Here is the solution..... managing your body temperature will manage your sleep quality. The normal resting temperature for us humans is 98.6 Fahrenheit. What is usually less known, is how it changes over a full 24-hour day: from a cool 96.4F at around 5am, to being warmest, around 100F, in the late afternoon.
As part of this process, temperature change plays a vital role in our sleep. During the normal human circadian rhythm, sleep happens with a drop in core body temperature. Deviations from these finely orchestrated changes can mean changes in sleep quality.
Body temperature correlates with overall sleep quality. The environment must change to suit our body, not vice versa.
Needless to say, temperature matters. Knowledge we have about it matters. And what surrounds us in the bedroom matters: from room temperature, to what we wear to bed (see this blog), and the bedding we sleep in.
By better understanding our own processes, we can develop habits that aid in our sleep. Take for instance the nighttime hot shower. Great idea if it’s done about 1½ hours before bed. The act of cooling down that happens when getting dry, helps our body with the sleepy-time process. Shower too close to bedtime however, and we can lay awake, unable to lose the heat we need in order to fall asleep.
I firmly believe that if we work with what happens naturally, not against it (ie: using bedding materials that don’t retain heat and keep us hot) we can improve the quality of our sleep. And therefore, our lives.