Time Your Showers and Baths for Better Sleep

A consistent ritual encourages better sleep..

Source: Ramicm/Pixabay, used with permission

Sleep hygiene—the conditions under which you prepare yourself and your environment for a good night’s sleep—plays an important role in the quality and amount of sleep you get each night.

The rules of good sleep hygiene include consistency, or going to bed and waking up at the same time, even on weekends; making sure your bedroom is dark, quiet and at a comfortable temperature; not eating too close to bedtime; avoiding alcohol and caffeine before bedtime; being physically active during the day; and keeping your electronic devices—phones, computers, TVs, etc out of your bedroom. Now, researchers say, you can add well-timed warm evening showers and baths to that list.

In a meta-analysis of related studies published in the August 2019 issue of Sleep Medicine Reviews, scientists at the University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with researchers at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and University of Southern California, have found that the timing of your evening bath or shower can help increase your chance of both falling asleep faster and enjoying better quality sleep. The scientists sorted through more than 5,000 related research papers and came up with 13 that qualified for their purposes of determining the effects of heating the body with water on the timing and quality of sleep. They found that taking a bath or shower approximately 90 minutes before going to bed helped participants fall asleep an average of 10 minutes sooner than usual. Keeping the water at temperatures ranging from 104 to 109°F improved overall sleep quality.

Although more specific research would help confirm the findings of this study, the explanation for this natural phenomenon is pretty easy to understand. Your body’s core temperature is regulated by your circadian cycle (your natural sleep-wake cycle), and is normally higher in the late afternoon and early evening, gradually dropping down just before and during sleep. Early in the morning, your temperature starts to rise, waking you up like a natural alarm clock. Taking a warm bath or shower before bedtime stimulates this system, increasing your circulation so your blood moves from your internal core to the extremities of your hands and feet. The result is a decline in core body temperature that supports your natural biological rhythms, shortens the time it takes for you to fall asleep and helps you enjoy a more relaxed sleep.