Experts have revealed the secret to achieving the perfect night’s sleep, and it all comes down to one crucial factor that many of us overlook and adjusting this simple element could transform your rest
We all have our little rituals before bed – some of us unwind with a hot shower, others dive into a good book, and some just scroll through their phones until they can’t keep their eyes open.
But what if the one thing we’ve been doing every night is actually sabotaging our chances of a restful sleep? A new study has uncovered a surprising mistake many of us make without even realising it, and it could be the key to whether you wake up feeling refreshed or groggy.
Researchers from the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research in the US recorded the results from 50 people aged 65 and over for a year and a half.
Through sleep monitors, they were able to see how their surroundings, specifically temperature, impacted their quality of sleep.
After analysing 11,000 nights of sleep in total, it was concluded that participants had the most efficient sleep when the bedroom temperature was between 20 and 25C (68 and 77F). During this temperature range, its participants were at their least restless, with 20C (68F) averaging out as the best temperature when studied against hours slept.
The most restless sleep occurred when temperatures increased to 30C when a five to 10 per cent drop in sleep efficiency was recorded. Writing in the journal Science of the Total Environment, the researchers said: “Overall, our findings indicate an optimal range of temperature, whereby sleep was most efficient and restful when night time ambient temperature was between 20 and 25C.
“Our observations point to an exciting opportunity to potentially improve sleep within the older adult population by creating a more comfortable home environment,” researchers revealed.
It comes after a separate study revealed the perfect amount of sleep you need each night, from middle to old age, in order to help with cognitive function and mental health.
The study looked at the sleeping habits of almost 500,000 adults from the ages of 38 to 73 and discovered that seven hours of sleep was the optimal duration needed for people within that age range.
In the study, Cambridge University’s Department of Psychiatry Professor, Barbara Sahakian, explained: “For every hour that you moved away from seven hours, you got worse. It’s very clear that the processes that go on in our brain during sleep are very important for maintaining our physical and mental health.”
Getting a good night’s sleep, she added, was important at all stages of life, but particularly as people aged. “I think it is as important as getting exercise.”
While many experts have previously advised getting eight hours of sleep, the study concluded that this could be just as detrimental as getting insufficient sleep.
A good amount of sleep is vital to enable day-to-day cognitive function – including processing speed, memory, problem-solving abilities, and visual attention – and both a surplus of sleep or too little can impact this.
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