Study: Warm Baths before Bed Can Improve Sleep Quality

A study has found that a warm bath or shower before bed can help improve sleep. For the past years, warm baths had been established to be a good remedy for sleep problems. However, how exactly they help was still unknown. To find out, scientists from the University of Texas and the University of Southern California analyzed 5,322 past studies about the impact of taking warm baths or showers on sleep. Their aim was to see how the practice affects quality of sleep and the time it takes for people to fall asleep. The scientists found that taking a bath or shower with water heated at 4o t0 42.5 degrees Celsius improved people’s overall sleep quality. In addition, they discovered that baths taken an hour or two before bedtime made people fall asleep faster by about 10 minutes. Warm baths and showers stimulate the body’s temperature regulation system, the scientists explained. After the body is immersed in warm water, blood flows away from the body’s core and toward the hands and feet, resulting in an overall lower body temperature. When the body’s temperature drops low enough, the natural body clock will signal the brain that it is time to go to sleep. The researchers would like to use their current findings to develop technology meant to improve sleep, such as a water bed that can help regulate body temperature during sleep. They also said that further studies are needed to fully reap the benefits of warm baths and showers. They said that they still have to look into the ideal duration of nighttime baths that will yield the best results.