Many people notice that stomach discomfort seems to intensify once they lie down for the night. Acid reflux, bloating, nausea, cramping, and urgent bathroom trips are common nighttime complaints that disrupt sleep and leave people exhausted the next day. Nighttime stomach issues are not just inconvenient—they can significantly impact sleep quality, mood, and overall health.
Understanding why digestive symptoms worsen at night is the first step toward improving both gut health and sleep.
Sleep disruption is nearly universal during pregnancy and the postpartum period—but for women experiencing peripartum depression, sleep problems are often more severe, persistent, and damaging. Peripartum depression, which includes both prenatal (during pregnancy) and postpartum depression, is closely intertwined with sleep. Each can worsen the other, creating a cycle that is difficult to break without support.
Understanding the relationship between peripartum depression and sleep is essential for early recognition, effective treatment, and maternal well-being.
Sleep and digestion are often thought of as separate systems, but they are deeply interconnected. The health of your gut can influence how well you sleep, and poor sleep can, in turn, disrupt digestive function. This bidirectional relationship—often referred to as the gut–sleep axis—plays a significant role in overall health, energy levels, mood, and immune function.
Understanding how gut health affects sleep can help explain why digestive issues and sleep problems so often occur together.
Every parent has seen it: a child passed out on the floor mid-play, asleep under a table, or curled up in a laundry basket. While these moments are often amusing and Instagram-worthy, they also offer insight into how children experience sleep. Falling asleep in unusual places is common in childhood—and usually harmless—but it can also reflect sleep habits, developmental needs, or underlying fatigue.
Understanding why children fall asleep in “weird” places can help parents better support healthy sleep routines.
Sleep problems are one of the most common—and most disruptive—complaints among postmenopausal women. Difficulty falling asleep, frequent night awakenings, early morning waking, and non-restorative sleep can persist for years after menopause. For many women, these changes are not simply a part of aging, but the result of hormonal shifts that directly affect sleep regulation.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can play an important role in improving sleep quality for some postmenopausal women by addressing the underlying hormonal causes of sleep disruption.
For centuries, caregivers across cultures have wrapped infants snugly to help them sleep. While swaddling may seem simple, its effectiveness is rooted in infant neurodevelopment and sleep physiology. When used correctly and safely, swaddling can help babies sleep longer, wake less frequently, and transition more smoothly between sleep cycles.
Understanding why swaddling works can help parents use it confidently and appropriately.
Nighttime can be especially challenging for children who struggle with separation anxiety. As the lights go out and the house grows quiet, fears often feel bigger, and the absence of a parent can become overwhelming. For many families, bedtime anxiety leads to prolonged routines, frequent night wakings, and exhaustion for both children and caregivers.
Understanding why separation anxiety intensifies at night—and knowing how to respond—can help children feel safe, confident, and better able to sleep independently.
Hot tubs are designed for relaxation, muscle relief, and stress reduction—but they are not safe places to fall asleep. While soaking in warm water may feel soothing and even make you drowsy, sleeping in a hot tub can pose serious, potentially life-threatening risks. Understanding these dangers is essential for protecting your health and safety.
When people think about sleep quality, they often focus on how many hours they spend in bed. But what happens during those hours matters just as much—if not more. One of the most critical stages of sleep for both mental and physical health is rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The quality of your REM sleep can significantly influence your mood, memory, emotional resilience, and overall well-being.
Even the deepest sleepers experience brief moments of wakefulness throughout the night. These tiny interruptions—called microawakenings—are completely normal and often go unnoticed. In fact, most people have dozens of them every night.
But while microawakenings are a natural part of the sleep cycle, they can become problematic when they occur too frequently or last too long. When that happens, they can fragment sleep, leave you feeling unrefreshed in the morning, and subtly contribute to daytime fatigue, mood changes, and cognitive fog.
Understanding what microawakenings are, why they happen, and how they affect your rest can help you make sense of symptoms you may not even realize are sleep-related.