For one week in middle age, over a thousand people wore wrist monitors and recorded how they felt they had slept, and a quiet gap emerged between the two accounts. Across nearly thirty-five years of tracking, those who had used marijuana, whether long ago or recently, slept less efficiently and more fitfully than those who never used it, even as they did not perceive their rest as worse. The finding reminds us how often the body keeps a different ledger than the mind, and how a remedy trusted for its calm may be quietly taking something back. Researchers at Northwestern Medicine have offered i
Marijuana Users Sleep Worse Than They Realize, Northwestern Study Finds
Someone may believe marijuana is helping them sleep while measurements suggest otherwise
Mark
What's the core finding here?
Mimi
People who used cannabis slept worse by wrist-monitor measures, but they didn't say their sleep was worse.
Mark
So the gap between feeling and measuring is the story?
Mimi
Largely. Someone could believe it's helping while the data says otherwise, as Dr. Joshua put it.
Luke
Careful, though. This shows an association. The source says the link held after adjusting for age, alcohol, activity and more, but it doesn't claim cannabis caused the poor sleep.
Mark
Does it say how people used it?
Mimi
No. Smoking versus edibles wasn't considered.
Luke
That's a real gap. Method could matter, and we don't know.
Mark
What about the longer sleep?
Mimi
Recent users were much more likely to sleep over eight hours, yet with more fragmentation and lower efficiency.
Luke
And Lieberman's claim that it's psychological addiction is her opinion. The study as reported doesn't test that.
Le Pouls
- A wrist monitor and a self-report survey tell two different stories about the same nights of sleep.
- Users who believe cannabis helps them rest are finding their devices recording fragmented, less efficient sleep.
- Outside physicians are pressing hard on the belief that habitual use can serve as a dependable sleep fix.
- As cannabis becomes more available, researchers are racing to learn long-term effects before the habit spreads further.
- The study cannot yet say whether smoking or edibles make the difference, leaving a key question open.
For one week in middle age, over a thousand people wore wrist monitors and recorded how they felt they had slept, and a quiet gap emerged between the two accounts. Across nearly thirty-five years of tracking, those who had used marijuana, whether long ago or recently, slept less efficiently and more fitfully than those who never used it, even as they did not perceive their rest as worse. The finding reminds us how often the body keeps a different ledger than the mind, and how a remedy trusted for its calm may be quietly taking something back. Researchers at Northwestern Medicine have offered it as a question for a society where cannabis is becoming ordinary, not as a verdict.
For one week in middle age, each of 1,266 participants in a Northwestern Medicine study wore a monitor on their wrist and slept as they normally would. They also answered surveys about how well they believed they had slept. When the two records were compared, a gap appeared among marijuana users: the devices showed worse sleep than the people reported.
The study tracked participants for almost 35 years, from young adulthood into middle age, recording their cannabis use along the way. Both lifetime and recent users showed objectively poorer sleep than people who never used the drug, yet their own assessments did not reflect it. Greater cumulative exposure was linked to less time asleep and more disruption, and recent users were more likely to sleep fragmented nights, or to sleep longer than eight hours.
Researchers adjusted for age, race, sex, smoking, alcohol and physical activity, and the association held. A notable limit is that consumption method, such as smoking versus edibles, was not separated.
Senior author Mercedes R. Carnethon said the data do not support cannabis as a sleep aid, and stressed the importance of understanding its long-term effects as availability grows. Outside physicians, not involved in the research, saw the mismatch between belief and measurement as the most telling detail, and questioned whether habitual use is a sustainable way to manage sleep. One psychiatrist was more blunt, suggesting the habit is driven more by the immediate high than by any real benefit to rest.
The sleep results arrive alongside separate research on nearly 450,000 adults that linked cannabis use to higher risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease, scheduled for presentation at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions in Chicago.
For one week in middle age, each of the 1,266 participants in a Northwestern Medicine study strapped a monitor to their wrist and slept as usual. They also filled out surveys about how well they thought they had slept. When researchers set the two sets of records side by side, a gap appeared among those who used marijuana: the device recorded worse sleep than the people reported themselves.
The study followed participants for almost 35 years, from young adulthood into middle age, while scientists tracked their cannabis use over time. That long record let the team look at both lifetime exposure and recent use. Both groups, lifetime and recent users, showed objectively poorer sleep quality than people who never used the drug, yet their own assessments did not reflect it.
The specifics are fairly granular. People with greater cumulative exposure to cannabis tended to be asleep for a lower percentage of the night and to experience more sleep disruption. Recent users were more likely to have fragmented sleep and lower sleep efficiency than never-users. The study also found a much higher chance that recent users would sleep longer than eight hours a night.
Researchers accounted for a range of outside factors, including age, race, sex, smoking frequency, alcohol consumption and physical activity, among others. With those adjusted for, the association between cannabis use and worse objectively measured sleep held consistently. One limit is worth noting: the analysis did not consider how people consumed cannabis, so smoking and edibles were not separated.
Senior author Mercedes R. Carnethon, Ph.D., said the data do not support the belief that cannabis helps as a sleep aid. She added that as cannabis grows more available and accepted, it is important to understand its long-term associations with health behaviors such as sleep.
Outside physicians, none involved in the research, spoke to Fox News Digital. Alfred Joshua, M.D., a board-certified emergency medicine physician in California, pointed to the mismatch as the notable part: someone may believe marijuana helps them sleep while measurements suggest otherwise. He summarized the findings as greater cumulative exposure linked to reduced sleep efficiency, more fragmentation and more time awake after first falling asleep, and said they raise questions about whether habitual use is a sustainable way to manage sleep problems.
Carole Lieberman, M.D., a board-certified psychiatrist in California, was blunter. She said it is unsurprising that chronic users sleep poorly, and that people who say they need marijuana to relax before bed are only kidding themselves. In her view the habit is more a psychological addiction than a physical one: users enjoy the immediate high, but the drug does not help them sleep better.
The sleep findings arrive alongside other recent cannabis research covered by Fox News Digital. A study of nearly 450,000 American adults linked cannabis use to higher risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease, with both casual and heavy users showing higher odds of heart conditions than non-users. Those results were scheduled for presentation at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2026 in Chicago, Nov. 6 to 9.
Citations marquantes
Our data do not support the belief that cannabis is helpful as a sleep aid.— Mercedes R. Carnethon, Ph.D., senior study author
Findings raise questions about whether habitual marijuana use is a sustainable strategy for managing sleep problems.— Alfred Joshua, M.D., emergency medicine physician (not involved in study)
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