I love to sleep in a cold bedroom at night. I prefer to burrow under the covers, rather than have the room warm and toasty. While it can sometimes be a bone of contention , this article in the New York Times gives another, perhaps more compelling reason to turn the thermostat down at night.
Sleeping in a cooler room can alter the amount of brown fat our bodies carry.
Brown fat, which has been discovered in tiny amounts in the upper backs and necks of adults, is thought to have be metabolically active. This healthy fat aids in burning calories, maintaining core body temperature, and taking sugar out of the bloodstream.
Studies performed on healthy men showed that sleeping in a room cooled to 66 degrees, allowed their bodies to double their stores of healthy brown fat in just four weeks, and improved their insulin sensitivity. When the same men slept in an 80 degree room for four weeks, their brown fat levels fell lower than they were at the onset of the study.
While the effects of these findings were minimal, it is interesting to note that subtle tweaks in temperature could offer small metabolic health boosts.
The original article can be found here.
photo: glasshouse images
Tags: brown fat, cooler temperatures, health, insulin sensitivity, metabolic boosts, New York Times, sleeping, turn the thermostat down
Indigo jones 
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