Reasons Why Sleeping Naked is Good for You
Sleeping naked can positively affect your sleep, health, relationship, mood, and appearance.
Sleeping naked can positively affect your sleep, health, relationship, mood, and appearance.
Sleeping naked is not something people tend to do. It is also not something someone would associate with health improvement. But believe it or not, many benefits to it can be useful for your sleep quality. If you don’t sleep naked or don’t think there are any advantages of doing so, this article is for you. The best way to test whether sleeping with nothing on is good for you or not is to try it yourself!
Before getting into the full benefits of sleeping naked, let’s go over some general information. Sleeping naked can positively affect your sleep, health, relationship, mood, and appearance. Many factors contribute to your health, and clothes or lack of them in this case, are one of them. Clothes can impact your sleep quality a lot. At some point, you were probably awakened by excessive heat or sweating that was caused by uncomfortable sleepwear. Sure, you might get cold when sleeping naked, but that is solvable with the right blanket. Additionally, a decent sleep can improve your stress level, and sleeping in clothes and under heavy covers prevents the production of hormone IHG that is responsible for muscle, skin, bone, and even hair repair. Since the IGH decreases over time, you need to be careful not to speed up the process.
The biggest reason why sleeping naked is good for you, is that it helps you with thermoregulation, a natural process of the body that involves temperature changes during the night. Our body temperature is regulated by balancing heat production, gain, loss, and absorption. We regulate heat production and the preservation of our core temperature and shell temperature. The internal one is regulated by the brain, while the shell temperature is mainly affected by the temperature of the skin, muscles, and subcutaneous tissues. The average core temperature for humans is around 37 degrees Celsius or 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but this varies during the day and night. Your hypothalamus works and your body temperature increases during the day to help you stay alert. If your internal temperature changes from the normal range, your body will handle it, and that’s thermoregulation.
When we sleep, both the brain’s and the body’s temperature vary during the whole night. When you experience non-REM sleep, both temperatures fall, but when you are in REM sleep the brain temperature increases. The control of brain and body temperature is linked to sleep regulation. Recent studies about temperature manipulation are showing the influence temperature has on our sleep quality and duration. The perfect temperature for sleep is between 15.5 and 19 degrees Celsius or 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit.
During the night, your temperature decreases and that stimulates the production of melatonin, a sleep-inducing hormone. Melatonin is also known as the night hormone because it is in charge of sleep.
Wearing pajamas, underwear or even just a shirt and trousers can disrupt your body temperature and sleep. To help your body have better regulation of temperature, sleeping naked is an excellent way to improve your sleep quality. Sleeping with nothing on contributes to your sleep by reducing the number of times you can wake up during the night and by increasing the depth of your shut-eye. Of course, many technological advancements can help you lower your body’s temperature, like cooling pillows, cooling sheets, cool comforters and special mattresses for hot sleeping, sleeping naked is considered to be a more cost-effective option. However, be sure to keep your hands and feet warm. Having cold hands and feet can interfere with this process.
Stress is a huge health risk that can cause many problems, including sleep issues. It can suppress your immune system, increase the risk of heart disease, lower cognitive performance, and it can lead to obesity and depression because it makes your cortisol levels go crazy. Getting proper rest will restore these levels to normal. Sleeping naked relaxes you meaning it can help with decreasing your cortisol levels. There are numerous benefits of sleeping next to someone. Having any kind of contact with your partner causes the release of oxytocin, a hormone that helps you feel calm and relaxed. Any pleasant touch, massage, and cuddling will most likely result in an oxytocin response, which helps to calm down.
Wearing underwear can lead to bacteria. How? As we previously discussed, sleeping causes an increase in temperature and clothes can increase it even further. A warm environment is a breeding ground for bacteria. If you wear underwear, especially tighter models, during the night, you create a warm ground that is ideal for the development of bacteria and infections. Apart from being warm, due to the excessive heat and sweat, you also create humid and moist conditions, in which yeast infections thrive. Of course, this does not always happen, it is just a possibility. However, airing your private areas may help to prevent this, and wearing fewer layers will also help to reduce the excessive moisture.
Additionally, wearing your birthday suit also increases fertility in men. A recent study that included 500 couples was conducted about this particular issue. The study showed that men that slept naked and only wore boxers during the day had higher quality sperm, with the additional 25% less genetic damage than men that wore their underwear during the day and night.
Sleep is essential for life and optimal health, and it has a vital role in our systemic physiology and brain functioning. Insufficient sleep has been linked to many diseases, such as diabetes and even heart conditions. Many factors can impact your sleep disruption, from the environment and lifestyle to medical conditions and sleep disorders. Having sleep disruption causes many short-term and long-term consequences for your health. Among the short-term effects are a reduced quality of life, increased stress responsivity, emotional distress, mood disorders, and cognitive, memory, and performance problems. Long-term problems are more severe, and sleep disruption can cause healthy people to get cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, weight-related issues, colorectal cancer, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome, among others. Sleep loss can also lead to obesity that contributes to many other medical problems. There is also a higher risk of having a heart attack or a stroke. To avoid all these risks, you need to have proper sleep. The best way to avoid them and possibly improve your sleep is by sleeping naked, just like mother nature intended.
Many studies have shown that keeping yourself cool while sleeping impacts your metabolism. The body creates more brown fat that will keep you warm, and this heat will burn calories very fast. People that have more brown fat are lightweight. Brown fat, also called brown adipose tissue is responsible for burning energy and producing heat. When you feel cold or are in a cold environment, brown fat is more active because it defends the body from the cold. So sleeping naked will help your metabolism work right and you can enjoy the benefits of losing weight because of it.
You may think this is just some cheesy line, but it is actually true. Clothes have often been attributed to a lack of body confidence. To get past this, you need to get used to seeing your body without any clothes and accepting the way it looks. Sleeping naked may help you become more aware of your body and in the end, accept it as it is, and gain more confidence and self-esteem.
After reading this, you will either want to try sleeping naked or not. We’ve seen how sleeping without clothing is good for you, but those of you who do not want to sleep naked, it’s best not to force yourselves. Ultimately, your sleep quality depends on you feeling comfortable and relaxed, and doing something against is not good. Instead, let’s talk about some alternatives.
You need to think about what you are wearing to bed. When choosing the outfit, whether it is pajamas, underwear, or shirt and trousers, you need to consider the materials. Your sleeping clothes need to be made out of breathable, natural and lightweight fabric. Silk, flannel, and bamboo are excellent choices that will provide a good and uninterrupted night of sleep. They have extreme moisture-wicking abilities. On top of that, bamboo is also antibacterial and hypoallergenic, making it a great option for allergy sufferers. Fabrics that you should avoid are fleece, cotton, and wool. They are somewhat lightweight, but they affect your circulation, which is not good for your body or sleep. And they have terrible moisture-wicking qualities.
The bottom line is to make sure you sleep in comfortable clothes that won’t interrupt your sleep or cause increased levels of warmth. And make sure to wear socks.
Iva is an art historian and an art lover who always had a passion for writing and sleep! When she is not researching and testing new mattresses on the market, you can find her binge-watching TV shows, eating tons of junk food or playing with her dog Bart.