HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT

Stop hogging the pillow. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you love sharing the blankets with them. In fact, 46 percent of respondents to a recent survey said that despite being in a relationship, they’d like to sleep alone at least part of the time. According to sleep scientists, this number is rising, not just because couples are increasingly disturbing each other with screens in the bedroom but also because people are marrying later in life, having had decades to develop independent sleep routines.

Sawing logs. Snoring can be a major reason people want to sleep alone! But the tech world is coming to the rescue with a variety of newfangled anti-snoring devices, including one inserted into the nose to unblock a snorer’s airways and a sensor-pillow combo that repositions the offender’s head when they start to snore.

Not with a bang. For some, it’s not the sleeping that’s the problem; it’s the getting there. Nearly 30 percent of respondents in a study on exploding head syndrome say they’ve experienced the condition before. It’s not as scary as it sounds: Sufferers merely hear loud bangs or see flashes as they drift off. Their heads don’t actually explode. But there is no cure … or even much clarity as to what causes it.

What a shock. Habitual insomnia sufferers are often willing to try just about anything to get some shut-eye. So why not so-called electroceuticals, which are electrostimulation devices that have long been prescribed for pain management? The FDA is on board with many of these devices, which send electric pulses through your nervous system at bedtime. But the sleep therapy community is largely still unsure whether they actually help anyone or if it’s just a new form of snake oil. We suggest you sleep on this one.

WHAT TO READ

Why We Sleep, and Why We Often Can’t, by Zoe Heller in The New Yorker
“Aristotle called sleep ‘a privation of waking,’ and a simultaneous longing for and resistance to that privation seems to lie at the heart of insomnia’s torment.”

When It Comes to Sleep, One Size Fits All, by Susan Pinker in The Wall Street Journal
“Regularly sleeping too little seems to be much more damaging than having one or two bad nights. Getting four hours of sleep or less for an extended period is equivalent to adding eight years to one’s age when it comes to test performance.”

WHAT TO WATCH