Most Cannabis Users Say the Plant Improves Sleep, Survey Shows

About two-thirds of American cannabis users say the plant helps them sleep better. What the clinical evidence shows about that reported benefit is considerably more complicated.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine released results from its 2025 Sleep Prioritization Survey on June 1, 2026, polling 2,007 U.S. adults on cannabis use and sleep quality. Among respondents who reported using cannabis, 64 percent said it improved their sleep — 35 percent describing the effect as significant and 29 percent calling it slight. Sixteen percent of cannabis users said it made their sleep worse, while 21 percent reported no change. Nearly half the full sample (47 percent) said they do not use cannabis at all.

What the survey found

The AASM commissioned Atomik Research to conduct the online poll between June 5–13, 2025, with a margin of error of ±2 percentage points. The results showed meaningful variation by sex and age. Men outpaced women in reporting a sleep benefit: 39 percent of male respondents said cannabis improved their sleep, compared with 28 percent of women. Over half of women (55 percent) reported not using cannabis at all, versus 39 percent of men.

Adults between 25 and 44 were most likely to report a benefit, with 45 percent of that age group saying cannabis helped them sleep. Older adults were less likely to report using cannabis in the first place.

Separate Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from the 2024 National Health Interview Survey supply population-level context. Among the 12.9 percent of U.S. adults who use any sleep aid regularly, 3.7 percent rely on cannabis or CBD products — comparable to the 5.2 percent who use prescription sleep medications on a regular basis. Cannabis use for sleep skews younger: 5.5 percent of adults ages 18–34 reported using it most days for that purpose, compared with 1.7 percent of adults 65 and older.

The gap between perceived and measured effects

Consumer surveys capture what people believe about their own sleep. Whether cannabis actually improves sleep — as measured with polysomnography and other objective tools — is where the evidence becomes more complicated.

A systematic review published in Sleep Medicine Reviews found that cannabinoids significantly improved self-reported sleep quality across the studies it examined — the review that the AASM itself cited in releasing its survey. But a separate study in Sleep — the AASM’s flagship peer-reviewed journal — found the reverse when researchers moved to objective measurement: long-term daily cannabis use was associated with greater wakefulness during the night.

A 2026 pilot study cited by the AASM helps explain that divergence. When researchers compared self-reported sleep outcomes with objective measures in a group of cannabis users, people who believed cannabis would improve their sleep consistently overestimated how quickly they fell asleep and how long they slept. Expectation does some of the work that users attribute to the drug. A separate systematic review of cannabis and sleep architecture reached a similar conclusion about the evidence base overall, finding that cannabis does not consistently alter objective sleep parameters such as duration, latency, or wake time — and that early findings of REM suppression from small, high-THC studies have not held up in more recent research using larger samples and lower therapeutic doses.

Subjective sleep quality still carries genuine clinical weight — how rested someone feels matters. But large-scale survey data on perceived benefit should be read alongside what controlled research shows about objective sleep architecture.

What sleep specialists recommend

“Use of marijuana and other cannabis products is also associated with several clinical concerns, including increased risks of daytime sleepiness, impaired driving performance, physical dependence, and withdrawal symptoms such as sleep disruption,” AASM past president Dr. Kannan Ramar said in the survey release. He recommended that anyone with ongoing sleep concerns consult a healthcare professional, since sleep specialists can provide evidence-based treatment options.

The AASM’s clinical practice guidelines identify cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia as the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia — a structured, non-pharmacological approach with a strong outcome record and no dependence risk. The organization has not endorsed cannabis as a treatment for insomnia or any other sleep disorder.

The withdrawal risk Ramar cited deserves particular attention for patients using cannabis as a regular sleep aid. Research on cannabis cessation consistently shows a predictable cluster of sleep disturbances when use stops: reduced total sleep time, prolonged time to fall asleep, and rebound increases in REM sleep. These effects typically emerge within days and can persist for weeks before resolving. Patients who attribute better sleep to cannabis may not recognize that difficulty sleeping when they stop partly reflects withdrawal, rather than the return of an underlying problem.

For patients who have shifted to cannabis from alcohol or prescription sleep medications, that withdrawal dynamic is worth understanding before starting — not after months of regular use.

The same consideration applies to athletes using CBD for recovery who are counting on sleep benefits: the evidence base for sleep-specific effects is limited across the cannabinoid class, and the risk profiles of THC-dominant and CBD-primary products differ considerably.

For anyone with persistent sleep difficulties, the AASM’s recommended first step is a physician consultation — which can lead to referral to a sleep specialist or accredited sleep center equipped to identify whether an underlying disorder is driving the problem.