Sleep.com

The flight attendants have just finished their safety briefing, the cabin lights are dim, and the plane slowly meanders its way toward the end of a long runway. As soon as engines roar, you can feel your eyelids droop, and you surrender to a brief snooze. As counterintuitive as it may seem, drifting off during takeoff is pretty common.

The best sleep you’ll get should be at home, on a bed matched to your sleep needs. But hotels are catching up, and sleep-tailored experiences are no longer considered amenities or gimmicky programming opportunities. Some resorts have also made big changes to accommodate those interested in catching up on much-needed Zzz’s, going so far as to employ sleep specialists to work with guests on tracking underlying issues and/or improving bedtime hygiene.

When it’s hot, sleep can be nearly impossible. Kicking off the covers or sleeping naked can solve a lot of heat problems, but when the temperature is that hot — think 90s and up in Fahrenheit — getting good sleep can be a challenge unless you have air conditioning or are actively working to keep your body temperature down. That’s because there’s a small but stark difference between hot sleep and sleeping with heat exhaustion.

From keeping a consistent sleep schedule to making our bedrooms as dark as possible, there are many tried-and-true strategies for getting better slumber. But what if there was a personalized method of figuring out which sleep strategy might give you the best results? Enter human design. This practice uses a range of ancient philosophies to provide insight into our energetic makeup as individuals.

Shift work can make sleep feel like permanent jet lag — minus the passport stamps and poolside lounging. You’re powering through a shift when your body’s begging for sleep, then finally hitting the hay at the same time most people are brewing coffee. It’s exhausting for the 11 million Americans who work the night shift. And that’s just one type of shift work people perform.

The thyroid, while small, oversees a whole lot. It helps your metabolism and body temperature and regulates your body’s reaction to hormones. “Think of your thyroid as your body's thermostat,” says Steve Gendron, Ph.D., a researcher in Physiology-Endocrinology and founder of Mindful Living Choice.

For most of us, the majority of our dreams stay in dreamland, but every so often, you may have vivid dreams that can activate all of your senses and stay with you after you awaken. These nocturnal adventures blur reality and imagination, leaving you surprised to wake up in your own bed. You might even be able to recall a vivid dream years after you had it. So what causes some dreams to be more intense than others?

Ayurveda has a lot to say about getting better sleep. In this ancient medical system, which originated in India 5,000 years ago, sleep is revered as one of the three core pillars of health, alongside nutrition and energy management. Ayurveda doesn’t offer a one-size-fits-all prescription for improving your slumber, though.

If you’ve ever gotten so immersed in hitting a new high score that you blew off your bedtime, you might already think of video games as an enemy to sound sleep. But don’t press pause just yet. While video games have been portrayed as sleep-stealers in some studies, they may offer ways to level up your slumber, too. Here’s a look at the conflicting ways video games affect sleep, from their boss-level challenges to hidden power-ups.

A guide to the potentially positive health benefits of grounding, otherwise known as earthing, as explained by two sleep experts. Another day, another health trend, except this may just be the one that most sleep professionals can get behind. No-frills grounding (or “earthing”) has gained traction as a way to connect one’s body to the electric current of Earth’s surface, usually through direct contact by either walking barefoot or lying down.