🎯 Today’s Mission:

To successfully complete today’s mission:

✅ Find ways to make your room or yourself cooler before going to sleep.

✅ [OPTIONAL] Share with us, in the Sleekgeek Sleep Challenge Support Group, if you usually find yourself getting hot at night or not.

✅ Complete the form at the bottom of the page when done.

💡 More Info:

We mentioned in Day 5 that light was one of the external cues that your body uses to regulate its sleep-wake circadian rhythm internal clock.

Temperature is another one of those external cues.

While some people associate cosy warmth with sleepiness and feel sluggish when it is extremely hot, most people will agree that it’s harder to actually go to sleep at night when it’s swelteringly hot than freezing cold.

Our body temperature naturally lowers when it’s time to go to bed, but sometimes it can’t quite get cool enough – especially since we live in more modern temperature-controlled environments that don’t necessarily follow the lowering outside temperatures as much.

Research suggests that a room temperature of around 18.3 degrees Celsius is optimal for the best quality sleep, with a range of between 15-20 degrees Celsius being recommended depending on your temperature tolerance.

However, keep in mind that some people do have different hot / cold tolerances and we also tend to go through a period of acclimatisation when the temperature changes. For this reason, anywhere between 15-20 degrees Celsius is recommended depending on your temperature tolerance.

If you currently sleep in a rather hot environment and get cold easily, then you may need to slowly lower the temperature over a number of days or weeks rather than making a bit jump to 18.3 degrees Celsius overnight.

If you cannot control the room temperature directly with air conditioning, some other strategies include:

Fans or improved air flow.

Cooler / lighter blankets.

Cooler / lighter pajamas.

Cooling mats such as the ChiliPad (expensive).

Taking a cold bath / shower / swim before bed.

Washing your face with cold water or laying a cold wet facecloth on your head.

Drinking some ice cold water before bed (not too much if you tend to need to get up in the night to go pee).

Lowering the room temperature with the air-conditioner before bed, but then turning it off right before going to sleep if you do not want it on overnight. Some have built-in switch-off timers too.