In This Article:
Quick Answers
What temperature for sleeping? 15-19°C (60-67°F). Cooler than most people expect. Your body temperature drops when you sleep, and a cool room helps that happen.
How much sleep do I need? 7-9 hours for adults. But quality matters too - uninterrupted sleep is better than 9 hours of tossing and turning.
How do I fall asleep faster? Same bedtime every night. No screens an hour before bed. Keep it cool and dark. And honestly, a supportive mattress helps more than people realize.
The Science of Sleep: Research That Actually Matters
Sleep research has exploded in the last decade. We now understand more about what happens during sleep, why it matters, and what goes wrong when we don't get enough. Here's what the science actually says, without the marketing spin.
What Sleep Does for Your Brain
Memory Consolidation
Information moves from short-term to long-term memory during sleep, particularly during REM stages. A 2024 study from MIT showed that sleep within 24 hours of learning is essential for retention. Students who slept after studying retained 40% more than those who stayed awake the same amount of time.
Brain Cleaning
The glymphatic system, discovered in 2012, clears waste from the brain during deep sleep. This includes beta-amyloid, the protein associated with Alzheimer's disease. Poor sleep over years may contribute to cognitive decline through incomplete waste clearance.
Emotional Processing
REM sleep helps process emotional experiences. People deprived of REM show increased anxiety and emotional reactivity. The brain needs dream sleep to regulate emotions.
What Sleep Does for Your Body
Hormone Regulation
Growth hormone releases primarily during deep sleep. This matters for tissue repair, muscle recovery, and children's development. Sleep deprivation disrupts this release pattern.
Insulin sensitivity changes with sleep. Poor sleep increases insulin resistance, which is why chronic sleep deprivation is linked to type 2 diabetes risk.
Immune Function
Sleep affects immune response measurably. People who sleep less than 6 hours are 4.2 times more likely to catch a cold when exposed to rhinovirus. Vaccine effectiveness drops in sleep-deprived individuals because the immune response is compromised.
Cardiovascular Health
Heart rate and blood pressure drop during sleep, giving the cardiovascular system recovery time. Chronic poor sleep is associated with increased heart disease risk. The Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation now includes sleep in heart health recommendations.
Sleep Stages and Why They Matter
Sleep isn't uniform. You cycle through stages throughout the night:
- Stage 1-2 (Light Sleep): Transition stages. Easy to wake from. Body begins to relax.
- Stage 3-4 (Deep Sleep): Most restorative. Hard to wake from. Physical repair happens here. Glymphatic cleaning occurs.
- REM Sleep: Dream sleep. Memory consolidation and emotional processing. Brain is active; body is paralyzed.
A full cycle takes about 90 minutes. You need multiple complete cycles per night. Interruptions that prevent deep sleep or REM, even if you're technically in bed long enough, leave you unrested.
The Temperature Connection
Your body temperature drops 1-2 degrees as you fall asleep. This temperature drop helps initiate deep sleep. Research from UCLA found that maintaining skin temperature of 86°F (30°C) improved sleep onset by 25%.
Bedroom temperature should be 15-19°C (60-67°F). Mattresses that retain body heat interfere with the natural cooling process. This is why sleeping hot is associated with worse sleep quality, even when you don't fully wake up.
Light Exposure Research
Light affects your circadian rhythm through melanopsin receptors in the eyes. Blue light (from screens) is particularly effective at suppressing melatonin. Research from Harvard found that blue light exposure shifted circadian rhythm by 3 hours and cut melatonin production in half.
The practical application: reduce screen use before bed, or use blue-light-filtering settings. Morning light exposure helps reset the clock in the right direction.
The 8-Hour Question
Is 8 hours the right amount? Research shows individual variation, but population studies suggest 7-9 hours is optimal for most adults. Consistently sleeping less than 6 hours or more than 9 hours is associated with health problems.
Quality matters as much as quantity. 7 hours of consolidated, uninterrupted sleep beats 9 hours of fragmented sleep.
What Mattresses Have to Do with It
Sleep surface affects how often you change positions, how much pressure you experience, and how well you regulate temperature. Research on mattresses specifically is often funded by mattress companies (take it with a grain of salt), but the principles are clear:
- Excessive pressure on shoulders and hips causes position changes that can wake you
- Poor support creates back pain that disrupts sleep
- Heat retention interferes with natural temperature regulation
A good mattress removes physical barriers to good sleep. It doesn't magically create good sleep, but it stops the mattress from being what wakes you up.
Research Limitations
Most sleep research happens in labs with specific populations (often college students). Real-world sleep in your own bed, with your own stress, your own schedule, is different. Lab findings point directions but don't guarantee individual results.
Be skeptical of sleep claims that seem too specific or too good to be true. Sleep science is real, but sleep marketing often overstates the research.
Practical Application
The science suggests:
- Prioritize 7-9 hours of sleep opportunity
- Keep your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet
- Maintain consistent sleep and wake times
- Limit blue light exposure before bed
- Address physical discomfort that wakes you
Simple advice, hard to follow consistently. But the research is clear that these factors matter.
Come Talk Sleep Science
We're at 441½ West Street in Brantford. We're not scientists, but we've read the research and applied it to helping people sleep better for 37 years. If you have questions about how sleep science relates to your situation, come in.
Mattress Miracle: science-informed sleep solutions in Brantford since 1987.