What’s Your Other Sleep Number? The Best Temperature to Get a Good Night’s Rest
New Jersey, in just about a month or two, will see the temperature turn colder. My wife and I are more on the cool side when it comes to being comfortable while sleeping. Turns out a cold room may not be the best for optimal rest.
If you would like to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep through the night, it’s very important to have your bedroom at the right temperature. Every person is different, some like it hot, some like it cool, and some like it somewhere in between. According to Today, a new study seems to show that our parents and grandparents should be raising the thermostat when bedtime comes.
The study addresses the difficulty of falling asleep and staying asleep when you’re uncomfortable, and the temperature plays a huge part in that.
The goal was to find out what is the best temperature for the best sleep experience.
Researchers assembled a group of 50 adults ages 65 and up and analyzed sleep and environmental data for 11 thousand nights of sleep. The middle-aged participants wore devices to monitor their sleep for a full year. The data revealed that when bedroom temperatures were between 68 and 77 degrees, it helped to “enhance sleep quality.”
That’s slightly warmer than the 60 to 67 degrees the National Sleep Foundation recommends for a satisfactory sleep environment for most of us. The reasoning is that when we’re too hot while sleeping it’s associated with spending less time in the restorative sleep stage.
Many couples participate in thermostat wars. Fortunately for my wife and I, we agree on the temperature. We simply “set it and forget it,” the thermostat is set at 70 degrees every day of the year. The only time we touch it is to turn it on or off depending on the season.
This study found that sleep efficiency only started to decrease in participants when temperatures were north of 77 degrees. According to sleep expert Dr. Carol Ash, as you get older, it’s harder to regulate your internal temperature, so having a warmer room may help elderly people sleep more soundly. The key is to find the right temperature for you, one or two degrees can make a difference in how well you sleep.
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