Sleep Awareness Day 2026
- familygenomics
- 18 hours ago
- 2 min read
As World Sleep Day on the 13th of March approaches, it’s a good moment to think about something that is often overlooked in our busy day-to-day lives: sleep.
We tend to think of sleep as “downtime”, but in reality, it’s an active and essential process for repairing tissues, regulating emotions, and restoring energy for the day ahead. Still, many people still struggle to get the sleep they need.
Recently, sleep researcher Colin Espie, Professor of Sleep Medicine at the University of Oxford and fellow member of Circadian Mental Health Network, released a short animated video outlining the five principles of good sleep health. Narrated by Sacha Baron Cohen, the videooffers practical guidance on how we can improve our sleep.
(1) Value Sleep
Sleep is an investment in your wellbeing, health, and productivity.
(2) Prioritise Sleep
Make sleep a priority. Keep regular sleep and wake times helps support our body’s internal clock.
(3) Personalise Sleep
There is no one-size-fits-all sleep schedule. Building routines that suit your natural patterns can support better sleep.
(4) Protect Sleep
Your environment and daily habits affect how well you sleep. Creating a comfortable sleep environment and winding down before bed can help protect good sleep.
(5) Trust Sleep
Not every night will be perfect, and that normal. Trusting sleep will come when you give it the right conditions can help reduce stress around sleep.
Our Sleep Research
Understanding sleep is important not only for individuals, but for families and communities as well. Sleep patterns are influenced by many factors, including daily routines, environment and even genetics.
At the Family Genomics Research Group, we study how sleep, circadian rhythms, and genetics interact to influence health and wellbeing.
One of our key projects, FamilySleeps, explores the link between sleep, circadian rhythms, autism and genetics. Sleep difficulties affect between 50%-80% of children with autism. By studying sleep in real-world family settings, we hope to better understand why sleep varies between people, and how we can support healthier sleep for everyone.
If you’d like to learn more about our sleep research, or get involved in studies exploring sleep in families, you can find out more about the FamilySleeps study on our website: https://familysleeps.github.io/PIL/PIL.html, or contact us at family.sleeps@mu.ie .
In our other project, Ambient-BD, we aim to explore sleep and circadian patterns in people with bipolar disorder. Research shows that up to 70% of individuals with bipolar disorder experience sleep and circadian disruptions, which are strongly linked to mood episode relapse. We hope to find new, less intrusive methods of monitoring these patterns in real-world settings. These tools may help to detect earlier signs of mood changes, supporting more personalised care for people with bipolar disorder.
If you would like to learn more or get involved in Ambient-BD, you can reach us at ambientbd@mu.ie or visit our participant information page: https://chronopsychiatry.github.io/Ambient-BD-WP1-OnlinePIL/
