There's no need for an expensive retreat to practice meditation. Try it on your lunch break to recharge your mind and body. Launching straight back into work in the New Year can be challenging, but learning how to meditate can help you stay focused. Feel free to roll your eyes right about now, but numerous studies have shown that meditation can boost creativity, improve sleep quality, and manage stress . "Meditation is a practice to calm the brain by recentering our attention, most often on our breath," says Mel Mah, an instructor at the meditation app Calm .

Weight loss, better sleep, and more can happen in one alcohol-free month. The month-long challenge began 2013 with 4,000 registrants. That number has swelled to 200,000. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Holiday hangover season is upon us, and murmurs of Dry January are back.

Dr. Wendy Troxel, a sleep therapist in Utah, discusses a study that found small bouts of light exercise in the evening can help promote more restful sleep. Good shut-eye is critical for all sorts of reasons -- but now there's a compelling new one, according to a study. An international team of scientists discovered an interesting incentive for getting eight hours of sleep a night. Make sure to get plenty of slumber if you're trying to learn a new language, researchers say. The study, led by the University of South Australia, revealed that the coordination of two electrical events in the sleeping brain "significantly" improves its ability to remember new words and complex grammatical rules, as news agency SWNS reported.

Designed and manufactured in France, the Thalamus is a groundbreaking autonomous security robot that is redefining the way we think about surveillance and protection.

Artificial intelligence has made its way into drug development, surgery and medical advice -- and now it's helping people improve the quality of their sleep. The Artificial Intelligence in Sleep Medicine Committee, which is part of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, recently published a paper that highlights how AI is contributing to the field of sleep medicine. The committee looked at how AI is assisting in three areas: clinical applications, lifestyle management and population health. WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)? Clinical applications involve the use of AI to diagnose and treat sleep disorders, while lifestyle management focuses on the use of consumer technology to track sleep data.

An ongoing project intends to enable military and other scientists to monitor and even enhance the ways in which a soldier's brain sleeps and, importantly, attains rest and repair. The effort – a collaboration between the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC) Military Operational Medicine Research Program (MOMRP) and scientists and engineers at Rice University (Houston, Texas) – is only one of a group of sensor-driven military projects seeking to create wearable technology to track and improve soldier performance and outcomes. Scientists at the Houston-based university are developing a noninvasive "sleeping cap" that analyzes the glymphatic system, the flow of fluid that is thought to cleanse and rid the brain of common metabolic waste during sleep. The cap will be used to further understand how the human brain deals with that waste, and if that function actually prepares and refreshes people for the next day. A team at Rice University's NeuroEngineering Initiative – together with teams from Rice's Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB) and physicians from Houston Methodist Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston – are developing a lightweight skullcap that can analyze the wearer's glymphatic function and stimulate proper flow to treat sleep disorders and improve wakefulness and day-to-day function.

Artificial intelligence (AI) seems to know no boundaries. Innovation in this area has been exciting, and developments over the next five years will be nothing short of astonishing. Even while you're sleeping, it's possible to have new AI technologies hard at work to ensure you get a good night of quality, uninterrupted sleep. As Americans, we're getting a failing grade when it comes to sleep. This is just a small sample of data.