The Magic Time Window to Take a Bath or Shower for a Better Night's Sleep

So you're looking to get a better night of shut-eye? You may want to consider taking a bath or shower an hour or two before bedtime.

According to research published in the August 2019 issue of Sleep Medicine Reviews, scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have found that bathing one to two hours before you head to bed in water 104-109° Fahrenheit can improve your sleep quality.

For the paper, researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering, along with with the UT Health Science Center at Houston and the University of Southern California, analyzed 5,322 studies. The data not only revealed that bathing or showering in the aforementioned temperature range around 90 minutes before bed can enhance sleep quality, but also revealed that doing so can help you fall asleep faster — amounting to around 10 extra minutes of catching ZZZs, on average.

"When we looked through all known studies, we noticed significant disparities in terms of the approaches and findings," said Shahab Haghayegh, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and lead author on the paper said in a press release published on EurekAert!. "The only way to make an accurate determination of whether sleep can in fact be improved was to combine all the past data and look at it through a new lens."

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So what accounts for these sleep improvements? Bathing yourself in warm water impacts your body temperature which in turn can help influence your circardan cycle. Of course, taking a leisurely bath can also help you relax and unwind after a long day.

However it works, you don't have to tell us twice. We're grabbing our bath caddy and can't wait to try this tip out.