Suffering from Insomnia? Try This Very Simple Tip!

Yassmine Elsayed

Insomnia has many reasons, but same symptoms.. One struggles to fall asleep, or don’t get enough sleep and then might feel sleepy during the day.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has found that one in three American adults have symptoms of insomnia. The Institute of Medicine reported that the long-term effects of sleep deprivation can cause serious health consequences such as hypertension, diabetes, heart attack, stroke and depression. Further more, data show there are about 100,000 crashes each year related to drowsy driving.

The existence of many prescribed sleep aids, questioned the possibility of getting better sleep without medication.. Well, Dr. Shahab Haghayegh, from University of Texas at Austin, just gives us the clue.

In an article published by Associated Press, he introduced himself saying: “I am sleep researcher and graduate student in biomedical engineering at the University of Texas”.

He went on to say that in a recently published study, in which he contributed, in collaboration with the UT Health Science Center at Houston and the University of Southern California, the researchers found that a warm bath or shower one to two hours before bedtime can significantly improve sleeping.

“My team and I reviewed more than 5,000 studies related to bathing and sleep. Seventeen of these studies met our study criteria to explore the effects of warm bath or shower on sleep. We used a statistical procedure for combining data from multiple studies and to find the optimal timing for the bath,” he explained.

The researchers concluded that a warm bath, of around 104 and 109 degrees Fahrenheit, for as little as 10 minutes can significantly improve overall sleep efficiency. In other words, a warm bath led to more time spent in actual sleep rather than turning or tossing and trying to fall asleep, compared to usual sleep without taking bath. When scheduled one to two hours before bedtime, a warm bath can also hasten the speed of falling asleep by about 36%.

Dr. Haghayegh explained: “the body temperature is not constant during 24 hours. It is higher in the morning and evening, and it is lowest during nighttime sleep. The body temperature needs to drop to initiate good sleep. “When we take a warm bath or shower, the body brings large amount of blood flow to the surface, especially hands and feet. This blood flow brings the heat from the core to the surface and rejects the heat to the environment and causes a drop in body temperature. Therefore, if you take a warm bath/shower at the right biological time – one to two hours before bedtime – it will aid your natural circadian process and improve your sleep”.

Haghayegh noted that, as a next step, there will be researching on how to design a commercially viable bed system with technology that mimics the effect of warm bath. The bed of the future to fight Insomnia!