Why a Cooler Bedroom Temperature Helps You Sleep Better

From healthcare.utah.edu

Hot summer nights can make it harder to fall asleep—and stay asleep. If you’ve been waking up sweaty or lying awake long after bedtime, your bedroom temperature could be part of the problem.

Chitra Lal, MD,  clinical professor of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine and director of University of Utah Health’s Sleep Wake Center, has helped many patients overcome persistent sleeplessness by troubleshooting a common culprit: body temperature.

Small changes to your sleep environment, paired with simple lifestyle habits, can help you wind down and improve the quality of your rest.

Simple Habits to Help You Sleep Better

As bedtime approaches, your core body temperature naturally drops by 1–2°F. Setting your thermostat at 65–67°F can help support that process, although older adults may feel more comfortable slightly warmer—around 67–74°F.

A bedroom that is too warm can make it harder to get quality sleep by causing you to:

• Take longer to fall asleep
• Wake up more often during the night
• Get less REM and slow‑wave (deep) sleep
• Feel less rested in the morning

Your bedding matters, too. During the summer, choose breathable fabrics like cotton or linen fabrics. In colder months, switch to insulating fabrics like microfleece, but avoid using anything too warm that disrupts your body’s natural cooling process.

A cooler room works best when paired with healthy sleep habits. Lal also recommends these simple steps to help your body wind down each night:

• Keep the room dark.
• Skip caffeine within three to four hours of bedtime.
• Avoid alcohol within four to six hours of bedtime.
• Don’t watch TV or scroll on your phone in bed.
• Go to bed only when you’re ready to sleep.
• Clean your humidifier regularly if you use one.
• 
  

Time Your Light Exposure

Temperature isn’t the only thing that affects your body’s internal clock. Light exposure also plays an important role in helping your body know when it’s time to sleep—and when it’s time to wake up.

It’s true that blue light disrupts sleep, but when timed correctly, it can actually help regulate your circadian rhythm. Here’s how to use it to your benefit:

Avoid blue light before bed

Put devices away at least a couple of hours before bed or switch them to ambient/night mode. Research has shown that evening blue light:

• Delays sleep
• Pushes your internal clock later
• Makes it harder for your core temperature to drop

Use blue light in the morning

Early morning blue light can shift your circadian rhythm earlier and strengthen your natural wake‑up signal. You can find blue‑light therapy lamps at most major retail stores including pharmacies, department stores, and online shops.

https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/2026/08/why-cooler-bedroom-temperature-helps-you-sleep-better 

Obstructive sleep apnea: How to manage daytime sleepiness, wake-promoting agents and your CPAP machine

From mcpress.mayoclinic.org

If you have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), your care team has likely recommended continuous positive airway pressure therapy, also called CPAP therapy or a CPAP machine.

A CPAP machine works by keeping your upper airway open as you sleep. This helps prevent apnoea — short pauses in breath that reduce your air supply and disrupt your sleep. But even with consistent CPAP use, some people with OSA still experience daytime sleepiness that’s severe enough to get in the way of relationships, work and life.

It can take 2 to 3 months of consistent, nightly CPAP use to see improvements in daytime sleepiness, says Tyler L. Herzog, M.D., a pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist at Mayo Clinic at Rochester, Minnesota. But if it’s been over three months — and if your care team has already covered the basics by checking your device settings and the fit of your CPAP mask  — it may be time to consider adding in a medicine that can help you stay awake during the day. These medicines are called wake-promoting agents.

“All of us can feel sleepy at times during the day, but when it starts to interfere with either the quality of your life or potentially interfere with your own safety or the safety of others that’s when it becomes an issue,” says Dr. Herzog.

Wake-promoting agents can help you manage daytime sleepiness with OSA

Before recommending a wake-promoting agent, your care team will likely want to rule out any other sleep condition or health conditions. Be sure to discuss any other medicines and supplements you take, even if they aren’t related to your OSA.

Dr. Herzog says benzodiazepines, antihistamines, opioid pain medicines, certain antidepressants, anti-seizure medications, hypnotics and even beta blockers also may cause drowsiness. Substances such as alcohol also can be a potential cause, so it’s important to have a frank conversation with your care team about how much you drink.

If other causes have been ruled out, there are three Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medicines that can improve daytime sleepiness in people with OSA who already use a CPAP machine:

• Modafinil (Provigil).
• Armodafinil (Nuvigil).
• Solriamfetol (Sunosi).

Modafinil and armodafinil primarily work by increasing dopamine levels in the brain, which activates regions of the brain responsible for alertness. Both modafinil and armodafinil are taken as a daily, oral pill. Depending on your needs, Dr. Herzog says you may take the medicine once or twice daily. Common side effects include headache, nausea, anxiety and insomnia. Rarely, severe rash can occur. In this situation, call your care team immediately.

In addition, modafinil and armodafinil can make birth control methods, such as oral contraceptives, implants, shots, IUDs or vaginal rings, less effective. You will likely need to use an additional form of birth control, such as a condom or diaphragm, to prevent pregnancy.

Solriamfetol, meanwhile, increases both dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain — which helps improve daytime sleepiness. Solriamfetol is taken as a daily, oral pill. Common side effects include nausea, headache, anxiety and decreased appetite. Less commonly, weight loss or increases in blood pressure may occur. But, in general, Dr. Herzog says lower doses are less likely to cause side effects.

With all three options, tell your care team if you have a history of any mental health conditions, including psychosis, as these medications can worsen a mental health condition. Likewise, tell your care team if you have a history of heart attack, angina, heart disease,  hypertension or hyperlipidemia.

Your care team also may recommend pitolisant (Wakix), which Dr. Herzog says has been found effective for daytime sleepiness with OSA. Pitolisant has not been approved by the FDA for use with OSA-related sleepiness in the United States, but it may be prescribed off-label, as it has been approved for other uses.

Which wake-promoting agent is right for me?

Modafinil, armodafinil, solriamfetol and pitolisant can significantly improve your daytime wakefulness — but Dr. Herzog says there aren’t yet any head-to-head studies to show when one option is better or more effective than the other.

“An individual may respond better to one of these medications versus another, so you may have to go through a trial of one or two before you find the one that works for you,” says Dr. Herzog. Typically, it can take about 4 to 6 weeks on a medicine to determine how well you respond.

In very specific circumstances, your care team may recommend other types of stimulants, such as amphetamines or methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta). For the most part, Dr. Herzog says these stimulants are an option only if you haven’t responded to other medicines and if there is a considerable safety concern. For example, you may be at risk of falling asleep while driving. But, in general, Dr. Herzog says modafinil, armodafinil and solriamfetol are preferred to other stimulants because they are effective at reducing daytime sleepiness. They also have less severe side effects compared with other types of stimulants.

Don’t forget about sleep hygiene and other lifestyle strategies

If you are taking a wake-promoting agent, Dr. Herzog says it’s still important to use your CPAP machine every night — for at least four hours a night, but ideally all night. Remember, wake-promoting agents can help you feel better and stay alert, but they don’t cure or directly treat your OSA.

Likewise, sticking to a regular nighttime routine is a must.

“Sleep hygiene is easy to say and a lot harder to do,” acknowledges Dr. Herzog. “It often takes weeks or longer to see the benefits of consistent sleep hygiene.”

But Dr. Herzog strongly recommends focusing on the following:

• Have a consistent bedtime and wake time, even on weekends.
• Get at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night.
• Get about 30 minutes of natural light when you wake up, ideally outside.
• Exercise regularly.
• Avoid caffeine after noon.
• Avoid alcohol or large meals within three hours of bedtime.
• Limit your screen time at least an hour before bed.

Mayo Clinic does not endorse companies or products. Advertising revenue supports our not-for-profit mission.

https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/living-well/obstructive-sleep-apnea-how-to-manage-daytime-sleepiness-wake-promoting-agents-and-your-cpap-machine/ 

How modern life radically changed the way we sleep

From independent.co.uk

Continuous sleep is a modern habit, not an evolutionary constant, which helps explain why many of us still wake at 3am and wonder if something’s wrong. It might help to know that this is a deeply human experience.

For most of human history, a continuous eight-hour snooze was not the norm. Instead, people commonly slept in two shifts each night, often called a “first sleep” and “second sleep.”

Each of these sleeps lasted several hours, separated by a gap of wakefulness for an hour or more in the middle of the night. Historical records from Europe, Africa, Asia and beyond describe how, after nightfall, families would go to bed early, then wake around midnight for a while before returning to sleep until dawn.

Breaking the night into two parts probably changed how time felt. The quiet interval gave nights a clear middle, which can make long winter evenings feel less continuous and easier to manage.

Artificial lighting is behind the drastic change in human sleep patterns (Getty/iStock)

The midnight interval was not dead time; it was noticed time, which shapes how long nights are experienced. Some people would get up to tend to chores like stirring the fire or checking on animals. Others stayed in bed to pray or contemplate dreams they’d just had. Letters and diaries from pre-industrial times mention people using the quiet hours to read, write or even socialise quietly with family or neighbours. Many couples took advantage of this midnight wakefulness for intimacy.

Literature from as far back as ancient Greek poet Homer and Roman poet Virgil contains references to an “hour which terminates the first sleep,” indicating how commonplace the two-shift night was.

How we lost the ‘second sleep’

The disappearance of the second sleep happened over the past two centuries due to profound societal changes. Artificial lighting is one of them. In the 1700s and 1800s, first oil lamps, then gas lighting, and eventually electric light, began turning night into more usable waking time. Instead of going to bed shortly after sunset, people started staying up later into the evening under lamplight.

Biologically, bright light at night also shifted our internal clocks (our circadian rhythm) and made our bodies less inclined to wake after a few hours of sleep. Light timing matters. Ordinary “room” light before bedtime suppresses and delays melatonin, which pushes the onset of sleep later.

The Industrial Revolution transformed not just how people worked but how they slept. Factory schedules encouraged a single block of rest. By the early 20th century, the idea of eight uninterrupted hours had replaced the centuries-old rhythm of two sleeps.

In multi-week sleep studies that simulate long winter nights in darkness and remove clocks or evening light, people in lab studies often end up adopting two sleeps with a calm waking interval. A 2017 study of a Madagascan agricultural community without electricity found people still mostly slept in two segments, rising at about midnight.

Long, dark winters

Light sets our internal clock and influences how fast we feel time passing. When those cues fade, as in winter or under artificial lighting, we drift.

In winter, later and weaker morning light makes circadian alignment harder. Morning light is particularly important for regulating circadian rhythms because it contains a higher amount of blue light, which is the most effective wavelength for stimulating the body’s production of cortisol and suppressing melatonin.

In time-isolation labs and cave studies, people have lived for weeks without natural light or clocks, or even lived in constant darkness. Many people in these studies miscounted the passing of days, showing how easily time slips without light cues.

Similar distortions occur in the polar winter, where the absence of sunrise and sunset can make time feel suspended. People native to high latitudes, and long-term residents with stable routines, often cope better with polar light cycles than short-term visitors, but this varies by population and context. Residents adapt better when their community shares a regular daily schedule, for instance. And a 1993 study of Icelandic populations and their descendants who emigrated to Canada found these people showed unusually low winter seasonal affective disorder (SAD) rates. The study suggested genetics may help this population cope with the long Arctic winter.

Research from the Environmental Temporal Cognition Lab at Keele University, where I am the director, shows how strong this link between light, mood and time perception is. In 360-degree virtual reality, we matched UK and Sweden scenes for setting, light level cues, and time of day. Participants viewed six clips of about two minutes. They judged the two minute intervals as lasting longer in evening or low-light scenes compared with daytime or brighter scenes. The effect was strongest in those participants who reported low mood.

A new perspective on insomnia

Sleep clinicians note that brief awakenings are normal, often appearing at stage transitions, including near REM sleep, which is associated with vivid dreaming. What matters is how we respond.

The brain’s sense of duration is elastic: anxiety, boredom, or low light tend to make time stretch, while engagement and calm can compress it. Without that interval where you got up and did something or chatted with your partner, waking at 3am often makes time feel slow. In this context, attention focuses on time and the minutes that pass may seem longer.

Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) advises people to leave bed after about 20 minutes awake, do a quiet activity in dim light such as reading, then return when sleepy.

Sleep experts also suggest covering the clock and letting go of time measurement when you’re struggling to sleep. A calm acceptance of wakefulness, paired with an understanding of how our minds perceive time, may be the surest way to rest again.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/sleep-awake-3am-circadian-rhythm-insomnia-modern-life-b2853917.html 

"I’ve had insomnia since I was 18 and it’s affected my whole life"

From aol.co.uk/lifestyle

Kate Morris, a mother-of-two and journalist, lives with her husband, Luke, a photographer in London. Here, she shares the reality of sleeping badly and her advice for others with insomnia

The most soul-destroying part of my life is my inability to sleep well. I have suffered with bouts of insomnia since I was 18.

My average time asleep is about five or six hours a night, and occasionally I hobble through the day on three or four. Seven hours’ sleep is optimum and I feel invincible when I (very rarely) achieve that. I envy people who sleep that well all the time.

Nearly three-quarters (71%) of UK adults do not have the recommended seven to nine hours' sleep a night and one in five of us have problems sleeping.

How insomnia affects me

Lack of sleep affects my mood, memory, focus and brainpower. On the days I have hardly slept, I can be anxious, lacking in energy, short-tempered, judgemental and unable to work to my full capacity.

Not sleeping is detrimental to mental health. I have often thought I’d be a more positive person if I had experienced better sleep. It’s no coincidence that I have only spent one year in my whole working life commuting to an office. My lack of sleep days used to be so bad, that I’d have to take a nap halfway through the day.

I have often thought I’d be a more positive person if I had experienced better sleep

Lying awake is also depressing and boring. My mind drifts with escalating negative thoughts. I decipher petty grievances, decide I have no friends and conclude that I haven’t achieved anything. It takes concentration to pivot these thoughts around.

My triggers

There are triggers that can make sleep even more elusive. Caffeine can stop me sleeping, so I avoid it after midday. Chocolate can keep me awake. I can be too stimulated by a party or some kind of entertainment to sleep. Champagne, or vodka, is like an adrenalin shot.

A new bed and place is also a trigger. Last summer, we were invited to Greece by a friend. It was so exciting, but I panicked once there when I discovered my pellet of melatonin did not have enough pills to last the week. Three nights were spent awake, hot and unsettled. Thankfully, the days were not taxing, mostly soaking up the sun and falling into the sea, but the nights were lonely and depressing.

Kate Morris works from home, partly because it's easier to manage her broken nights that way. (Luke White Photography)

       Searching for solutions

I have tried many methods to sleep, some work for short periods. At one point, after a tip from an insomniac friend, I enrolled on a weekend course in Acem meditation. I found the process of repeating a mantra helped me fall back to sleep. I would also use it for a short power nap. It still works now and then, but is not foolproof.

My daughter gave me a lavender and magnesium lotion for Christmas and for a few weeks that combined with melatonin pills worked very well and I slept deeply

Recently I have tried listening to podcasts, but if the content is too interesting it can be stimulating rather than soporific. My daughter gave me a lavender and magnesium lotion for Christmas and for a few weeks that combined with the melatonin worked very well and I slept deeply.

I recently heard Fearne Cotton on Davina McCall’s Begin Again podcast say that she was unable to sleep the night before her BBC2 morning radio show because of anxiety, which meant eventually she had to quit the job. This resonated with me because if I have something important to do the following day, the fear of not sleeping will often keep me awake.

Coping with toddlers

When my two children were small, I was almost crazy with tiredness. Broken sleep was compounded when my toddler son learnt how to climb out of bed and up the stairs to our room. He would get into our bed and I wouldn't be able to sleep again.

One morning, with a crashing headache and mad with exhaustion, I came down to the kitchen and aggressively snapped at our au pair for not having loaded the dishwasher. She snapped back and I left the room and wept. I felt demonised and not myself, as though my personality had changed.

That same day I dropped my son at nursery and asked to speak to the head teacher. When she asked if I was OK, I tearfully told her about my son waking me in the early hours. She instructed me to take him back to his room straight away, rather than let him sleep in our bed.

I would have to lean against the door so he couldn’t get back out. It sounded radical and extreme (not the kind of parenting I adhered to) but I was desperate. She said it would work within 48 hours and she was right.

The perils of sleeping pills

After my daughter was born, my sleep became so bad that, against my intuition, I began to take sleeping pills. The doctor initially advised me to quit caffeine, listen to music and meditate. I went back a month later, pleaded for pills and she gave me a prescription.

At first, it was great to know that I would sleep, even though it was dreamless and not particularly restful. Soon though, I noticed that I was beginning to rely on the pills and that they were not working as well. The doctor renewed my prescription with a higher dose.

I finally decided to quit sleeping pills the day I absent-mindedly left a wad of cash in the cashpoint

I began to feel permanently premenstrual and on edge. I finally decided to quit the day I absent-mindedly left a wad of cash in the cashpoint, and fell down in the street. I still kept them in my bedside drawer though for several months, which was reassuring.

What helps me sleep

Insomnia is a difficult infliction to bear, but I think it is possible to improve sleep patterns. It's also comforting to know that not everyone needs eight hours’ sleep. I am okay on six hours, really good on seven and can survive, albeit on low par, on five.

If I am vigilant and turn off screens before bedtime, don’t eat too late, drink a sleepy tea, take melatonin and spray the soles of my feet with magnesium and lavender spray, I should sleep. There are no guarantees for how long though, but that’s OK.

My sleep is far better than it used to be and for that I’m grateful.

https://www.aol.co.uk/lifestyle/ve-had-insomnia-since-18-055130682.html

How to combat sleepless nights as we age

From independent.co.uk

There are several lifestyle adjustments that can help combat insomnia

Sleep patterns naturally change as we age, often leading to sleepless nights for those aged 60 and over.

This change can be challenging for a number of reasons, including feeling fatigued during the day, difficulty concentrating and increased stress.

We have spoken to some experts who have unpicked the main reasons behind sleepless nights later in life.

We have also listed some effective strategies to help you wake up feeling refreshed and revitalised.

What factors contribute towards sleep challenges in your 60s?

Discomfort

Many older adults tend to wake up more in the night due to discomfort.

“As we age, there are many more physical variables that come into play which can affect sleep, such as obstructive sleep apnoea and waking up to go to the toilet much more,” says Charlie Morley, sleep expert and author of Wake Up To Sleep. “And simply, for many over-60s, things just start to ache all over, all the time. An aching body is so much harder to relax into sleep.”

Sleep regulation

“We all have a body clock in our brain which sets the timing, and is also involved in keeping us asleep,” explains Dr Kat Lederle, sleep and circadian rhythm specialist at The London General Practice. “As we age, that clock isn’t as accurate as it used to be – which could mean the signal to stay asleep isn’t as strong anymore.”

Melatonin

We tend to produce less melatonin (the sleepy hormone) as we age, which can often lead to disrupted sleep patterns.

“There is variability between all of us. We have high producers [of melatonin] and low producers,” says Lederle. “But within a person, we do see as we get older, there is less melatonin output.

“The body clock is involved in setting the timing for melatonin to be released, so if it is not functioning as accurately anymore, that can play a role.”

Menopause

                                                 Many women experience sleep disturbances during menopause

“Between 40-60% of women experience sleep disturbances during the menopause transition,” highlights Dr Naomi Potter, menopause specialist and founder of Menopause Care. “This is caused by a variety of factors such as oestrogen and progesterone loss, hot flushes, night sweats, mood changes, frequent trips to the bathroom, anxiety, and ageing.

“A study in 2017 found that around 25 per cent of menopausal women meet the criteria for an insomnia disorder.”

It’s also common for postmenopausal woman to experience sleep problems.

“Postmenopausal women have a higher risk of having sleep apnea, because of the lack of the hormones and the fluctuations,” explains Lederle. “Postmenopausal women have lower levels of progesterone, a hormone which helps with sleeping.”

Here are some tips to help overcome the sleepless nights

1. Adjust eating times

Maintaining regular meal times can positively affect your body clock, as food acts as a kind of time cue, says Lederle.

“For a good night’s sleep it’s also helpful if you stop eating three hours or even earlier before you go to bed,” adds Lederle. “Shortening your eating window also seems to have a positive impact on your overall health and sleep.”

2. Stick to a consistent bedtime

“Having a regular bedtime and regular wake up time is very important,” emphasises Lederle. “That doesn’t mean it needs to be 10pm bang on, but aim for within an hour or half an hour.”

3. Get outside during the day

                                                       Getting into natural light helps reset our body clock

Regular exposure to, ideally natural daylight, in the early hours of the morning helps reset our body clock.

“Older people, particularly those in care homes, tend to go outside less, and as we age our eyes and lenses change so less light gets through, particularly less blue light,” says Lederle. “And you want that blue light to tell your body clock, hey, daytime has started.

“If you get outside during the day then when it gets darker there is a stronger contrast. And that’s if there’s a stronger contrast, it’s easier for that ageing body clock to notice that there has been a change, whereas, if you’re inside all day, there isn’t much change on brightness levels.”

4. Be mindful about napping

“Having a 20 minute nap before three o’clock or so is generally fine, but if it’s longer and later, or more frequent napping in the day, then that can create a problem,” says Lederle.

5. Address pain where possible

“Look at whether pain or any other medical conditions, such as arthritis, may be impacting your sleep,” recommends Lederle. “Older people also often move less, due to pain, but we do need a level of movement in order to support our sleep.”

6. Wear warm socks to bed

“Older people may struggle to fall asleep if they have cold feet, so wearing warm bed socks or even washing the feet with warm water before going to bed can help warm up the skin which helps circulation,” advises Lederle.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/tips-sleepless-nights-insomnia-b2682962.html