Can Warm Hands Help You Sleep?
Feb 15, 2008 Insomnia
Not sure how many of you caught the segment on the Today show a while back, but they were referring to new research about innovative ways to help insomniacs.
Dr. Matthew Ebben of Weill Cornell medical center in NYC said one of the most common sleeping problems from which Americans suffer — insomnia - would be better treated with cognitive behavioral therapy, not a new bed.
I have heard of cognitive behavioral therapy before - it's used to treat all kinds of ailments.
Now they're using it to control the temperature in the hand and feet before you go to bed.
Why? Because during the day, core body heat rises and peaks during the mid-afternoon. Then, in the evening, body temperature begins to falls gradually and rises in the limbs. Rising temperature in the limbs at night has been associated with sleep initiation.
So they are having participants in a study use a biofeedback device, with the hope of teaching insomniacs how to train their body for ideal sleep conditions. Results have found that raising the temperature in the hands and feet before bedtime may promote sleep.
Participants in the study warm their hands and feet through relaxation techniques like visualization and deep breathing, which helps to draw the blood from the core of the body to the extremities, says Dr. Ebben.
Scientists are trying to take advantage of this knowledge to artificially raise the temperature in the limbs of insomniacs – making them sleepy. At the sleep lab, study participants, who have trouble getting to sleep, view a monitor that displays different images, like a setting or rising sun. Temperature probes read the person's hand and foot temperatures, causing the image of the sun to rise if they are successfully raising their temperature, and set if they are cooling down.
Sounds interesting, but am I the only one that wonders if just warming your hands and feet before going to bed will have the same effect?
Tags: cognitive behavioral therapy, relaxation techniques, sleeping problems
