08/12/2026
We spend nearly a third of our lives asleep. That's too much time for it to be biologically unimportant.
While you're sleeping, your brain is doing some of its most important work. It strengthens memories, regulates inflammation, clears away metabolic waste, and restores the environment your neurons depend on to function.
When that process is interrupted night after night, the consequences extend far beyond feeling tired the next morning.
One of the most compelling areas of Alzheimer's research today is the growing evidence that poor sleep may not simply accompany the disease. It may be intertwined with it, appearing years before memory problems and potentially influencing the biological changes that follow.
Sleep is one of the few things we have the opportunity to improve every single day. That alone makes it worth paying attention to.
If you'd like to dive deeper into the science, I've written about it in my latest blog: https://drperlmutter.com/sleep-loss-alzheimers-disease-cause-consequence-clue-something-much-bigger/
