Sleep and Mental Health: Sleep plays a critical role in maintaining good mental health, protecting against deterioration of mental health, and ameliorating poor mental health. Understanding the associations between sleep health characteristics and mental health in the general population, and how practicing healthy sleep behaviors can promote better mental health is critical to public health.
Read the Sleep and Mental Health Position Statement.
Sleep Health Equity: The NSF believes that everyone should have the same opportunity to get the sleep they need to thrive. Understanding the sources of racial/ethnic sleep health disparities and promoting actionable solutions to eliminate them and achieve sleep health equity is critical to the NSF’s mission.
Read the Sleep Health Equity Position Statement.
Drowsy Driving: Drowsy driving is impaired driving. It accounts for an estimated 1 in 5 fatal motor vehicle crashes on US roads, which demands everyone take responsibility to help prevent it as a form of impaired driving. To address known causes and risk factors for drowsy driving and improve road safety, the National Sleep Foundation calls for targeted actions from a broad range of stakeholders.
Read the Drowsy Driving position statement.
School Start Times: Many adolescents today are sleep-deprived. As part of NSF’s Bright Schools® campaign, NSF has a long history of championing awareness and education on the importance of sleep health and supports the legislature’s ongoing efforts to make adolescent sleep health a priority.
Read the School Start Times Position Statement.
Permanent Standard Time: NSF advocates for the adoption of permanent Standard Time. Evidence supports permanent Standard Time because of its alignment with our circadian biology and relevance to sleep health and safety.
Read the Permanent Standard Time Position Statement.
Military and Veterans: NSF advocates to improve sleep health among military personnel and veterans. Sleep disturbances are often a clear warning sign of many physiological ailments associated with military members and veterans, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and suicidality.
Read the RAND Report on Sleep in the Military.
Workplace: Sleepy employees are 70% more likely to be involved in a workplace accident than well-rested counterparts. Poor sleep leads to slowed reaction times, lapses of attention, errors of omission, and compromised problem-solving ability.
Older Populations & Long-term Care: Nighttime sleep disruption is a common characteristic of long-term care residents. Additional work is needed to understand the administrative and policy factors that might lead to systemic changes in how sleep is addressed in long-term care settings.
Read the Promoting Healthy Sleep for Older Adults Position Statement.
Read the National Sleep Foundation’s Sleep Health and Aging Conference Report