According to studies, the best room temperature for sleeping is from 60-68 degrees Fahrenheit. So, people should avoid extremely hot or cold rooms if they want to get a proper night sleep. However, new research shows that this is not enough.
It is far more complicated to feel completely rested. Besides, even when you lie down, you redistribute your entire body heat from your core to the other parts of the body. Therefore, only turning down the thermostat is not enough.
Furthermore, sleep deprivation can affect your entire immune system and cause illness or physical stress. In the end, this explains why the lack of sleep can increase the chance of developing multiple chronic diseases.
Therefore, a good night sleep is crucial for your overall health.
Why Do You Need Proper Sleep?
Four hours after you fall asleep, the internal temperature of your body drops significantly. But, studies claim that people with insomnia have a warmer body temperature before they go to sleep.
As a result, they have a harder time to drift off into their dreams. That is why scientist believe if you can take something that can be similar to your body temperature drop, it might help to fall asleep easier.
Such an example is a hot bath. After you get out of a hot bath, you can experience a sudden temperature change in your body, which may prove useful for a good night sleep.
The Use of Cooling Caps
According to scientists from the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine, a ‘’cool brain’’ is important for sleeping properly. They believe that if people with insomnia wear a cooling cap, filled with cold water that circulates, they can get a better night sleep.
Plus, they can even sleep as easily as the people who have no sleep disorders at all. As a result, the ones who wore the coldest caps slept better compared to the others who wore warmer caps.
The theory behind these results is that the cap can decrease the brain activity and temperature. Therefore, it can be useful for many people who have insomnia. Besides, it is important to sleep enough if you don’t want to increase your brain temperature.
How Is This Connected with Losing Weight?
Latest research from the National Institutes of Health, claims that if you sleep in a cool room, you may be able to lose some weight.
As the Chairman of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Dr. Francesco Celi, claims that if you slightly reduce the temperature in your room, you might be able to remove some excess blood sugar and calories.
The key to this result is the body’s brown fat. It can help the body dispose of some of the excess fat in the body by generating heat. Therefore, this may be an ideal way for maintaining a healthy metabolism and losing some weight.
However, there is a direct connection between the optimal metabolic markers and the activated brown fat.
So, the more brown fat you have, the better. On top of that, the people who have more brown fat have a faster metabolism, more insulin, and an increased blood sugar control. But when you age, the action slows down.
Therefore, it is easy to understand why older people can gain more weight. So, to avoid this, you need to exercise a bit more. However, there is a slight issue. A recent study claims, brown fat is not the best solution for a good night sleep.
Shivering Might Activate Brown Fat
Dr. Celi claims that shivering can inspire the activities of brown fat. It resembles an exercise and secretes a hormone that improves the use of energy in the brown fat cells. But, it may not be enough for a good night sleep.
According to Dr. Eus van Someren, an ideal room temperature is not enough for a proper night sleep and boosting the metabolism and health. Instead, you might end up sleep deprived.
Furthermore, you need thin pajamas, a light blanket, and a sheet if your room is at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. So, if you love the heat that is great, but if not, you might end up not sleeping well.
As a result, you won’t experience too much activity in the brown fat. Or, for example, there is a bed partner that has too high or too low body temperature, you might end complicating this problem.
That is the reason why finding your ideal temperature for sleeping is tricky and differs for everyone, even if it is an important factor for a good sleep.
Try to Sleep Without Pajamas
If you want to sleep better, you shouldn’t sleep with your pajamas, says Professor Russell Foster from the University of Oxford. As studies claim, one-third of the adults in the US already use this technic.
Besides, if you wear a lot of clothing, it might be harder for your body to regulate its temperature. However, it is crucial that your hands and feet are warm at all times because the blood vessels near the skin can block or reduce the flow of blood.
Therefore, if your entire skin is warm, it can cause your blood vessels to widen and generate heat loss. So, make sure your room is at the right temperature, not too cold and not to hold.
The Risks of Not Enough Sleep
Six hours per night are not enough for a good night sleep. That is the reason why we need to sleep more every day, for at least 7 or 8 hours if we want our bodies to become healthier.
Accelerated Tumor Growth
If you don’t sleep enough, there won’t be enough melatonin production in your body and can affect your body while it tries to recover from cancer or other types of hormones. Moreover, it can affect the hormone and give a new supply of blood to the tumors.
As a result, your tumors might grow.
Increased Risk of Heart Disease
Lack of sleep can weaken the heart. Therefore, your heart can become prone to new diseases.
Resistant Hypertension
If you don’t sleep enough, it might affect the type of hypertension that responds to common treatments that use drugs.
Make it Harder to Lose Weight
The most common cause behind this risk is because your metabolism will face many changes if you don’t get enough sleep. Also, the most important hormone, leptin, will fall and you will start to feel hungrier by the minute.
In addition, you will start to gain weight, even if you worked hard to lose it.
Inspire a Pre-Diabetic State
When you start to feel hungrier each minute, you will eat again and again. As a result, you, will gain weight and even develop pre-diabetes.
Increased Risk of Death
There is a chance that lack of sleep might result in a premature death. But only in severe cases. For example, if you don’t sleep for days, you might severely damage your body and even cause a heart attack.
Damage to the Brain
There is also a chance that it can affect your brain by interfering with the production of cells and brain detoxification. In the end, it might produce plaques which are common for the people with Alzheimer’s.
Premature Aging
If you don’t sleep enough, there might be an interference with the growth hormone production. When you sleep, this hormone emits from the pituitary gland and helps your skin.
A Trick for a Deep Sleep
The more you sleep the better. Deep sleep is a crucial phase for our bodies if we want to regenerate and repair properly. Besides, in the morning we will feel refreshed and more productive.
Therefore, sound stimulation can be an effective trick to try out.
According to a recent study issued in the journal Neuron, If you play ‘’pink noise’’ sounds, you can remain in deep sleep far longer. Moreover, participants’ memory dramatically increased after their deep sleep.
They were supposed to remember 120 pairs of words before they go to sleep. After the sound stimulation, the subjects had an increased memory by 60%. They managed to remember 22 sets, compared to the subjects that listened to no music.
Instead, they remembered only 13 sets. Therefore, the key to best results is the type of frequency of the sound. If you sync the sound with your brain, you might be able to improve your memory.
The brain waves increase during the deep sleep and process information. So, you should use this method at home and listen to some ‘’pink noise’’ sounds while you sleep. Or, better yet, turn on a fan to get the same benefit.
In addition, you can get a fitness tracker to record your sleep. Maybe this will inspire you to change the sleeping routine and get a better sleeping habit.
Sources and Gadgets That Can Disturb Your Sleep
If you want to know why you can’t sleep at all, maybe this list can help you out. Here are some things that can disturb your sleep:
- drinking too much alcohol in the evening
- computers, cell phones, TV, tablets
- pain
- heavy meals, spicy food, dark chocolate, unhealthy fats
- pets
In a study from 2008, people who used mobile phones before they go to sleep have trouble falling asleep. Another study in 2014, also supported this claim and suggested that people turn off all their devices if they want to properly rest.
How to Get a Proper Sleep with No Interruptions
You need to make some minor changes in your daily routine. Here are some ideas that you can try to implement these changes:
- Get some sunlight in the morning.
- Get yellow, red or orange light bulbs that are low-wattage and replace your other sources of light.
- Take a hot bath 90/120 minutes prior to bedtime.
- Avoid watching TV before you sleep and turn off your phones, tablets, and computers.
- Try to sleep in a completely dark room.
- Be careful of electromagnetic fields in the bedroom.
- Get enough sun exposure during the day.
- Consume vitamin D.
- Keep the temperature in the room where you sleep below 70 degrees F.
Sources: Dr. Mercola | WebMD | Sleep
