warm bath or shower “has long been believed. And it’s nice to see the literature provide support for it.”
Krause is a doctoral candidate in psychology with the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
It may seem a bit counterintuitive, he acknowledged, given that it essentially involves exposing the skin to a certain amount of heat to trigger a drop in body temperature.
“[But] the net effect of this is a cooling of the core body and brain temperature, which is the necessary sleep-initiating cue the brain is waiting for,” Krause explained.
“I think this is such a nice, simple and subtle technique to help with sleep,” he added. “And it’s always one of my main recommendations for people having trouble initiating sleep.”
More information
For more on healthy sleeping, go to the National Sleep Foundation.
