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| Trouble Sleeping? Take it easy |  A Drop in Temperature May Help You Fall Asleep
A drop in body temperature near bedtime triggers the subjective sense that it’s time to go to sleep. Responding on time to this internal signal may help you fall asleep faster and sleep more restfully, according to a report in the current issue of the journal Sleep.
Body Temperature Varies
Body temperature, contrary to the common belief, is not consistently 98.6°F. That is just an average. Thus, temperature cycles from about 1 degree below to 1 degree above this average over the course of the day. Body temperature for healthy young adults, who sleep at night, usually is lowest around 4 to 5 a.m.
Most sleep episodes happen in a window from about 6 hours before the daily low to about 2 hours after it.
Sleep expert have long debated whether the nighttime drop in temperature induces sleep or follows it. One theory is simply the result of lying down and curtailing physical activity.
Study Subjects Monitored for Body Temperature
To investigate this question, Drs. Murphy and Campbell took on 21 men and 23 women, aged 19 to 82. Every one of the subjects was healthy and ordinarily slept between 6 and 9 hours at night.
The participants had their sleep monitored for 2 nights, the first to facilitate adaptation and the second to serve as a baseline. After that they spent 3 consecutive days and nights in special studio apartments isolated from all time cues.
For the period of the study, they wore rectal thermometers continuously to provide a minute-by-minute record of their body temperature.
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