True Impact Of Sleeping With Central Heat On, According To Experts
As winter draws in, there’s nothing cozier than popping the central heating on before bed. You can curl up all toasty under the sheets, feeling cocooned and protected from the elements outside. But as lovely as this sounds, experts say sleeping in warm conditions may have a surprising impact on your health.
Keeping cozy
For the cold-blooded among you, having the heating on at night in winter may seem like a must. You’ve got to make sure those ice-block feet don’t take long to thaw out, after all. And when you wake up in the morning, at least you’ll know the house will be at a lovely temperature for getting out of bed, trundling down the stairs and making a cup of joe. No more pressing the snooze button to hold on to those last few moments of warmth!
Perfect temperature for sleep
Being all toasty while you snooze sounds like it’d be great for your health. But did you know that there’s actually a perfect temperature that we should be sleeping in? Yep, experts say that when we settle down for the night, our bedrooms should be roughly 65°F. And there’s a key reason for this.
Our natural rhythms
Throughout the night, the temperature of our body naturally fluctuates. It’s all to do with our built-in rhythms and how we respond to the different times of the day. When the sun goes down, for example, we tend to get cooler, preparing for sleep. And during the morning, when it starts to get light, we warm up. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
Cooling process
The normal temperature of the human body is about 98.6°F. But to get ready for sleep, it can decrease by a good 2°F — all on its own, we might add. That’s right: during the evening, our brain gets to work lowering our body temperature. It makes blood go to our feet and hands so that we lose heat more quickly. But, of course, having the heating on at night can interrupt these natural body-cooling processes.
