We’ve heard of most of the remedies for falling asleep at night: drinking a glass of warm milk, taking a hot bath, listening to soothing music, relaxing with meditation, avoiding caffeine and alcohol…even taking sleep aids. But have you ever heard of “cooling your brain”? Research suggesting just that was presented at the SLEEP 2011 annual meeting last week. Two doctors from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine—Dr. Eric Nofzinger and Dr. Daniel Buysse—presented research that cooling the brain using cooling caps may be an effective, safe and natural alternative to taking sleep aids.
The cooling is called “frontal cerebral thermal transfer” and can be achieved by using a soft plastic cap that has tubes for circulating water at neutral, moderate or maximum cooling intensity. The research doctors observed how well participants sleep with and without the caps at different temperature levels. When those with insomnia received the maximum cooling intensity, they fell asleep in about 13 minutes and slept 89% of the time they were in bed. This is similar to those participants who didn’t have insomnia; they also slept for 89% of the time but took 16 minutes to fall asleep. Whoa!
Cooling the brain slows the metabolism in the frontal cortex. Insomnia is associated with increased metabolism in that part of the brain…so, reduce the metabolism and sleep can happen.
Really pretty amazing.
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