It helps you lose weight and 4 other reasons you SHOULD sleep naked – doctor’s say so
Not only are you more likely to have more sex, but you're also doing your skin a favour too
Not only are you more likely to have more sex, but you're also doing your skin a favour too
THE temperature is set to soar this week and that means only one thing: hot, sticky nights.
There's nothing like the prospect of waking up drenched in your own sweat to take the edge off a nice sunny day.
But there is one thing you could do to improve the quality of your sleep - regardless of the temperature.
And that's ditching your PJs.
Sleeping naked can have massive benefits for your mental and physical help, as well as the soundness of your shut-eye.
Worried that sleeping in the buff might make you a bit odd?
Don't - one in five Brits don't wear anything in bed, with those in Cardiff, Brighton and Southampton being most likely to sleep nude.
Neil Robinson, Chief Sleep Officer at Sealy UK says that there are five main benefits to sleeping naked:
Yep, really.
Your body needs to be naturally cooler at night, ideally around 1°C lower than normal, to help you get a good night’s sleep.
conducted by the US National Institutes of Health found that keeping yourself cool while you sleep could help speed up your metabolism, as your body compensates by creating more brown fat to keep you warm.
This brown fat produces the heat needed by burning calories, helping boost your metabolism all day long.
The more brown fat you have, the better insulin sensitivity you have (which means you're less likely to store belly fat)and the slimmer you tend to be.
A study published in the journal Nature Medicine says that in order to increase your brown fat stores significantly, you've got to spend two hours a day in 18'C, dressed so that you're cold but not freezing.
Dutch scientists found that when people spent time in room where the temperature was reduced from 21˚C to 15˚C, they burned an extra 6 per cent.
And that means that if you typically burn around 2,000 kcals a day, you could burn up to an extra 120 kcals.
What could be an easier way to burn those extra calories than sleeping naked?
But it’s not just weight loss which is a positive side effect of properly regulating your temperature in bed.
Keeping your body temperature below 21˚C helps the melatonin in our body to function properly.
Sometimes called the sleep hormone, melatonin helps to regulate your sleep-wake cycle, helping you get the best night’s sleep possible.
Another benefit of melatonin is its anti-aging properties.
that melatonin can help stimulate the growth of fibroblasts – special cells that produce collagen and elastin to keep your skin looking youthful and wrinkle-free.
When we're asleep, our bodies also secrete human growth hormone.
That's a hormone which is crucial for keeping us healthy and free from infection and it also helps with the regeneration of cells.
We produce less of the stress hormone cortisol when we're asleep - particularly between 10pm and 2am, when the body is at its deepest period of rest.
Post-2am, however, our adrenal glands start producing cortisol to prepare for the day ahead.
That means that if you're awake during those hours, your cortisol level is likely to be sky-high - leaving you feeling stressed and hungry.
You can reduce the likelihood of waking up at that time by sleeping naked and keeping cool.
By maintaining optimal temperature, you're more likely to remain in a deeper sleep for longer.
You know what's really not good for your vagina? Being wrapped up in layers of clothing and bedding so that it gets all hot and sweaty.
Sleeping naked finally gives your privates a chance to breathe after spending all day locked in underwear.
"I'm forever telling my patients to set themselves free and not to wear pants at night," , Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at the Portland Hospital for Women and Children told The Sun.
"When you're all warm and cosy under your duvet, any bacteria in your pants can thrive and spread.
"The best underwear is made from pure cotton and you need to be washing it at 80-90'c to kill candida spores."
But it's not just women's bits that could benefit from a bit of breeze.
and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development studied 500 men over a period of 12 months, looking at the sperm quality of the men and what underwear they were wearing during the day and at night.
It found that men who wore boxers during the day and slept naked at night had 25 per cent less damage to the genetic material in their sperm than men who wore underwear round the clock.
It’s thought that this damage is less likely when men who don't wear underwear at night, with researchers suggesting that men sleep in the nude and wear loose-fitting underwear during the day in order to improve fertility.
It's a no-brainer, but sleeping the nude can bring you closer together with your partner.
Skin-on-skin contact helps us to produce the "love hormone" oxytocin, which has been found to lower stress and anxiety and boost our immune systems.
Oh, and it also makes us more up for having sex.
Sex is a great stress-buster.
A small study of 46 people found that stress levels were highest in people who had no sex at all while those who had it regularly have the smallest rise in blood pressure and cope better with overall stress.
Win-win.
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