Your sleep is highly dependent on the temperature of your body and sleeping environment. When you are asleep, your body’s internal core temperature drops to its lowest level. This low temperature actually helps your body sleep more soundly. You’ll be interested to know that there are a couple things you can do before bed in order to rest easily throughout the night.
Colder temperatures actually cue the body to fall asleep. The suggested temperature for your sleeping environment is 60-68 degrees Fahrenheit. You can get the best sleep in this temperature range. Some people have pajamas that help cool the body down by a couple degrees, but since the majority of us don’t have high-end pajamas like that, there is one thing you can do at night to help you sleep better. All you have to do is hop in a hot shower.
While a slightly chilled room can improve the quality of your sleep, a hot shower about an hour and a half before bed can increase the amount of deep sleep you get. When you get more hours of deep sleep, you wake up feeling refreshed, not sluggish. We aren’t saying that you should bundle up in your covers to warm up, though, because the hot shower does something special for the body.
It may seem counterintuitive to take a hot shower before bed if you are trying to lower your body temperature for better sleep, but it is not. You see, you have to get out of the shower. Exiting the shower into a colder environment causes the body to naturally cool down, especially when you dry off. The water evaporates on your skin and that helps to set you up for a night of deep sleep.
Remember to take a hot shower over an hour before bed. Taking a shower and then going directly to sleep doesn’t give your body the opportunity to naturally cool down and prepare for rest. And the cool thing (haha!) about showering at night is that you’ll save time during your morning routine. Maybe you could use your shower time to stretch or complete a few sets of jumping jacks to naturally energize yourself.
