Is your PhD giving you beautiful dreams or horrible nightmares? In either case, you probably should be getting more of them. Sleep (or, rather, lack of sleep) is one of the best-known and most consistent risk factors related to depression, anxiety, and host of other mental and physical health issues. It is also one of the factors (mostly) under our control – even if it often gets the back seat with respect to other priorities like work, social life, family, or the latest season of our favorite TV show. In this post, I review some of the (very extense, and rather terrifying) research about the effects that lack of sleep has on humans in general, and PhD students in particular. The post also points you to practices and resources to help you in sleeping not only longer, but also better. Keep your delicate mind and body machinery in optimal working condition!