By Washington Post

Copyright torontosun

I know people who would embrace such a chilly room, but others would find that range closer to torture than comfort. That’s because there’s a normal amount of variability in what temperatures each person finds comfortable during the night. It’s well described that women tend to prefer sleeping in slightly warmer conditions than men.

What I want my patients to know

There’s a surprising way you can inadvertently cancel out the benefits of skin warming before bed: by taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications, or NSAIDs, like ibuprofen or aspirin.

Many people grasp for these medications at the end of the day to alleviate muscle aches or headaches. But researchers found that NSAIDs, which cause small blood vessels to constrict throughout our bodies, counteract the effect of warm baths and socks. Even if you took the warm bath out of the equation, smaller studies have found that NSAIDs can disrupt sleep cycles in general, which could also be due to their impact on melatonin production.

Check with your doctor for pain management alternatives. It may be worth considering acetaminophen for pain relief before bed instead. A clinical trial found that people who took acetaminophen do not experience the same disruptions to sleep as NSAID users.

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