There’s still so much we don’t know about Alzheimer’s disease, but the link between poor sleep and worsening disease is one that researchers are exploring with gusto.

A study published in 2023 found that using sleeping pills to get some shut-eye could reduce the buildup of toxic clumps of proteins in fluid that washes the brain clean every night.

People who took suvorexant, a common treatment for insomnia, for two nights at a sleep clinic experienced a slight drop in amyloid-beta and tau, two proteins that pile up in Alzheimer’s disease.