Overview

• A Harvard analysis of adults 65 and older found that sleeping under five hours was associated with roughly double the odds of Alzheimer’s and of death compared with six to eight hours.
• Mechanistic research published in Science Advances indicates that chronic deprivation ages and activates brain immune cells and hinders glymphatic clearance, fostering tau and β‑amyloid accumulation.
• Specialists stress that lost sleep cannot be recovered with naps or weekend catch‑up, urging sustained habit changes instead of stopgap measures.
• Doctors highlight broad harms from insufficient or fragmented sleep, including higher risks of diabetes, hypertension, obesity, depression, heart and kidney disease, weaker immunity, cognitive deficits, and driving danger comparable to alcohol impairment.
• Current guidance emphasizes practical sleep‑hygiene steps from the World Sleep Society and calls on people to stop normalizing insomnia and seek professional, structured support.