Taking a bath to sleep better

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Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin may have found a way to improve your sleep. They have discovered that taking a bath an hour and a half before going to bed in water that is about 40 to 43 degrees Celsius can greatly improve your sleep.

Taking a bath helps to improve sleep
"When we reviewed all the known studies on this topic, we found significant differences in approaches and outcomes," said Dr. Shahab Haghayegh, a candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and lead author of the paper. "The only way to accurately determine if we can really improve sleep is to combine all the past data and examine it from a new perspective."

In collaboration with the UT Health Science Center in Houston and the University of Southern California, UT researchers reviewed 5,322 studies. They extracted relevant information from this research that met predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria to explore the effects of passive water-based warming on a number of sleep-related conditions, sleep, total sleep time, sleep efficiency, the amount of time spent sleeping relative to total time spent in bed in order to sleep, and the subjective quality of sleep.

Meta-analytical tools were then used to assess the consistency of the studies and showed that an optimal temperature between 40 and 43 degrees Celsius improved the overall quality of sleep. When programmed 1 to 2 hours before bedtime, it can also accelerate the rate of falling asleep by an average of 10 minutes.

Bathing before bedtime contributes to the natural circadian process
Much of the science that supports the links between water-based body heating and improved sleep is already well established. For example, it is recognized that sleep and the core temperature of our body are regulated by a circadian clock located in the hypothalamus of the brain, which regulates the 24-hour cycle of many biological processes, including sleep and waking.

Hot baths and showers stimulate the body's thermoregulatory system, leading to a marked increase in blood flow from the body to the hands and feet, effectively evacuating body heat and lowering body temperature.

Therefore, if taken at the right biological time - 1 to 2 hours before bedtime - baths will contribute to the natural circadian process and increase the chance not only of not falling asleep too quickly, but also of getting better quality sleep.

The team wants to design a selective thermal stimulation system
The research team is currently working with the UT Office of Technology Commercialization to design a commercially viable bed system using UT's patented selective thermal stimulation technology. It allows the thermoregulation function to be manipulated on demand and the temperature to be controlled in two temperature zones in order to maintain the optimal temperature throughout the night.