Reuters Health is reporting a study in the journal Sleep that found that regular practice of tai chi, a Westernized version of the ancient Chinese martial art of tai chi, can help older people rest easier at night. Nearly two-thirds of people who learned the slow, gentle tai chi moves experienced significant improvements in sleep quality, compared to about one-third of those who participated in health education sessions that included information on how to get a better night’s rest.

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HealthDay News is reporting a study showing that normal sleep is associated with healthy aging. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego assessed 2,226 women aged 60 and older and found increased severity of sleep disturbances predicted lower self-rated successful aging and a greater difference between perceived and actual age.

HealthDay News is reporting a study showing that a session of moderate aerobic exercise can help reduce anxiety and improve the quality of sleep for insomnia patients – while heavy aerobic or moderate strength exercises don’t have the same effect.

WebMD Health News reports a small study in which researchers have found that people who don’t get enough sleep often indulge in excessive snacking.

Results showed that when bedtimes were restricted to five-and-a-half hours, participants consumed an average of 1,087 calories a day from snacks alone. In contrast, they consumed 866 in calories from snacking when given eight-and-a-half hours to sleep.

According to MedPage, a new study has found that college students who consider themselves “morning people” are more likely to have better grades than those who are “evening people.” In fact, the benefit of being a morning person was a “full letter-grade difference.”

Researchers surveyed 824 undergraduate students about their sleep habits and daytime schedules. Even after they accounted for academic ability, social ability and SAT verbal scores, researchers found that students who were morning-types were more likely to have better grades than those who considered themselves evening-types.

WebMD Health News is reporting that Brazilian researchers have found that the more fat you consume each day, the less likely you are to get a good night’s sleep.

Having a fat-laden cheeseburger and fries for dinner may be particularly disruptive to your sleep pattern, the small study suggests.

HealthDay News reports new research that found that women in happy marriages tend to sleep more soundly than women in unhappy marriages. The research does not answer the question, “Which comes first – does the unhappy marriage lead to poor sleep, or does poor sleep contribute to a bad marriage?”

HealthDay News is covering an academic presentation of a Swedish study claiming to show that teens who become addicted to their cell phones may be placing their health at risk by compromising their ability to sleep well.