Seeking a Sleep Solution: From AI to Forgiveness

Despite medication or advice on how to achieve a restful sleep, many Americans experience nights of tossing and turning. However, artificial intelligence (AI), media literacy, and the age-old principle of forgiveness may help bring relief to those who are sleep deprived.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the number of adults getting insufficient sleep and having short sleep duration vary by state. But estimates range from 30 to 40 percent.

Embracing AI offers hope

To get the sleep we need can mean individuals taking deliberate personal steps and the medical establishment embracing artificial intelligence technology.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, in 2025, pointed out that AI integration into sleep medicine has the potential to enhance clinical care and research.

Goldstein et al (2023) stated: “We propose potential clinical use cases that transcend the sleep laboratory and are expected to deepen our understanding of sleep disorders, improve patient-centered sleep care, augment day-to-day clinical operations, and increase our knowledge of the role of sleep in health at a population level.”

The problematic effects of sleep deprivation

Sleep deficiency can be problematic in terms of learning, focusing, reacting, decision-making, and remembering. Researchers also report: “Sleep deficiency also can make you feel frustrated, cranky, or worried in social situations.”

Stress, political anger, and media literacy

This season, in addition to work stress, family stress, relationship stress and holiday stress, we are experiencing early election stress. Poll numbers and potential candidates for the 2026 midterms are already trending in the news.

A reminder of election stress was evident in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential campaign (Dzierzewski et al, 2024). Sixty-five percent of US adults reported they always or often feel exhausted when thinking about current politics. Fifty-five percent reported always or often feeling angry.

As politicians try to sway public opinion, a reasonable solution to political stress is education, which becomes ever more difficult as misinformation proliferates. In 2025, Cornell University, in advocating media literacy, suggested the following:

• Consider the source.

• Read beyond the headline.

• Determine the author’s credentials.

• Check the date to be certain sources are relevant.

• Ask the experts or consult a fact-checking site.

The role of anger and forgiveness in sleeplessness

The emotional component of election stress and political posturing is anger. Whether with politics, friendships, family relationships, or love relationships, anger is a dangerous emotion.

While we explore sleep aids, how-to suggestions, and the most recent medical and technological advances, if all this fails, perhaps it is anger that is keeping you awake at night.

Anger can be a major disruptor in terms of our emotional well-being. The American Psychological Association advises: “Control anger before it controls you.”

If we require an immediate solution to tossing and turning trying to fall asleep, and nothing seems to work, then consider an age-old Biblical principle, “Never let the sun set on your anger.”

This practical advice for a restful sleep essentially points to choosing forgiveness and the practice of gratitude as a simple way to “sleep, perhaps to dream.”

_{Copyright 2025 Rita Watson, MPH}