HOUSTON: Bathing one to two hours before bedtime in water about 41 degrees celsius warm may significantly improve your sleep, a study claims.
The researchers at the University of Texas at Austin in the US reviewed 5,322 studies.
They assessed the consistency between relevant studies and showed that an optimum temperature of between 104 and 109 degrees Fahrenheit (40 to 43 degrees Celsius) improved overall sleep quality.
When scheduled one to two hours before bedtime, it can also hasten the speed of falling asleep by an average of 10 minutes, according to the research published in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews.
Much of the science to support links between water-based body heating and improved sleep is already well-established, researchers said.
For example, it is understood that both sleep and our body’s core temperature are regulated by a circadian clock located within the brain’s hypothalamus that drives the 24-hour patterns of many biological processes, including sleep and wakefulness, they said.
Body temperature, which is involved in the regulation of the sleep/wake cycle, exhibits a circadian cycle, being two to three degrees Fahrenheit higher in the late afternoon/early evening than during sleep, when it is the lowest.
The average person’s circadian cycle is characterised by a reduction in core body temperature of about 0.5 to 1 F around an hour before usual sleep time, dropping to its lowest level between the middle and later span of nighttime sleep, according to researchers. (AGENCIES)
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