Having trouble falling asleep? You probably already know that taking a warm shower or bath can help. But did you know there’s actually an ideal time to do it? A new study figured out when.
Criteria for analyzing sleep
A team of researchers from the University of Texas at Austin analyzed information from 5,322 studies. They came from databases that included PubMed, Medline, PsychInfo and others.
They were specifically looking at the effects of “water-based passive body heating” on sleep quality. The indicators were:
-
total sleep time
-
sleep efficiency (the time you’re asleep divided by the total time you’re in bed, minus how long it takes to fall asleep)
-
slow-wave sleep (the deepest phase of sleep—which is vital for memory consolidation and learning)
-
subjective sleep quality
-
wake after sleep onset
-
sleep onset latency (how long it takes to fall asleep)
And the survey says …
According to the data-crunchers, the best time to take a shower or bath is one to two hours before going to bed. You only need about 10 minutes to reap the benefits; no need to soak for an hour.
Bathing an hour or two before bed cools your body down by improving blood circulation from your core to your hands and feet. It also improves your “temperature circadian rhythm” to help you fall asleep faster and obtain better sleep quality.
“The only way to make an accurate determination of whether sleep can in fact, be improved was to combine all the past data and look at [them] through a new lens,” says Shahab Haghayehg, who works as a doctoral researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. “Yes, the data [prove] that a warm shower or bath before bed does make a huge difference in your overall sleep quality. I shower every night before bed now.”
The results were published in the journal
Sleep Medicine Reviews.
