blog/waking-up-tired
One of the many ...
- 4,797
4
votes
Will sleep deprivation kill you faster than starvation?
Not according to current evidence
As long as you drink water and have some basic vitamins, you can survive without eating for a very long time. For example, look at the case of Angus Barbieri, who ...
- 78.6k
4
votes
Does Lee Hadwin have "artistic ability" only when asleep?
The arguments proving his mettle as an artist when sleeping (2013) are the best proof against his skills, which is flimsy proof, but the best we have.
If is was doing a scam then I would be a lot ...
- 1,146
4
votes
Do ultra-heavy blankets reduce stress and anxiety?
The news article is pretty clearly written as an advertisement. It includes things like a small print notice of "A subsidiary of Futurism launched this product and Futurism collects a share of the ...
- 3,657
4
votes
Accepted
Does the "4-7-8" method help to fall asleep faster?
A medical doctor with a focus on holistic health, Dr Weil, and an holistic practitioner claims it works in the same article Dr. Michelle E. Gordon says it might contribute to relaxation.
The same Dr ...
- 2,844
4
votes
Accepted
Do water pillows improve sleep quality?
Lavin et al is the study mentioned. The results of the study support the claim that this water pillow improves neck pain. Another scientific article reviews this first study in its literature review ...
- 12k
3
votes
Is charging your phone overnight dangerous?
Charging you phone overnight is safe, as long as you are sensible. It should be on a hard surface and have adequate room for any heat to vent.
All rechargeable batteries have a risk of causing ...
- 256
3
votes
Accepted
Can alcohol trigger insomnia?
Evidence:
Insomnia is a sleep disorder in which there is difficulty falling or staying asleep and this can be categorized either as primary insomnia or comorbid insomnia. Comorbid insomnia is ...
- 22.7k
3
votes
Does reading off a self-luminous tablet impact the quality of sleep?
Guessing it does not count as science-related: iPads are so bad for your healthy sleep that even Apple offers now a redshifting feature in newer devices. But that is partially because: Evening use of ...
- 44k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible