How Hot Nights Affect Sleep and Healthy Aging: What the Science Says
Hot summer nights can disrupt sleep and recovery, especially as we age. Learn how nighttime heat affects sleep, healthspan, and healthy aging.
EVERYDAY WELLNESSHEALTH SPAN KILLERSSLEEP
8/12/2026
How Hot Nights Affect Sleep and Healthy Aging: What the Science Says
Introduction
A hot night can feel like a minor annoyance. You kick off the covers, turn the pillow over, wake up sticky and uncomfortable, then drag yourself through the next day with an extra cup of coffee.
But for healthspan, the story may be more important than one bad night of sleep.
Summer heat is becoming a practical health issue for adults who want to protect their long-term cardiovascular, metabolic, brain, and physical health. Research has found that nighttime temperature can meaningfully affect sleep, and a recent review published in 2026 concluded that elevated nighttime heat consistently disrupts sleep in middle-aged and older adults, reducing total sleep time and sleep efficiency while increasing wakefulness after sleep onset.
That matters because sleep is not simply the period when the body shuts down.
Sleep is an active biological maintenance shift.
During sleep, the brain cycles through different stages, hormones change, the autonomic nervous system shifts, and processes involved in memory, immune function, metabolism, and physical recovery continue. Good sleep does not guarantee protection from disease, but chronically disrupted sleep can add friction to multiple biological systems that become increasingly important with age.
Heat adds another complication.
As we age, our ability to regulate body temperature can become less efficient. Older adults may also be more likely to have chronic health conditions or take medications that affect sweating, circulation, hydration, or the body's ability to respond to heat. The National Institute on Aging specifically identifies older adults as being at higher risk from heat-related illness.
This makes August's hot nights more than a comfort problem.
They can become a collision between two systems your body needs to protect healthspan:
temperature regulation and sleep regulation.
The encouraging news is that this is one of the more practical healthspan problems to address. You cannot control the weather, but you can often change your sleep environment, evening routine, airflow, bedding, hydration habits, and exposure to heat before bedtime.
The goal is not to engineer a laboratory-grade sleep chamber.
It is to understand why the bedroom environment matters and create conditions that give your body a better chance to do what it is already designed to do.
Cool down. Fall asleep. Stay asleep. Recover. Repeat.
What You'll Learn in This Article
Why your body needs to release heat before and during sleep
How hot nights interfere with sleep biology
Why heat can become a bigger healthspan issue with age
What research says about bedroom temperature and sleep in older adults
Why sleep regularity matters alongside sleep duration
Practical ways to make a hot bedroom more sleep-friendly
Which cooling technologies may genuinely help
Common myths about sleeping in cold or hot rooms
What scientists still do not know about the long-term health effects of repeated hot nights
At a Glance Table
Healthspan QuestionWhat the Evidence SuggestsPractical TakeawayDoes bedroom heat affect sleep?Yes. Human studies and recent reviews show hotter nighttime conditions can reduce sleep quality and efficiency.Treat bedroom temperature as part of sleep hygiene.Are older adults more vulnerable to heat?Often, yes. Aging can affect thermoregulation, and medications and chronic conditions may add risk.Take persistent nighttime overheating seriously.Is there one perfect bedroom temperature?No. Individual needs vary.Aim for a comfortably cool environment rather than obsessing over one number.Does sleep regularity matter?Yes. Large cohort studies associate more regular sleep patterns with lower mortality risk.Protect a reasonably consistent sleep and wake schedule.Can a fan help?It can improve airflow and comfort, depending on conditions and individual needs.Use airflow as one tool, not the entire strategy.Can technology improve sleep?It may improve implementation and monitoring, but product-specific evidence varies.Prioritize the underlying behavior over the gadget.Can poor sleep shorten your life?Observational studies link poor sleep patterns with worse health outcomes, but they cannot prove that one bad habit directly causes an individual outcome.Focus on improving modifiable sleep behaviors without assuming certainty.
Deep Dive Science
Your body has to cool down to sleep well
One of the least appreciated parts of sleep is that your body temperature changes on purpose.
Your circadian system, the approximately 24-hour timing system that helps coordinate sleep, wakefulness, hormones, metabolism, and other biological processes, influences your core body temperature.
As the biological night approaches, core temperature normally begins to decline. This change is part of the transition toward sleep.
Think of your body as a house preparing for the night.
During the day, the lights are on, activity is high, and the building is running at full capacity. At night, the system begins changing settings. Some processes become quieter, others begin maintenance work, and the temperature settings shift.
A hot bedroom can make that transition harder.
The problem is not simply that heat feels unpleasant. Your body is trying to release heat while the surrounding environment may make heat loss more difficult.
Blood flow to the skin helps move heat from the body's core toward the surface, where it can be released. Sweating can also contribute to cooling, particularly when sweat can evaporate effectively.
Humidity complicates the picture because sweat does not cool the body simply by appearing on the skin. Evaporation is part of the cooling process. When the air is already very humid, evaporation becomes less efficient.
This is one reason the heat index can matter more than the temperature alone for comfort and safety.
For sleep, the biological goal is not to become cold. It is to allow the normal nighttime decline in body temperature to occur.
That distinction matters.
Your bedroom does not need to feel like a refrigerator.
It needs to stop fighting your body's attempt to cool down.
What the research shows about nighttime temperature and sleep
A particularly relevant human study examined nighttime ambient temperature and sleep in community-dwelling older adults.
Researchers used wearable sleep monitors and environmental sensors in participants' homes. They found that sleep was most efficient and restful when nighttime temperatures were between approximately 20 and 25°C, or 68 to 77°F. Sleep efficiency declined meaningfully as temperatures increased from 25 to 30°C, or 77 to 86°F, although the researchers also observed substantial differences between individuals.
That last point is important.
This study does not establish that everyone should set a thermostat to exactly 68°F or 72°F.
Human beings are not identical thermostats.
Age, bedding, clothing, humidity, air movement, health conditions, acclimatization, body size, medications, and personal preference can all affect thermal comfort.
The useful lesson is broader:
For many people, especially older adults, allowing the bedroom to become substantially warmer at night may interfere with sleep.
A recent 2026 scoping review reached a similar conclusion after examining 31 studies involving middle-aged and older adults. Elevated nighttime temperatures were consistently associated with reduced total sleep time and sleep efficiency, more wakefulness after sleep onset, and disruption of sleep architecture, including REM and N3 sleep. The review also found that ventilation, targeted cooling, and pre-sleep thermal strategies may partially reduce heat-related sleep disruption, while noting important gaps in the research.
This is where the healthspan lens becomes especially useful.
A single warm night is unlikely to determine your future health.
The concern is repeated disruption.
If hot nights repeatedly shorten or fragment sleep during weeks or months of the year, they may become another recurring stressor layered onto an already complex aging process.
Why sleep disruption matters beyond feeling tired
The next-day consequences of poor sleep are easy to recognize.
You may feel sleepy, irritable, mentally slower, hungrier, or less motivated to exercise.
The longer-term biology is more complicated.
Sleep interacts with several systems relevant to healthspan, including:
Metabolic regulation, including glucose and appetite-related signaling
Cardiovascular regulation, including autonomic nervous system activity and blood pressure patterns
Brain function, including attention and memory
Immune function
Mood and emotional regulation
Physical recovery
Scientists are still working to understand exactly how these systems interact over decades.
That uncertainty matters because sleep research is often oversimplified into statements such as, “Poor sleep causes disease.”
The better interpretation is more nuanced.
Chronic sleep disruption is associated with worse health outcomes, and there are biologically plausible mechanisms through which inadequate or irregular sleep could contribute to cardiovascular, metabolic, neurological, and psychological problems.
But associations are not guarantees.
One of the strongest recent areas of research involves sleep regularity.
Sleep regularity means how consistently a person follows a similar sleep-wake pattern from day to day.
A large prospective study using objective accelerometer data from 60,977 UK Biobank participants found that greater sleep regularity was associated with lower all-cause, cancer, and cardiometabolic mortality risk during follow-up. The study was observational, so it cannot prove that becoming more regular will directly prevent death. Still, the findings suggest that regularity may be an important part of sleep health alongside duration.
Another prospective analysis of 88,975 UK Biobank participants also found that more irregular sleep-wake patterns were associated with higher all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality risk.
The healthspan lesson is powerful:
Do not think about sleep as only the number of hours you accumulate. Think about when, how consistently, and how well you sleep.
During a heat wave, this creates a practical challenge. A hot bedroom can push bedtime later, increase awakenings, and make wake times less predictable.
Heat, in other words, can attack sleep regularity as well as sleep comfort.
Why this can become more important with age
Aging does not affect everyone in the same way, but several age-related changes can make heat more consequential.
Thermoregulation, the body's ability to maintain an appropriate internal temperature, can become less efficient. Changes in sweating, skin blood flow, thirst perception, cardiovascular function, hydration, and medication use may all influence how an older adult responds to heat.
The National Institute on Aging notes that older adults may have greater difficulty dealing with heat and humidity. Risk can be increased by cardiovascular, lung, or kidney disease, dehydration, certain medications, and living environments without adequate cooling.
A recent systematic review examining heat tolerance in older adults similarly described age-related limitations involving sweating, skin blood flow, cardiovascular adjustments, hydration, and thermal perception. The review concluded that these factors can contribute to greater heat storage and vulnerability to dehydration, fatigue, hospitalization, and mortality during high-temperature exposure.
This is why the phrase “I can tough it out” is not always a healthspan strategy.
There is a difference between tolerating temporary discomfort and repeatedly asking an aging body to recover under conditions that make basic physiological regulation more difficult.
Protecting sleep during hot weather is therefore not about luxury.
It can be viewed as protecting recovery capacity.
Over the next 20 years, that capacity may become increasingly valuable.
Practical Implementation & Protocols
The Summer Sleep Environment Protocol
Step 1: Start cooling before bedtime
Do not wait until you are already overheated in bed.
If possible, begin cooling the bedroom before your intended sleep time.
Close blinds or curtains during periods of intense sun exposure. Reduce heat-generating activities in the bedroom. If you have air conditioning, use it strategically enough to make the room comfortably cool by bedtime.
The goal is to reduce the thermal load your body has to overcome after you lie down.
Step 2: Use airflow intelligently
Air movement can improve comfort and help sweat evaporate.
A ceiling fan or portable fan may help, although the effectiveness of a fan depends on temperature, humidity, and the individual.
If outdoor temperatures fall below indoor temperatures at night, ventilation may help cool the home. If outdoor air remains extremely hot, simply opening windows may not provide the desired effect.
For older adults and people with significant medical conditions, heat-safety advice should take priority over trying to conserve electricity.
Step 3: Simplify the bed
Summer bedding should allow heat to escape.
Consider:
Lightweight sheets
Breathable sleepwear
Avoiding unnecessarily heavy comforters
Layering bedding so you can easily adjust during the night
You are trying to make the bed responsive.
A good summer sleep environment gives you options rather than trapping you in one temperature.
Step 4: Avoid creating your own heat spike
Intense late-evening exercise, heavy meals, alcohol, and some other behaviors may interfere with sleep for various reasons.
The answer is not to ban evening exercise. For many people, evening activity is the most realistic time to exercise.
Instead, notice your response.
If an intense workout immediately before bed leaves you overheated and unable to sleep, experiment with timing, intensity, and recovery.
The same principle applies to meals.
A large late meal may be perfectly tolerated by one person and disruptive for another.
Your body is the place where the experiment ultimately happens.
Step 5: Protect the wake time
During a bad night, the temptation is to sleep late the next morning.
Occasionally, extra sleep may be appropriate.
But repeatedly swinging between very different sleep and wake times can make regularity harder to maintain.
Try to preserve a reasonably consistent wake time while allowing your schedule to remain realistic.
Consistency is not military precision.
A healthspan-oriented sleep routine should survive birthdays, vacations, family obligations, and imperfect nights.
The goal is a stable rhythm, not perfectionism.
A practical two-week experiment
For 14 nights, track:
Bedtime
Approximate sleep onset
Number of noticeable awakenings
Wake time
Morning energy
Bedroom temperature, if available
Whether the room felt cool, comfortable, warm, or hot
Do not obsess over every minute.
The purpose is pattern recognition.
You may discover that your sleep deteriorates when the room crosses a certain temperature, when humidity is high, or when you go to bed already overheated.
You might also discover that temperature is not your main problem.
That is useful too.
The best intervention is not always the most popular intervention.
It is the one aimed at the problem you actually have.
Three Things You Can Do Today
1. Make your bedroom cooler before bedtime
Start with the simplest change available to you.
Adjust the thermostat, close daytime blinds, use appropriate airflow, or reduce unnecessary heat sources.
Do not wait until 2 a.m. to discover that the room is uncomfortable.
2. Check your sleep regularity
Look at the past seven days.
How much did your bedtime and wake time move around?
You do not need identical sleep times every day. Look instead for large swings that happen repeatedly.
A reasonably stable sleep schedule may be an overlooked healthspan habit. Large cohort studies have found that more regular sleep patterns are associated with lower mortality risk, although these studies do not prove direct causation.
3. Create a heat backup plan
Know what you will do if your home becomes uncomfortably hot.
For some people, the answer may be air conditioning. For others, it may include staying with family, visiting an air-conditioned public location, or using another safe cooling strategy.
For adults at increased risk of heat-related illness, this is not merely a sleep plan. It is a safety plan.
Technology / Hardware Tools
Technology can genuinely help with summer sleep, but the hierarchy matters.
First solve the environment. Then consider the gadget.
Air conditioning
For people living in hot climates or experiencing repeated hot nights, air conditioning can be one of the most direct environmental interventions available.
The evidence for sleep disruption from excessive nighttime heat is stronger than evidence supporting any specific brand of cooling equipment.
The product is the implementation tool.
The intervention is creating a sleep environment that does not excessively interfere with thermoregulation.
Fans
Fans can be inexpensive and useful for increasing airflow.
Their limitations matter. A fan does not reduce the temperature of the room. Its effectiveness depends on the environment and how the moving air affects heat exchange and sweat evaporation.
Use the fan as part of a system rather than assuming every hot night can be solved with more airflow.
Smart thermostats
A programmable or smart thermostat can help automate temperature changes before bedtime.
This is a convenience advantage.
If you regularly forget to adjust the thermostat until the bedroom is already hot, automation can remove one behavioral failure point.
The evidence supports the importance of the sleep environment, not a claim that a smart thermostat itself improves longevity.
Wearables and sleep trackers
Wearables can help identify trends in sleep timing and duration.
They are most useful when they answer practical questions:
Am I going to bed later in summer?
Are hot nights associated with more restless sleep?
Has my wake time become inconsistent?
Is a change in my environment helping?
Consumer devices are not equivalent to a clinical sleep study.
Do not interpret every stage estimate as a precise biological measurement.
Use the data as a map, not a diagnosis.
Bed-cooling systems
Some systems circulate or regulate temperature around the bed.
These may be useful for people who repeatedly sleep hot despite cooling the room.
However, product-specific evidence varies considerably. A temperature-controlled bed system should be viewed primarily as an implementation tool.
The stronger scientific question is whether improving thermal comfort and reducing excessive nighttime heat improves sleep, not whether one branded device has unique longevity benefits.
Common Myths
Myth 1: “The colder the room, the better the sleep.”
What people believe: Ice-cold bedrooms automatically produce better sleep.
What science suggests: Sleep appears to benefit from a comfortably cool environment, but individual thermal needs vary. Research in older adults found optimal sleep outcomes within a range rather than at one universal temperature.
What happens biologically: Your body needs to regulate heat, not experience unnecessary cold stress.
What to do: Adjust toward a comfortable coolness.
Healthspan relevance: Sustainable sleep habits are more valuable than extreme environmental experiments.
Myth 2: “A hot night is only a comfort problem.”
What people believe: Sweating in bed is annoying but medically irrelevant.
What science suggests: Elevated nighttime temperatures can disrupt sleep, and older adults may have greater vulnerability to heat-related health problems.
What happens biologically: Heat can interfere with the body's nighttime cooling process and, in vulnerable people, place additional strain on thermoregulatory and cardiovascular systems.
What to do: Take repeated overheating seriously.
Healthspan relevance: Recurrent disruption of recovery is worth addressing before it becomes normalized.
Myth 3: “Sleep is just about getting eight hours.”
What people believe: Duration is the only metric that matters.
What science suggests: Duration matters, but timing, quality, and regularity also matter. Large prospective studies have associated greater sleep regularity with lower mortality risk.
What happens biologically: Circadian timing helps coordinate biological processes across the body.
What to do: Aim for enough sleep and a reasonably consistent schedule.
Healthspan relevance: Biological systems tend to benefit from reliable rhythms.
Myth 4: “I can train myself to tolerate any heat.”
What people believe: Heat discomfort is purely psychological.
What science suggests: Acclimatization exists, but older adults may experience physiological limitations in responding to heat.
What happens biologically: Sweating, skin blood flow, hydration, cardiovascular responses, and heat perception all contribute to temperature regulation.
What to do: Respect individual vulnerability.
Healthspan relevance: Preserving resilience means recognizing when adaptation has limits.
Risks, Limitations & What Scientists Still Don't Know
Scientists know that heat can disrupt sleep.
They know that older adults are often more vulnerable to heat-related health problems.
They know that sleep regularity is associated with important long-term health outcomes.
But several major questions remain.
First, what is the ideal nighttime temperature for a particular person?
There is no universal answer. The 2023 longitudinal study in older adults found a favorable range of approximately 20 to 25°C, but also substantial individual variation.
Second, does improving bedroom temperature directly improve long-term health outcomes?
This is harder to prove.
It is reasonable to expect that improving sleep could support health, but long-term randomized trials showing that a particular bedroom temperature reduces cardiovascular disease, dementia, or mortality are limited.
Third, how much repeated summer sleep disruption becomes biologically meaningful?
One night is different from an entire season.
The dose-response relationship is still being studied.
Fourth, how should people with medical conditions approach nighttime cooling?
Individual circumstances matter. Older adults with cardiovascular, kidney, pulmonary, or other medical conditions, and those taking medications that affect heat tolerance or hydration, may need more individualized guidance.
Finally, not every sleep problem during summer is caused by heat.
Sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, medication effects, anxiety, depression, pain, alcohol use, irregular schedules, and other conditions can contribute to poor sleep.
If you are experiencing persistent insomnia, severe daytime sleepiness, loud snoring with breathing pauses, recurrent confusion, dizziness, or other concerning symptoms, a cooler bedroom should not replace appropriate medical evaluation.
Expert Perspective
The most important lesson is not that everyone needs an expensive cooling mattress.
It is that sleep has an environment.
We often talk about sleep as a behavior.
Go to bed earlier.
Put away the phone.
Maintain a routine.
Those behaviors matter, but the physical environment is also part of the equation.
Light affects the circadian system.
Noise affects arousal.
Air quality affects breathing.
Temperature affects thermoregulation.
The bedroom is not just where sleep happens. It is one of the inputs your sleeping biology must process.
For healthspan, this matters because aging is partly about managing reserve.
When you are young, you may recover easily from an uncomfortable night, a late bedtime, an early meeting, and a hot bedroom.
Over time, recovery capacity may become more valuable and, for some people, less forgiving.
That does not mean older adults are fragile.
It means resilience should be protected rather than constantly tested for no reason.
A practical expert approach would be:
Remove the unnecessary stressors first.
If your bedroom is regularly hot enough to wake you, fix what you can.
If your sleep schedule is wildly inconsistent, stabilize it.
If you are relying on caffeine to survive chronic sleep loss, investigate why you are not sleeping.
If a medical problem is interfering with sleep, do not hide it under better bedding.
Healthspan rarely depends on one dramatic intervention.
It is more often built by removing recurring obstacles to the body's ability to function well.
A cooler, more consistent sleep environment may be one of those unglamorous interventions with surprisingly broad relevance.
Healthspan Scorecard
DimensionScoreAssessmentEvidence Strength★★★★☆Strong evidence supports the importance of sleep and growing evidence links nighttime heat with sleep disruption.Potential Healthspan Impact★★★★☆Sleep affects multiple biological systems relevant to healthy aging.Practicality★★★★★Many improvements can be made through simple environmental and behavioral changes.Cost★★★★☆Some strategies cost little, although air conditioning and specialized cooling equipment can be expensive.Risk★★★★★Environmental optimization is generally low risk when appropriate safety considerations are followed.Long-Term Relevance★★★★★Heat exposure and sleep health are likely to remain important as populations age and extreme heat becomes more common.Technology Dependence★★★☆☆Basic changes require little technology, but some climates may require effective cooling systems.Scientific Certainty★★★☆☆Evidence strongly supports sleep disruption from heat, but long-term causal health effects of specific bedroom-temperature interventions remain less certain.
Key Takeaways
Hot nights can interfere with the body's normal temperature changes that support sleep.
Human research in older adults suggests that excessively warm nighttime temperatures can reduce sleep efficiency and increase restlessness.
A recent 2026 review found consistent evidence that nocturnal heat disrupts sleep in middle-aged and older adults.
There is no single perfect bedroom temperature for everyone.
Aim for a comfortably cool sleep environment and adjust according to your own response.
Sleep health involves more than duration. Timing, quality, and regularity matter too.
Large cohort studies have associated greater sleep regularity with lower mortality risk, although association does not prove direct causation.
Older adults can be more vulnerable to heat because of changes in thermoregulation, chronic health conditions, medications, and hydration challenges.
Cooling technology can be useful, but the evidence for improving the environment is more important than marketing claims about a particular product.
A hot bedroom should be viewed as a modifiable health environment, not simply an unavoidable summer inconvenience.
Conclusion
Healthy aging is often discussed in terms of what to add.
Add exercise.
Add vegetables.
Add steps.
Add sleep.
But healthspan can also improve when you remove unnecessary obstacles.
A persistently hot bedroom is one of those obstacles.
Your body spends the night performing a complicated sequence of biological tasks. Temperature regulation, sleep cycles, metabolic processes, cardiovascular regulation, memory processing, and recovery do not stop because the lights are off.
When your environment repeatedly interferes with sleep, the solution does not need to be futuristic.
Sometimes the first step is beautifully ordinary:
Make the room cooler.
Give your body a chance to release heat.
Keep your sleep schedule reasonably steady.
Notice what changes.
Over the next 20 years, healthspan will not be determined by one perfect night of sleep.
It will be shaped by patterns.
The pattern of how you move.
The pattern of how you eat.
The pattern of how you connect with others.
And the pattern of whether, night after night, you create conditions that allow your body to recover.
In a hotter world, protecting sleep may become an increasingly practical form of longevity medicine.
Not because a cool bedroom guarantees a longer life.
Because better conditions for sleep may help protect one of the biological foundations required to live those years with more energy, resilience, and capacity.
Share the Gift of Healthspan
Share the Gift of Healthspan: If you found these insights helpful, please share this article with your friends, family, and loved ones. Simple, science-backed lifestyle changes can make a profound difference in protecting the long-term health and vitality of the people you care about most!
Further Reading on Longevity & Healthspan
If you found this deep dive valuable, explore more science-backed strategies to optimize your physical resilience and everyday healthspan:
Lifespan vs. Healthspan: Learn why extending life and extending the years you remain physically and mentally capable are related but fundamentally different goals.
Resistance Training After 40: The Longevity Exercise That Helps Preserve Strength, Mobility, and Independence: Explore how preserving muscle strength and physical capacity can help protect mobility, resilience, and independence across the decades.
Disclosures
Author: Life Beyond Years
Review date: August 12, 2026
Methodology: This article was developed using human research and evidence from prospective cohort studies, longitudinal environmental and sleep studies, systematic reviews, and authoritative public-health guidance. The principal evidence base emphasized research directly examining nighttime temperature, sleep in older adults, sleep regularity, and heat vulnerability.
Conflict statement: Life Beyond Years has no known financial relationship with the researchers, institutions, or publications cited in this article. No commercial sleep, cooling, wearable, or bedding product is endorsed. Technology is discussed as a possible implementation tool rather than as a proven longevity intervention.
Medical disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Heat exposure and sleep needs can be affected by medications and medical conditions. Seek individualized guidance from a qualified healthcare professional when appropriate. Heat stroke and severe heat-related illness are medical emergencies. Persistent sleep problems may also require professional evaluation.
Hyperlinked References
Boubekri M, et al. Nighttime ambient temperature and sleep in community-dwelling older adults. Longitudinal human research using wearable sleep monitors and environmental sensors found that sleep was most efficient and restful at approximately 20 to 25°C, with poorer sleep efficiency as nighttime temperature increased above that range.
View the PubMed recordEffects of Heatwaves and Tropical Nights on Sleep in Middle-Aged and Older Adults: A Scoping Review. Published in 2026, this review synthesized 31 studies and found that elevated nighttime heat consistently disrupted sleep in adults aged 45 and older.
View the PubMed recordWindred DP, et al. Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration: A prospective cohort study. Sleep. 2024. This study analyzed objective sleep data from more than 60,000 UK Biobank participants and found that greater sleep regularity was associated with lower all-cause, cancer, and cardiometabolic mortality risk.
View the PubMed recordCribb L, et al. Sleep regularity and mortality: a prospective analysis in the UK Biobank. eLife. 2023. This large prospective cohort study found that irregular sleep-wake patterns were associated with higher mortality risk.
View the PubMed recordHeat Tolerance in Older Adults: A Systematic Review of Thermoregulation, Vulnerability, Environmental Change, and Health Outcomes. This systematic review summarizes human evidence showing why older adults may have reduced capacity to tolerate heat and greater vulnerability to heat-related health outcomes.
View the full review