How to Sleep Better: Is Sleeping in a Cold Room Healthier for You?

When we spend one-third of our lives sleeping, it’s pretty obvious that that portion of our day is an essential part of our lives. Sleep is essential to maintaining good health, but there may be something that may augment its virtues – knowing how to sleep the right way. A recent study says that cooler bedrooms help change our stored up “brown fat” and transform it in such a way that out metabolic health and energy expenditure comes out ahead. 

What is Brown Fat?

Most scientists never considered that adults had “brown fat.” But over the last few years, small elements of it have begun to be detected in many adults’ necks and upper backs. Unlike regular fat that has a white color, brown fat is metabolically active. That’s a good thing because studies show, at least in mice, that brown fat takes the sugar out of the bloodstream helping their bodies burn calories better and main their core temperatures.

What NIH Research Results Say

The same process appears to take place in human beings. Researchers with the National Institutes of Health asked five healthy male volunteers to sleep in a controlled environment for four months. During the daytime, the men went about their regular lives, and then returned each evening. Their meals were strictly controlled to keep their caloric intake the same.
During the first month, the bedrooms where the men slept were kept at 75 degrees, a temperature considered relatively neutral that would not require any moderating changes to their bodies. The following month, the temperature was lowered to 66 degrees, a level the researchers expected might stimulate brown-fat activity. During the next month, the bedroom temperature was set back to 75 degrees in order to moderate any effects caused by the colder room. Then finally, for the last month, the bedroom temperature was set to 81 degrees in order to test the effects of a warmer room.
The results turned out to be remarkable. When the bedroom temperature was lowered to 66 degrees, the men’s bodies reacted noticeably by almost doubling their volume of brown fat. Strangely, when the tests were completed after the men slept in the warmer 81 degree room, the amount of brown fat was actually less than the amount they had following the first scan.

What are the Implications?

The findings suggest that men can tweak their metabolic health simply by turning down the bedroom thermostat just a few degrees. The idea temperature appears to be between 60 to 67 degrees according to Dr. Chris Winter of The Huffington Post. And lowering your thermostat just a few degrees before retiring can also help decrease the risk of certain metabolic diseases, like diabetes, according to a study published by Diabetes Magazine. In their study, researchers compared the levels of blood sugar/insulin in test subjects along with their caloric expenditures in rooms of 66 and 75 degrees respectively, and determined that after four months of testing, the subjects who slept in the colder room experienced a number of metabolic advantages including a near doubling of “brown fat.” The subjects also burned fewer calories during the day when they slept in a colder room.

Other Benefits of “Sleeping Cool”

Another helpful attribute of sleeping in a colder environment appears to help you burn more calories during the day. Bestselling author Natasha Turner writes that sleeping in a room that’s warmer than 70 degrees appears to inhibit your body from cooling down naturally and releasing melatonin, the body’s most important anti-aging hormone. In addition, the cooler temperature helps the body release larger amounts of growth hormone, another of the anti-aging chemicals. The resulting effect is that you’ll look and feel younger.
Not only are there health benefits associated with sleeping in a cooler environment, there also may be some practical advantages. You may actually be able to go to sleep faster. Kathleen Doheny from WebMD Magazine reports that when we sleep in a cooler room, the temperature of our bodies will usually drop to a more desired level.
Our internal thermostats don’t like to be messed with. When we sleep in a too hot or too cold room, our bodies have a harder time moderating our internal thermostats. This results in keeping us awake and being restless throughout the night. If we can’t reach the desired goal of temperature regulation that our bodies want, it’s likely we won’t reach that deep sleep that we need to achieve in a colder room.

How to Sleep at the Right Temperature

Another way to cool our bodies down at night, even without touching the thermostat, is to sleep in the nude. By sleeping without clothes, your body temperature tends to drop more quickly and your body has an easier time trying to regulate your internal temperature. Also, by sleeping nude, your body will produce less Cortisol during the night. Cortisol is a naturally occurring hormone that’s associated with weight gain and stress. When your Cortisol levels are lowered, you’ll also be able to moderate your appetite and anxiety as well.
A health benefit that accompanies sleeping without clothes can be that it will help your relationship with your partner. Some research suggests that couples who sleep nude together have a more contented relationship compared with couples who continue to wear clothing. This may have something to do with skin contact and a hormone called oxytocin that’s secreted through the skin and is associated with sexual responsiveness. Oxytocin helps the body combat stress, lowers blood pressure, and helps alleviate some of the other forms of depression.

The “WHY” of How to Sleep Better

Cooling off at night appears to have quite a number of positive benefits. While we’re spending around a third of our lives in bed, it’s important that we get a good night’s sleep. A room that’s too hot will keep your core temperature from going down, which is essential in order for you to switch on the ‘sleep mechanism’. When you fall asleep, the temperature of your body drops to its lowest level around 3 to 4 hours after falling asleep. Keeping your bedroom cooler not only helps your body sleep better but it has additional advantages that are just coming to light now in the 21st Century.