{ "schema_version": 1, "dataset_version": "1.1.0", "slug": "sleep", "title": "Sleep", "question": "How can I build a more reliable sleep routine without turning weak evidence into a prescription?", "summary": "Build routines around sleep timing, recovery, and environment while keeping observational findings separate from causal claims.", "canonical_url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/topics/sleep/", "json_url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/topics/sleep/index.json", "api_url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/api/v1/hubs.json", "coverage_status": "trusted-protocols", "coverage_note": "2 trusted protocol recommendations available.", "topics": [ { "id": "sleep-circadian", "title": "Sleep & Circadian Rhythm", "description": "Sleep timing, regularity, environment, and daily rhythms.", "canonical_id": "brali:topic:sleep-circadian" } ], "protocols": [ { "canonical_id": "brali:protocol:stop-caffeine-after-lunch", "protocol_id": "brali:stop-caffeine-after-lunch", "slug": "stop-caffeine-after-lunch", "url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/life-os/stop-caffeine-after-lunch/", "title": "Move Caffeine Earlier When Sleep Matters", "description": "If caffeine may be reaching into the night, move the last dose earlier and reduce large late-day doses. A 2025 randomized crossover trial found that a single 400 mg dose disrupted several sleep measures even when taken many hours before bed; a small 100 mg dose did not show a significant effect at the tested timings. That is a reason to be dose-aware, not a license for one universal cutoff.", "action": "For one or two weeks, note the time and rough amount of your last caffeine, your bedtime, and whether sleep onset, overnight restfulness, and next-day sleepiness are broadly better or worse. Start by moving the last large dose earlier or reducing it; do not deliberately take caffeine late just to test your tolerance.", "check_in": "When was my last caffeine, roughly how much was it, and did sleep and next-day alertness look better, worse, or unchanged across several days?", "evidence": { "status": "reviewed", "source_recorded": true, "source_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11985402/", "reviewed_at": "2026-09-06" }, "is_flagship_100": true, "topic_ids": [ "sleep-circadian", "health-basics" ], "method_ids": [], "hub_score": 1192.4 }, { "canonical_id": "brali:protocol:ideal-sleep-hours-finder", "protocol_id": "brali:ideal-sleep-hours-finder", "slug": "ideal-sleep-hours-finder", "url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/life-os/ideal-sleep-hours-finder/", "title": "Protect Enough Sleep Opportunity and Track Daytime Function", "description": "If your sleep is routinely short, protect a realistic window that gives you enough opportunity to sleep and observe simple trends in sleep timing and daytime alertness. Do not deliberately restrict sleep to search for an 'optimal' number or treat one bad night as a result.", "action": "Choose a bedtime-to-wake window that fits your obligations and gives you a reasonable opportunity for enough sleep. For a week or two, record only a few things: roughly when you tried to sleep, when you got up, whether the night was unusually disrupted, and how alert or sleepy you felt during the day. Look for repeated patterns, not single-night scores. Change one practical constraint at a time, such as moving bedtime earlier when your current schedule routinely leaves too little time for sleep.", "check_in": "Did I give myself enough opportunity to sleep, what did my actual sleep/wake pattern look like, and was daytime alertness broadly better, unchanged, or worse over several days?", "evidence": { "status": "reviewed", "source_recorded": true, "source_url": "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34507028/", "reviewed_at": "2026-08-19" }, "is_flagship_100": true, "topic_ids": [ "sleep-circadian" ], "method_ids": [], "hub_score": 1192.4 } ], "evidence_decisions": [ { "id": "caffeine-dose-timing-sleep-boundary-2025", "decision": "support-existing", "reviewed_at": "2026-09-06", "source_title": "Dose and timing effects of caffeine on subsequent sleep: a randomized clinical crossover trial", "source_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11985402/", "source_type": "primary-study", "citation_text": "Gardiner CL, Weakley J, Burke LM, et al. Sleep. 2025;48(4):zsae230.", "supported_claim": "Caffeine timing should be interpreted together with dose rather than as one universal after-lunch rule. In this small randomized crossover trial, a single 400 mg dose disrupted multiple objective sleep measures when taken within 12 hours of bedtime, with larger disruption closer to bedtime; no statistically significant sleep effect was detected for 100 mg at the tested 12-, 8-, and 4-hour timings. For Brali, this supports moving large late-day caffeine doses earlier when sleep matters and using bedtime-relative timing rather than a fixed clock cutoff.", "unsupported_or_overstated_claims": [ "Everyone should stop caffeine at 1 p.m. or immediately after lunch.", "A 100 mg dose four hours before bedtime is safe or sleep-neutral for every person.", "Twelve hours is a scientifically established cutoff for every caffeine dose or pattern of use.", "People can infer whether they metabolize caffeine quickly from whether they fall asleep after an afternoon coffee.", "The study establishes an ideal daily caffeine dose, a body-weight dosing range, or a morning dosing schedule.", "The trial tested ordinary coffee, tea, energy drinks, or repeated real-world servings rather than standardized caffeine capsules.", "A personal sleep log can establish a causal individual caffeine dose-response curve." ], "limitations": [ "The sample was small (23 participants) and included only healthy men aged 18–40, limiting generalizability to women, older adults, adolescents, people with sleep disorders, and other populations.", "Participants were moderate habitual caffeine users; results may differ in people with very low, very high, or irregular caffeine exposure.", "The intervention used acute standardized caffeine capsules rather than the variable doses, ingredients, absorption patterns, and repeated servings found in real-world caffeinated products.", "The study tested only two caffeine doses and three pre-bed timing points, so it cannot define a continuous or personalized cutoff.", "Sleep was measured with in-home partial polysomnography rather than full laboratory polysomnography.", "A nonsignificant result for 100 mg in this sample is not proof of no effect for every individual, especially given known variability in caffeine pharmacokinetics and sensitivity." ], "topic_ids": [ "sleep-circadian", "health-basics" ] }, { "id": "pmr-subjective-sleep-quality-boundary-2026", "decision": "support-existing", "reviewed_at": "2026-09-11", "source_title": "The effects of progressive muscle relaxation on sleep quality in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials", "source_url": "https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1906525/full", "source_type": "systematic-review-meta-analysis", "citation_text": "Li K, Chen S, Liu Y, Yu N. Front Public Health. 2026;14:1906525.", "supported_claim": "Across the included randomized trials, PMR improved subjective PSQI sleep-quality scores on average in clinically heterogeneous adult populations. The direction of the pooled effect remained after sensitivity and trim-and-fill analyses. This supports adding sleep as a bounded use case to Brali's existing conservative PMR protocol. It does not establish an optimal timer, session count or frequency, and the evidence should be described as subjective sleep-quality evidence in the studied clinical populations rather than a universal sleep effect.", "unsupported_or_overstated_claims": [ "PMR reliably improves sleep for every adult or for healthy adults in general.", "The meta-analysis proves that PMR shortens sleep latency, increases total sleep time or improves objective sleep architecture.", "A specific 5/30-second timer, 7-minute routine, 12-group sequence, 18-group sequence or weekly frequency is the evidence-based optimum.", "More PMR sessions produce larger sleep benefits.", "PMR improves sleep because it lowers cortisol, reduces sympathetic activity or activates parasympathetic activity; these mechanisms were discussed, not tested by this meta-analysis.", "PMR does not work in adults aged 55 years or older.", "The pooled effect size can be treated as an expected individual improvement.", "PMR should replace assessment or treatment for persistent or severe sleep problems." ], "limitations": [ "Between-study heterogeneity was very high (I2 85.5%) and was not explained by the reported subgroup analyses.", "The included trials involved diverse clinical populations, limiting direct generalization to healthy adults or any one condition.", "Sleep quality was assessed with the subjective PSQI rather than objective sleep measures.", "Intervention duration, frequency, session count and protocol details varied substantially across studies.", "Egger's test suggested possible publication bias; trim-and-fill reduced the pooled estimate while retaining the direction.", "Only 14 studies were available, limiting subgroup and meta-regression precision.", "The age >=55 subgroup estimate was imprecise, and the formal between-subgroup difference was not significant.", "The review did not establish long-term persistence of benefit after PMR stopped." ], "topic_ids": [ "sleep-circadian" ] }, { "id": "sleep-opportunity-extension-2021", "decision": "propose-protocol", "reviewed_at": "2026-08-19", "source_title": "Behavioral interventions to extend sleep duration: A systematic review and meta-analysis", "source_url": "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34507028/", "source_type": "meta-analysis", "citation_text": "Baron KG, Duffecy J, Reutrakul S, et al. Sleep Medicine Reviews. 2021;60:101532.", "supported_claim": "Behavioral interventions designed to extend sleep increased sleep duration on average compared with control or baseline. Direct interventions that specified a sleep schedule tended to have larger effects, but results were highly heterogeneous.", "unsupported_or_overstated_claims": [ "A self-tracking experiment can identify one scientifically optimal personal sleep duration.", "A fixed bedtime or wake-time tolerance is proven to improve health or cognition for everyone.", "A 21-day experiment, 30-minute duration bins, or a particular alertness score is evidence-based.", "Sleep extension by itself is a treatment for chronic insomnia or another sleep disorder.", "Consumer sleep-stage estimates are required to decide how much sleep a person needs." ], "limitations": [ "Statistical heterogeneity was very high across both two-arm and one-arm studies.", "Populations, intervention components, duration and measurement methods varied substantially.", "The primary outcome was sleep duration; the review does not establish a single personal optimum for daytime performance or health.", "The findings do not replace clinical assessment for persistent insomnia, excessive sleepiness, suspected sleep disorders, or other medical concerns." ], "topic_ids": [ "sleep-circadian" ] }, { "id": "sleep-variability-cognition-2026", "decision": "watch", "reviewed_at": "2026-08-18", "source_title": "The association between sleep variability and cognitive function: A systematic review and meta analysis", "source_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032725019238", "source_type": "meta-analysis", "citation_text": "Xia Y, He S, Sun Z, Wang F. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2026;393(Pt B):120481.", "supported_claim": "Across the included literature, greater sleep variability was associated with poorer cognitive performance on average, with a small pooled correlation and age moderating the association.", "unsupported_or_overstated_claims": [ "Sleep irregularity has been shown to cause cognitive decline.", "Making sleep timing more regular has been shown by this meta-analysis to improve cognition.", "A fixed bedtime or wake-time tolerance can be prescribed from this evidence.", "The association justifies treatment or dementia-prevention claims for an individual." ], "limitations": [ "The reviewed evidence is primarily association evidence and does not establish the direction of causality.", "Sleep variability and cognition were operationalized in different ways across studies.", "The pooled association was small (r=-0.12 in the authors' analysis).", "Age moderated the association, so a single population-wide claim would hide meaningful differences.", "The publisher abstract and bibliographic record were directly reviewed for this Brali decision; a causal behavior-change protocol is deliberately not proposed from this source alone." ], "topic_ids": [ "sleep-circadian" ] } ], "research_watch": [ { "id": "crossref:10.3389/fpubh.2026.1906525", "title": "The effects of progressive muscle relaxation on sleep quality in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials", "status": "support-existing", "publication_date": "2026-08-06", "reference_url": "https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1906525", "topic_ids": [ "sleep-circadian" ], "evidence_state": "discovery-only", "note": "Discovery metadata is not reviewed evidence. Read the Evidence Decision when one exists." }, { "id": "crossref:10.1016/j.jad.2025.120481", "title": "The association between sleep variability and cognitive function: A systematic review and meta analysis", "status": "watch", "publication_date": "2026-01-15", "reference_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.120481", "topic_ids": [ "sleep-circadian" ], "evidence_state": "discovery-only", "note": "Discovery metadata is not reviewed evidence. Read the Evidence Decision when one exists." }, { "id": "crossref:10.1093/sleep/zsae230", "title": "Dose and timing effects of caffeine on subsequent sleep: a randomized clinical crossover trial", "status": "support-existing", "publication_date": "2025-04-11", "reference_url": "https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsae230", "topic_ids": [ "sleep-circadian", "health-basics" ], "evidence_state": "discovery-only", "note": "Discovery metadata is not reviewed evidence. Read the Evidence Decision when one exists." }, { "id": "crossref:10.1016/j.smrv.2021.101532", "title": "Behavioral interventions to extend sleep duration: A systematic review and meta-analysis", "status": "propose-protocol", "publication_date": "2021-12-01", "reference_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2021.101532", "topic_ids": [ "sleep-circadian" ], "evidence_state": "discovery-only", "note": "Discovery metadata is not reviewed evidence. Read the Evidence Decision when one exists." } ], "related_topics": [ { "id": "recovery-energy", "title": "Recovery & Energy", "canonical_id": "brali:topic:recovery-energy" }, { "id": "health-basics", "title": "Everyday Health Basics", "canonical_id": "brali:topic:health-basics" } ], "related_methods": [], "trust_note": "Protocol recommendations come only from the reviewed/practical trusted feed. Research-watch items are discovery metadata, not evidence. Reviewed Evidence Decisions define the research claims and boundaries shown here." }