This Mattress Will Help You Sleep Faster And Better

Have trouble falling asleep? A team of researchers has now developed a rather special mattress that can help people sleep faster and better.

The researchers designed the targeted mattress-pillow system to use temperature to "trigger the sleepy feeling," the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) noted in a news release. This is because our bodies have a 24-hour rhythm, and the temperature decline in the evening will help us to fall asleep.

The warming pillow heats up the neck and the warming-cooling mattress heats certain target areas of the body while cooling the others. Basically, the mattress-pillow pair tricks the body into thinking that its temperature is high, so it will begin the efforts to cool the body down, thereby helping the person to fall asleep faster.

"We facilitate the readiness to fall asleep by manipulating internal body temperature-sensitive sensors to briefly adjust the thermostat of the body so it thinks the temperature is higher than it actually is," said Shahab Haghayegh, who helped develop the mattress at UT Austin.

In a video shared by UT Austin, Haghayegh said he "always had a sleep problem" and was looking for ways to help people fall asleep without medications.

The researchers tested the mattress on 11 healthy individuals who were told to sleep two hours earlier than usual. During the study, published this week in the Journal of Sleep Research, the warming-cooling function of the mattress was used only on some nights but not on others.

Incredibly, the team found that the participants actually fell asleep 58% faster on nights when they used the warming-cooling function than other nights. Furthermore, they also had "improved overall sleep quality."

"It is remarkable how effective gentle warming along the cervical spine is in sending a signal to the body to increase blood flow to the hands and feet to lower the core temperature and precipitate sleep onset," said Kenneth Diller of UT Austin, who was one of the study authors.

The researcher also noted the other possible health benefits of the function.

"This same effect also enables the blood pressure to fall slightly overnight, with the benefit of allowing the cardiovascular system to recover from the stress of maintaining blood flow during daily activities, which is highly important for long-term health," Diller said.

Researchers also want to test the mattress on other people, such as those who have severe sleep problems such as insomnia, to see how well it works on them.

The team has already patented the system and is looking for partners to help them commercialize it.

For now, those who are already eager to get a better night's sleep should try out some other tricks like taking a warm bath an hour or two before bedtime. Other methods to fall asleep faster include lowering the temperature, setting a regular sleep schedule and avoiding naps during the day.