Cold or hot? This is the ideal temperature for good sleep according to Harvard

The importance of sleep cannot be denied. YouEveryone feels better after a good night’s sleep, and lack of sleep can have deeply negative effects both in the body and in the brain. Lack of sleep can be caused by different factors, such as food, stress, noise and even the mattress used, but is this the case?Could the weather affect sleep?

Sleep plays an important role in cognitive function and the maintenance of good psychological health. Also helps keep the brain healthy by eliminating waste. Sleeping less than seven hours a night is linked to an increased risk of obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and frequent mental anguish.

Globally, figures show that approximately 40% of the population sleep poorly, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). This can directly impact the body through stress or anxiety disorders, among others.

In Chile, an analysis carried out in 2021 by the Somno Clinic center specializing in sleep medicine, has shown that 83.6% of Chileans are not satisfied with the quality of their sleep, while 74.6% say they are very worried about their poor sleep.

The problem is As we age, we often experience disruptions in our sleep patterns, including difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep. Older people suffer from insufficient, restless and interrupted sleep, compounded by the fact that they tend to fall asleep and get up earlier, according to the study. National Institute on Aging which subtracts hours of sleep.

Older people need seven to nine hours of sleep a day. These sleep disturbances are thought to contribute to cognitive and physical decline, mood, irritability, affect, productivity, and stress response, which may increase psychiatric disturbances as the population is ageing.

Now a new study of Harvard University scientists and published in Total Environmental Science showed that Cold and heat are directly related to the quality of sleep, with ambient temperature being a key factor for good rest.

For most people, having a bedroom temperature between 15°C and 19°C is enough to get restful sleep and not toss and turn, according to the National Sleep Foundation.

But in the elderly, this temperature must be higher, because as you age, the ability to regulate internal temperature is no longer as effective. So keeping the bedroom at a slightly warmer temperature can help you sleep better and wake up less, according to the study.

Andrés Silva Ruiz, neurologist at Clínica Somno, says that “Older people have their most fragile regulatory mechanism. In general, they have thinner skin, lose heat more easily and have less muscle mass. This way, it is more difficult for them to regulate the temperature, which requires a higher temperature to sleep.

The study notes that The ideal temperature for the sleep of the elderly to be more effective and restorative is between 20ºC and 25ºC. According to the authors, sleep efficiency decreased between 5 and 10% when the nighttime ambient temperature increased from 25 ºC to 30 ºC.

“These results show the potential to improve sleep quality in the elderly by optimizing home thermal environments and emphasize the importance of personalized temperature settings based on individual needs and circumstances,” he said in a statement. release Principal Investigator Amir Baniassadi, PhD, of the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Research in Aging at Hebrew SeniorLife and Harvard Medical School.

To get this dataresearchers conducted a longitudinal observation examining the association between nighttime bedroom temperature and sleep quality on a sample of 50 elderly people.

They used wearable sleep monitors and environmental sensors to analyze sleep duration, efficiency and restlessness over a period of time. The study collected nearly 11,000 individual nights of sleep.

The study highlights the potential impact of the climate crisis on the sleep quality of older people, especially those with lower socioeconomic status.

Along the same lines, neurologist Silva Ruiz said the climate crisis can influence sleep because “by having more unstable environmental temperatures, our body has to work harder to keep its temperature balanced, which can lead to interrupted sleep.

The study notes that research into the causes of poor sleep has primarily focused on physiological and behavioral factors, although evidence suggests that the environment in which a person sleeps may be just as influential.

As a consequence of the above, the possibility of intervening on the environment to improve sleep-related outcomes has been overlooked. For the researchers, “the link between the ambient temperature of the home and the sleep of the elderly may be a potential target for improving sleep”, and this is what motivated them to carry out this study.

The authors plan to continue this line of work by focusing on the potential impact of climate change on the sleep of low-income older adults and developing interventions to optimize their environment.

On the other hand, the temperature of young people is different from that of older people. Neurologist Silva Ruiz explains that human beings operate with more or less stable temperatures, which allows them to adapt to the environment. In this sense, whether it is cold or hot, the brain, body and nervous system work together to regulate body temperature.

However, the sleep specialist explains that a cool temperature makes our sleep system work less. “This is explained by the fact that at the beginning of the night the body temperature drops, but as sleep progresses and we enter the phase of REM sleep, where important regeneration processes take place, the reverse occurs and body temperature rises. Finally, with a fresh environment, it is compensated”.

If it’s very hot, sleep is split, because when you’re in deep REM sleep, the temperature rises and a cooler environment helps you be more stable. So before going to bed, make sure the temperature is adequate for quality sleep.