Fall ASLEEP In Minutes … Doing This 1 Thing!

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😴 💤 Fall ASLEEP In Minutes…Doing This 1 Thing! Dr. Mandell

 

As evening approaches, our body temperature naturally drops, alerting our body it's time to slow down and rest. If the room temperature is too hot, it can potentially stop that signal (it's time to sleep) and postpone falling asleep. Because the room is too hot, you may also notice restless sleep.

Sleeping in a cooler room helps increase your natural melatonin production. Melatonin is a hormone that your brain produces to help with the timing of your circadian rhythms and your sleep. Try dimming your lights and decreasing your screen time before bed to help start the healthy process of your body producing melatonin for sleeping. 

As you fall asleep, cooler temperatures help you acquire deeper sleep, sleep faster, increase the quality of REM sleep, and lower the risk of metabolic diseases like diabetes. In a Harvard study, participants were likely to fall asleep faster, taking an average of 6.2 minutes when their body temperature decreased at its lowest (approx. 97.7ºF/36.5ºC). It took participants 20 minutes to fall asleep when they were warmer (98-99.5ºF/37-37.5ºC). (Djik & Czeisler, 1995).

A Japanese sleep society (Setokawa, et al, 2007) study reported an intervention that lowered the core body temperature of participants by approximately 1ºF (0.5-0.6ºC). This resulted in a remarkably shorter time to fall asleep (average 8.9 minutes) by polysomnography, the gold standard in sleep studies.