Think about how you like to fall asleep.
Does the room need to be cool? Are you drifting off with the sounds of rain? What do you do when you can’t get to sleep or wake up feeling unrested?
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Unraveling that last question – and the long-term impacts of missing sleep – are central to the field of sleep research. It’s a field of study that is giving researchers a unique opportunity to investigate the downstream consequences poor sleep has on the body’s health. The research is coming at a critical time, as public awareness of sleep’s importance alongside the growing medical evidence of its applicability to other specialty areas are both growing, a unique convergence in the health sciences.
“It’s a really exciting time to be a sleep doctor,” said Katherine Green, MD, MS, assistant professor of otolaryngology - head and neck surgery at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and medical director of the UCHealth Sleep Medicine Clinic.
In the following Q&A, Green explains sleep science challenges, how researchers account for the personal elements in conducting studies and how the field has evolved.