1% Thursday: Cool Head

Another study is saying what many of us have known for a long time.  Cool head = Better sleep.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine were wondering if people who couldn’t sleep had brains that were too hot.  Maybe their thinking was heating up their brains (or perhaps hot brains were making people think more!).  So what if people cooled down their heads?

In this very small study of 12 insomniacs, patients wore a cap of cooling water (similar to the SootheAway Continuous Thermal Therapy Device).  When they used the cap, they slept almost normally.  And when the caps were set to an even cooler temperature, sleep clearly improved.

There are simple, and more complex ways to cool your brain.  We’ve talked about a cold shower, but even wetting your hair could help you get to sleep.  There are also pillows that tend to be cooler, such as the buckwheat hull pillow or the Chillow.  You could also try to above SootheAway Device for a few minutes right before you sleep.

Oh, and sometimes just lowering the temperature of the room makes all the difference, if you can do it.

Keep a cool head at night.  You’ll be glad you did.

What is 1% Thursday?

Every Thursday at Headache and Migraine News (weather permitting) we’ll talk about one measurable, practical thing we can do to make our lives just 1% better.  Usually it will be something very easy, sometimes it will be a challenge.  Let us know if you try it, or share an idea of your own – and maybe a year from now we’ll see that things have really changed for the better!