0% finance options available at checkout
5/5
My Basket
5/5
0% Finance options
available at checkout
  • Home
  • Blog
  • 5 Surprising Sleep Secrets that Make Total Sense

5 Surprising Sleep Secrets that Make Total Sense

5 Surprising Sleep Secrets that Make Total Sense Read more from one of the UK's largest online bed retailers, Shop online with Bed Guru the sleep specialists.

26th April, 2017
by Carl Walsh

Want better sleep and long-term health? These new facts explain a few things about your body, mind and sleep. Because surprise, surprise, science is able to shed new light on what you think you know about sleep… 

1. Cold bedrooms reduce your risk of diabetes and wrinkles

Not only can you fall asleep faster in a cool bedroom, Dr Chris Winter says the ideal temperature is between 15.5°c and 19°c because your body doesn’t have to work as hard to adjust your temperature, and you can reap long term health benefits too.

Oxford University Professor of Endocrinology Ashley Grossman says that opening your bedroom window at night could help prevent obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Cooling your body even by a few degrees can increase your sensitivity to insulin.

And that’s not all, because Melatonin is one of the bodies best anti-aging hormones – you produce more of it when your body is cool. Plus, Gretchen Reynolds of the New York Times reported that cool sleepers burn more calories during the day. So perhaps you’ll consider leaving your bedroom window open tonight for the good of your long-term health.

Bed Guru organic mattresses regulate your body temperature – giving you a disturbance free sleep, because you’re neither too hot nor too cold. And don’t forget the many benefits of sleeping naked

2. Scientists now know where your dreams (and nightmares) come from

Forget what you thought you knew about dreaming. For the first time ever, you can be certain that dreams aren’t only linked to the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep – because it happens in non-REM stages too. A new study also shows that dreaming is linked to a ‘hot zone’ of brain activity at the back of your brain.

Your sleeping brain works in a remarkably similar way to your awake brain. When you dream about faces, for example, you’re using the same part of your brain that’s involved in face recognition during the day. Which is more surprising for scientists than it sounds.

And dreaming isn’t something you invent when you wake up – scientists proved that you experience dreams when asleep. These findings are as significant as discovering REM for the first time. This study can even help reveal traces of conscious activity in unresponsive people in comas.

Take our less than scientific quiz today to predict what kind of nightmare you’ll have tonight. 

3. You either have the gene for good sleep or you don’t… apparently

Here’s a new one for us – another thing you might be able to blame your parents for. Washington State University say that your CRY1 gene produces a protein that helps your body’s ‘clock genes’ switch on and off – making you sleep and wake up. But if your CRY1 gene produces too much protein, your ‘clock genes’ stay off for longer – making you a night owl, prone to sleep phase disorder, and more tired during the day.

And that’s not all. Remember how the Melatonin hormone regulates your sleeping patterns and prepares your body to sleep? Well, if you have this gene mutation, your melatonin levels won’t rise until 2am or 3am. Whereas it’s usually 9pm or 10pm for most of us who sleep well. 

4. You could sleep two hours longer in a tent

When you catch yourself yawning, grab your tent and run for the hills – to reset your internal clocks. A study showed that campers fell asleep two hours earlier than normal because they couldn’t use gadgets or electric lights. Because of this, they slept for 10 hours rather than their usual 7 and a half hours – making them more active during the daytime. That gives you another excuse to star gaze from inside Camp Katur’s transparent sleeping domes in Yorkshire. You could even have us build a bespoke bed and mattress to fit into your tent – yours would be our very first!

5. Olympians and top British athletes have slept on Bed Guru Sports Mattresses

From Olympic bronze artistic gymnast Kristian Thomas to the most successful female British Paralympian of all time, Dame Sarah Joanne Storey – who has 14 gold road and track cycling medals to her name. They’ve all slept on a Bed Guru Active Sports Mattress and sung its praises. See what they said and find out more about the sports mattress range today. Essentially, they help you recover from your training and give you a fighting chance of sporting success with a good night’s sleep. 

Your Basket


Promo Code

Coupon Code Illustration

Estimate Shipping

Coupon Code Illustration