#39 - One Reason You Might Wake In The Middle Of The Night
Nope - it’s not because of those revved up cars doing burn outs during the night …
My PhD investigating the links between thermoregulation and sleep.
‘Thermoregulation’ means how our body regulates our temperatures over a 24-hr day. And I was particularly interested in whether people with insomnia had problems regulating their temperatures compared to good sleepers.
To do this, I had people - with and without insomnia - come into our sleep lab over a weekend - and we recorded their temperatures and sleep over a 30-hr period.
My measure of sleep was how quickly they could fall asleep. So every 30-min I went into their bedroom, asked them to fall asleep and turned off the light.
This means they tried to fall asleep over 50 times. So nearly two months worth of sleep attempts, crammed into 1 weekend.
All the while, I was measuring the skin temperature on their finger, as well as their internal body temperature.
What Did We Find?
Regardless of whether they had insomnia or not, they rapidly lost body heat from their fingertips.
You see, our bodies need to cool down when we sleep - and the way the body does this is via heat loss.
We not only lose heat from our finger and hands, but also our toes and feet, face, ears and lips.
Thermal cameras were once used to visually detect changes in skin temperatures when people fell asleep. Usually the heat would be greatest around the lips, eyes, nose and ears. Image credit: Science News.
But (there’s always a ‘but’) …
The heat lost from the fingers from those with insomnia was warmer.
And this was because their internal body temperature was hotter …
People with insomnia (dark curve) burn hotter than good sleepers (light grey curve). I haven’t mentioned yet that the way we measured core body temperature was with a (flexible) rectal thermistor … I don’t think inserting the word ‘flexible’ made that description much better …
This is akin to having the thermostat in your house at a higher temperature.
And the hotter we are, the more alert we are during the night. Yet for people with insomnia, they were also hotter during the day.
So let me emphasise that - people with insomnia are hotter - day and night - and that’s not because they can lose the heat effectively.
This means they are massive heat producers.
So imagine we have an engine within us that burns energy - well, for people with insomnia, that engine is working harder 24 hours a day.
This could be an explanation for why people with insomnia report fatigue throughout the day.
So How Do We Cool Down?
Prof Daniel Buysse in the USA is an insomnia guru and he did a study that I thought of doing. He measured body temperatures of people with insomnia before and after treatment.
Their sleep improved, and the vast majority of them no longer had insomnia.
But their body temperatures did not change.
But There Is A Solution …
First up, I have no affiliation with the device I’m about to suggest. So I have no conflict of interest.
There’s a company called Ebb Therapeutics - and they have a device that cools the head when you sleep. This should deal with the issue of cooling core temperature because heated blood from the heart pumps towards the brain (the hotter the brain, the more alert you are). Thus the Ebb device cools the heated blood.
The reason I’m suggesting this device is that it’s based upon the research of Professor Eric Nofzinger.
I first saw Prof Nofzinger present his MRI studies of people with insomnia at the Worldsleep conference in Cairns, Australia in 2007.
My sons exploring a pristine beach in Cairns during the Worldsleep conference in 2007.
Prof Nofzinger found that brain metabolism was higher at the start of the night in people with insomnia compared to good sleepers.
This means their brains were yet to shut down.
Prof Nofzinger’s research was terrific and he’s an advisor in the company.
So if you believe your engine may be burning hot - at least have a read or bookmark the Ebb Therapeutics website. Here’s a picture depicting how the Ebb system works …
Again, I get nothing from recommending them - except the nice fuzzy feeling from helping people. Helping people sleep better. Saving health professionals hundreds of hours scouring the internet for the best evidence-based solutions.
… And once again - this is where this blog comes to an end.
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Prof Mike Gradisar