Sleeping is a process where the body rests and repairs. Surgical trauma can cause stress and change the original sleep patterns, and postoperative sleep disturbances appear. It may seriously affects patients′ postoperative rehabilitation and the quality of life, and gradually becomes a perioperative complications with great concern. In recent years, there are an increasing number of articles which report postoperative sleep disturbances are closely related to perioperative anesthesia management, including the use of anesthetics. Based on clinical trials and basic experimenttal data, this paper briefly summarizes the effects of different anesthetics on postoperative sleep disturbances and their possible regulatory mechanisms, so as to provide reference for determining the occurrence or development mechanisms and prevention and control strategies.