The Ideal Bedroom Environment and Temperature

In the first intervention, we suggested that to combat sleep anxiety, you need to create think of your bed as a warm, snug and safe place to sleep.  Now, we will extend that a little further by focusing on temperature and light in the bedroom.    Start this second intervention by reviewing the techniques in intervention 1 for sleep anxiety.  Those techniques include:

a.      Re-wiring your association with the bed and using the bed for sleep only and not as a place to do work or stress out.

b.      Using relaxation techniques once you hit the pillow to help fall off to sleep.

To build on this good feeling about your bedroom environment you should first focus on temperature and then on light.

Temperature

When you first fall asleep, your body temperature drops by as much as 1-2 degrees F.  That drop actually helps facilitate healthy sleep by facilitating the release of hormones from the brain that sustain and maintain healthy sleep architecture.  Then as you get closer to waking up in the morning, your body warms up a bit to help facilitate being awake and activity during the day.  The ideal temperature range for sleeping is between about 60- and 65-degrees F or 15.5 to 18.3 degrees C.  If you are not able to get your bedroom that cool, then consider a cooling blanket or mattress topper to bring the temp down as you sleep.

Temperature interventions can affect latency, duration, restlessness, and overall quality.  This makes them powerful and comprehensive sleep interventions.  Bring your bedroom temperature to the ideal range for at least 2 weeks.  Record latency, duration, restlessness, overall sleep score and Epworth sleepiness index daily.  If you see substantial improvements in sleep, maintain your new temperature plan moving forward.