What’s the Best Temperature for Sleep?
Sleep has a much more important role than we would be tempted to believe, being more than just the pleasure of sleeping. The minimum duration of quality sleep is seven hours a night, and the excess can be harmful as well.
The effects that lack of sleep can have on the psyche are very harmful, as we learn from various existing studies.
At the end of an exhausting day, we want nothing more than to go to bed, free our minds from unnecessary thoughts, and let our sleep take over. However, in vain we would like to have a restful and comfortable sleep or cool nights, if the temperature in the bedroom is only good for a sauna. Lack of thermal comfort can cause intermittent periods of sleep, with frequent changes in body position. The optimum temperature for a restful sleep is between 60 and 67° F, for both adults and children. According to studies, the brain is sensitive to high temperatures, so in the hot nights there are sleep disorders or nightmares. This situation is similar to that of fever or chills. Deep sleep boosts cell regeneration and stimulates hormone secretion, but with the right choices, you will be able to get good quality sleep. About 36% of our lives are spent sleeping, and sleep plays a vital role in health and in influencing mood and energy levels. Air conditioning can be considered the best solution to ensure a cool air and provide you with the desired temperature in the room, thus becoming a necessity on excessively hot days.
A good idea would be to pay attention to the sleep-mode function when purchasing an air conditioner, as due to its quiet operation it can be used at night. Sleep-mode operates at a uniform and lower level of noise at night, having the role of ensuring comfort during sleep, the air jet is directed towards the ceiling and the fan runs at a lower speed, ensuring, at the same time, a constant temperature in the room.
For those who can’t stand to sleep with the air conditioner on, a good choice is to cool the room before bed. Since the device will work until it stabilizes the room temperature, cooling both the air and the objects in the room. One piece of information that should be kept in mind is that furniture and walls accumulate a fairly large amount of heat, and if they are brought to a low temperature, thermal comfort can be maintained throughout the night, without the need to let the air conditioning work at night. Using the air conditioner at least one hour before bedtime means getting a particularly beneficial effect on sleep-inducing processes. As it is known, the cold has a sedative and even hypnotic effect for those who are tired, so a lower temperature of the air breathed in the last hour before bed will act on the hypothalamus, the area of the brain involved in both warm accommodation and sleep control. . Admittedly, this very old biological mechanism was inherited from our ancestors who lived at the edge of the forest, a place where the air cooled in the evening. Therefore, exposure to low temperatures on summer evenings is a healthy and natural mechanism for regulating sleep.