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Taking a bath before bed increases your chances of falling asleep and the quality of your sleep, according to researchers in the US.
A team of biomedical engineers at the University of Texas at Austin analyzed data that show the ideal time to take a bath – and at what temperature – to get the best rest.
The secret is to hop in the bath 1–2 hours before bed and make sure the temperature of the water is around 41C, the Cockrell School of Engineering team discovered.
"When we looked through all known studies, we noticed significant disparities in terms of the approaches and findings," said Shahab Haghayegh, a PhD candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
"The only way to make an accurate determination of whether sleep can in fact be improved was to combine all the past data and look at it through a new lens."
The paper has been published in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews.
It was based on a review of 5,322 studies.
In exploring water-based passive body heating, they assessed a series of conditions.
Among them were the length of time it takes to move from full wakefulness to sleep, total sleep time, sleep efficiency and self-reported sleep quality.
The study found that as well as improving sleep quality, bathing before bed also hastened the speed at which people fall asleep by an average of 10 minutes.
Part of the reason for the effect is that the body naturally warms and cools at certain times of the day.
An hour or so before a person’s usual bedtime, their body temperature cools slightly.
It then drops more significantly during sleep.
Before waking, the body heats up again, acting as a biological alarm clock.
Having a bath 90 minutes or so before bed effectively cools the body, better preparing it for sleep.
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