A hot footbath can do wonders. Like, wonders. Warming your feet for 30 minutes, at least 60-90 minutes before bedtime, will set in motion an act of cooling down that signals to your body it's time to sleep. A Japanese sleep study found that a footbath can get you to sleep faster and add 20 minutes to your overall asleep time.
And in Switzerland, researchers at the Chronobiology and Sleep laboratory in Basel found that people fell asleep immediately after redistribution in blood flow from the body’s ‘core’ to the hands and feet. (The reverse is also true: if the extremities are cold, inhibiting the free flow of blood, the sleep hormones fail to kick in and restless insomnia prevails.)
So perhaps Grandma’s recipe of a hot water bottle in bed, or wearing woollen bed socks (as unsexy as they are), wasn’t so far off after all!
Try this in your foot bath: Adrian Taricani, our expert acupuncture advisor (who co-wrote the acupressure infographic for our SleepSpheres product), recommends adding thin slices of fresh ginger to the hot water. “This will help bring the energy down from your head.” A couple drops of Lavender essential oil in the water can also work wonders. Or try your own favorite relaxing essence.
Sleep well now!