Thermal comfort and sleep under different room temperatures

  • Lee, Y.S. (Department of Clothing Science, Chonnam National University)
  • Published : 1992.10.01

Abstract

To get a comfortable sleep, the most improtant thing is how well we do thermorgulate during the rest in bed before sleeping as well as during sleep. In other works, the ambient temperature of the sleeping room is very improtant in the organization of human sleep. In recent years, the effect of ambient temperature on human sleep has been increasingly stueided. These studies were primarily concerned with the relation between thermorgulatory processes and sleep, and more precisely with the findings that various thermoregulatory processes are inactivated or severly curtailed during REM sleep in a number of animals, also that panting and shivering in heat and cold, respectively, cease during REM sleep in cats. Haskel et al. noted that although REM sleep latency was increased at thigh and low temperature. REM sleep was depressed to a greater extent by lower than by higher temperatures whereas the reverse was obseved for SWS. It has also been found that a load omposed upon thermoregulatory mechanisms should markedly affect sleep processes, and that conversely, sleep in conditions of thermic stress should interfere with adequate thermorgulatory reactions. Sleep in an animala under thermic stress is, on the whole, both shorter and less deep than under normal thermic conditions.

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