Research

The Sleep and Mental Health Laboratory researches a range of research areas related to:

  • The nature and mechanisms of sleep and circadian rhythm disorders.
  • Interventions for sleep and circadian rhythm disorders, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia, and Bright Light Therapy.
  • Moderators and mechanisms of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia.
  • The relationship between sleep and mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric symptoms/disorders).
  • Sleep-wake behaviours and sleep health in adolescents, including the effects of restricted and extended sleep opportunities on adolescents' emotional and cognitive wellbeing.
  • Sleep health in women, including interventions to improve sleep and wellbeing during pregnancy and postpartum periods.

In addition, our group is an integral part of the Monash University Healthy Sleep Clinic . We provide research support to the Clinic’s translational research activities, and contribute to training of provisional psychologists and Clinical Psychology registrars on sleep disorders management.

Please see Dr Bei Bei’s Google Scholar page here for recent publications from our group.


Current and Recent Projects:

MYSLEEP: Mapping Youth Sleep, LifestylE, and Emotions Project

An international effort spanning Australia, U.S., U.K., Malaysia, and South Africa, aimed at identifying bio-psycho-social and environmental factors contributing to sleep and circadian rhythm disturbances in youth, guiding prevention and intervention strategies for depression and anxiety.

The project partners with people with lived experiences, engaging youth throughout the research process. It leverages existing data from leading sleep and circadian research groups, and collects new longitudinal data from youth in Australia, Malaysia, and South Africa, to locally adapt and validate models during transitions from secondary to tertiary education and into the workforce.

MYSLEEP is recruiting youth aged 16-20, following them up to 18-22 years.

This project is funded by the Wellcome Trust (2024-2029; PI Bei & Sletten).

SHINE: Sleep Health In Perinatal Care:
A large longitudinal study on sleep health during pregnancy and postpartum periods. Sleep difficulties are experienced by most new parents, but the current perinatal care does not include a sleep health component. This project brings together expertise from Monash University, Stanford University (USA), Monash Health, and the Royal Women's Hospital to evaluate a scalable sleep intervention for perinatal insomnia. Using an effectiveness-implementation hybrid trial design, this project tests clinical effectiveness of the intervention in the real world, whilst also carrying out health economics and implementation evaluations.

This project is funded by National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Clinical Trial & Cohort Studies Grant scheme (2022-2026). SHINE has completed recruitment.

Visit the study homepage to learn more about the study

Related publications:
- Protocol

CLASS: Circadian and Light in Adolescence: Sleep and School:
This is a collaborative project with Rajaratnam, Wiley, and Phillips groups. It is dual funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC, PI-Bei) and Australian Research Council (ARC, PI Rajaratnam) to longitudinally study changes in adolescents’ sleep and circadian rhythms, and how they are related to adolescents’ academic performance and mental health. 
Related publications: 
- Protocol
- Paper on sleep and circadian differences of in-person vs remote learning during COVID
- Papers on daily emotional trajectories and dynamics in adolescents.

Visit the study homepage to learn more about the study. Recruitment has now finished.

STA: Sleep and Thrive in Adolescence:
A pilot randomised controlled trial testing a scalable program to improve sleep in adolescents. Funded by Philips and Australaisian Sleep Association.

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SMILE: Study for Mother-Infant SLEep:
This is a 3-arm randomised controlled trial evaluating how different interventions, addressing different aspects of perinatal sleep challenges could reduce and prevent postpartum insomnia in first-time gestational parents with insomnia symptoms during pregnancy. The study has enrolled 127 participants and has finished data collection. This study is coordinated by Nina Quin. 
Related publications:
- Protocol
- Primary Outcome
- Paper on adherence and perceived usefulness of CBT-I components

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POSSUM: Postpartum Sleep Study for Mothers:
This is a 3-arm randomised controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia and Light Dark Therapy on sleep and wellbeing in birthing parents with significant insomnia symptoms 4-12 months following childbirth. This trial enrolled 114 participants and has finished data collection. This study is coordinated by Sumedha Verma.
Related publications:
- Protocol
- Primary outcome

SEED photoSEED: Sleep, Eat, Emotions, Development Project:
This is a longitudinal 2-arm randomised controlled trial of a scalable cognitive behavioural intervention for healthy sleep during pregnancy and postpartum. We enrolled 163 participants, and followed them up over 7 time points from third trimester of pregnancy to 2 years postpartum. We found both short- and long-term benefits of cognitive behavioural sleep intervention. This study was funded by the NHMRC and Australaisian Sleep Association, and coordinated by Donna Pinnington.
Related publications:
- Protocol
- Primary outcome
- Paper on longitudinal changes in sleep and chronotype across the perinatal periods
- Paper on longitudinal changes in depression and anxiety symptoms across the perinatal periods
- Paper on whether breastfeeding influences maternal sleep
- Paper on differences in sleep amongst infants and parents from South Korea, Australia, and the USA
- Paper on longitudinal, bi-directional associations between perinatal sleep and mental health
- Paper on adherence and perceived usefulness of CBT-I components

STEPS: Study of Teenage Emotions, Performance, and Sleep:
Adolescents often experience chronic sleep restriction on school days, and catch up on sleep during non-school days (weekends and vacations). In Project STEPS, 205 adolescents completed sleep, emotions, and neurocognitive functioning everyday, for 28 consecutive days, across both school terms and vacations. This allows us to examine daily relationships between adolescents' sleep and functional outcomes, and whether these relationships differ across school terms and vacations.
Key people: Lin Shen (lead), Svetlana Maskevich, Anthony Hand, Niamh Lewis.
Related publications:
- Paper on daily sleep need and sleep debt and their association with affect
- Paper on bidirectional associations between sleep and affect
- Paper on how adolescents decide when to go to bed and get up
- Paper on what helps and hurts adolescents' sleep
- Paper on how sleep predicts next-day attention, sleepiness, and fatigue

NITE: Novel Insomnia Treatment Experiment:
This is a 2-arm randomised controlled trial aiming to understand how using sleep wearable (i.e., Fitbit and Dreem), along with guidance based on CBT-I principles on how to interpret their data, may improve sleep in individuals with insomnia. We have enrolled 113 participants, and data collection will complete late 2021. This project is supported by Turner Industry Engagement Grant and coordinated by Marie-Antoinette Spina.
Related publications:
- Protocol
- Primary outcome

Individual Patient Data (IPD) Meta-analysis of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia RCTs:
This large international collaborative project aims to undertake systematic review and IPD meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia. Researchers from around the world contributed individual patient data from 67 trials so far. Data analysis is underway.
Key people: Bei Bei, Joshua Wiley, Kenneth Lichstein, Charles Morin, and Rachel Manber.

Healthy Sleep Clinic: An ongoing database:
The Monash University Healthy Sleep Clinic provides evidence-based treatments for sleep disorders to the broader community, while also serving as a platform to foster research excellence, professional training, and education. All patients are invited to participate in this ongoing database, so we could better understand the nature and treatment response of sleep disorders.

Postpartum Sleep and Fatigue:
In collaboration with School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and Masada Private Hospital, we studied sleep, fatigue, mood, and psychomotor vigilance of women attending a residential early parenting program for unsettled infant behaviours. This study was coordinated by Nathan Wilson, and has been completed with 7 publications (see publication list).

Sleep intraindividual variability:
We carried out a series of work on evidence-synthesis, method development, and empirical studies on the nature and correlates of daily, intraindividual variability of sleep/wake patterns. This body of work is summarised in our dedicated website: www.sleepv.org