For many people, an evening shower feels like a natural end to the day. This nightly habit may affect your body temperature and, as a result, your sleep quality.

Try a hot bath or shower before bed

For many people, an evening shower feels like a natural end to the day. This nightly habit may affect your body temperature and, as a result, your sleep quality.

According to Sleep Foundation, body temperature plays an important role in the sleep-wake cycle, and human bodies naturally experience a decrease in core body temperature before nightly sleep. Scientists have found that by impacting this natural temperature regulation process, showers and baths can affect sleep. We will take a look at the benefits of showering before bed, and examine whether a hot or cold shower is better for sleep.

Representational image (Photo: IStock)

When incorporated into a bedtime routine, a nighttime shower may help send your brain the signal that it is time to sleep. Showering at night also ensures you will be cleaner when you go to bed, reducing the buildup of sweat, dirt, and body oils on your bedding.

Additionally, research suggests showering before bed might provide other benefits. These benefits vary, depending on whether you take a hot or cold shower.

As Healthline reported, taking a hot bath before bed could help you sleep better, especially if the water temperature and timing of the bath are just right.

A research team led by Shahab Haghayegh, a PhD candidate in the department of biomedical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, conducted a systematic data analysis evaluating research that linked bathing, water temperature, and sleep quality. The researchers reviewed 5,322 studies and used about a dozen with solid methodologies to make their conclusions. The report was published in Sleep Medicine Reviews.

According to their results, bathing one to two hours — ideally, 90 minutes — before bed in water at 104 to 109°F (40 to 43°C) did the trick to help people get the best quality sleep. Bathing at that time and temperature can help you fall asleep an average of 10 minutes quicker than normal.

Their report explored the effects of how body heat could affect the ability to fall asleep.

The findings included information on sleep onset latency, which is how long it takes to go from full wakefulness to sleep; sleep efficiency, the amount of time spent asleep relative to the total amount of time spent in bed intended for sleep; and subjective sleep quality.

A cup of herbal tea

Herbal ingredients. Photo: loctancuong.com.

Insomnia has lots of causes, and there's no one antidote that will allow you score the sleep you need. But the beverages you drink in the hours leading up to bedtime can set the stage so you feel more relaxed, making it that much easier to drift off to dreamland.

If you're going to drink tea as part of your bedtime routine, choose herbal teas, which are naturally caffeine-free. Avoid teas like black tea, matcha, or even green tea, which contain caffeine, says Adams.

Herbal teas are generally safe, but can have interactions with certain medications. If you're on medications, have other health conditions, or are pregnant or nursing, talk with your doctor before starting to consume herbal teas regularly.

Herbal tea can be a soothing ritual to incorporate into your wind-down routine, says New York City-based integrative medicine dietitian Robin Foroutan, MS, RDN. She specifically recommends Tulsi tea (also known as Holy Basil tea), which can lower cortisol levels (aka, levels of the stress hormone cortisol) and help you attain more restorative sleep.

Like Tulsi tea, valerian, passionflower, and chamomile tea are also herbal teas, but they share a slightly different good-sleep mechanism. "There are elements in passionflower, chamomile, and valerian root that have been shown to be somewhat sedating," says Dr. Winter.

More than that, the ritual of sipping tea has its own wind-down reward. "It's warm. You're smelling and tasting something interesting and floral. And it may be something you do at the same time every night," explains Winter. This ritual is not only relaxing, but it cues up your body and mind that it's almost time for bed.

Dr. Thanh Herbal Tea. Photo: vietnamtimes.

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