Cool Room, Warm Bed
Camy’s Keeper: A cozy helper to fall asleep
Camy’s Keepers is an unbiased spotlight for products or services I use and love...that are keepers. I have no affiliation with or sponsorship from anything I showcase.
In my post Make Sleep Sacrosanct, I wrote about the imperative role that sleep plays in the overall health and longevity puzzle. I remember passionately protecting our son’s sleep time when he was a baby, as that was when his body was growing and developing. As adults, sleep plays the same role in supporting healthy brain function and maintaining overall health. Inadequate quality sleep over time can lead to chronic—and sometimes serious—health conditions, ultimately impacting our quality of life.
The cooler the better
There are many factors affecting sleep, including the temperature of the bedroom. The optimum ambient temperature for a good night’s rest is about 65 degrees, give or take a degree or two depending on the person. In our home, we have long had the habit of turning off the heat in the evening, so we don’t have an issue with the room being too warm in the colder months. However, during the winter, I have often wrestled with being toasty enough to fall asleep quickly, but not so warm that I overheat during the night, which wakes me up.
It's part of our natural sleep cycle for our core body temperature to start to drop in the early evening, signaling to our brain that it’s time to sleep. During sleep, it continues to drop and then gradually warms again as morning approaches. (This may explain the sleep issues many women going through menopause experience with hot flashes and waking up at all hours…when our body starts to warm, its response is to wake.) So I’m all good with a cool room, but I tend to run cold and if I’m too cold, my muscles tense up, I’m uncomfortable, and I can’t relax enough to fall asleep. On the flip side, if I’m too bundled up, I get too warm and wake up in the middle of the night. Agh, I can’t win. Or so it seemed.
Soothing radiant warmth
Enter Bucky. I got my first one probably 20 years ago when I had dreadfully painful cycles…fierce cramping, terrible backaches…I don’t miss that, I must say. Bucky came to the rescue. Filled with curve-conforming buckwheat hulls, Bucky is a 6”x 24” body wrap-pillow-thing that heats in the microwave (or chills in the freezer) and radiates soft, gentle heat. For a couple of days during the month, Bucky was my savior.
Not sure when it occurred to me that the soothing warmth could help me fall asleep, but at some point, I had the notion to bring it to bed and voilà, it was a game changer. Its beauty is three-fold. First, the heat is so comforting, my muscles relax and the mind follows. Second, while it retains heat at the onset, the warmth gradually dissipates, so it doesn’t disrupt the body’s natural cooling cycle—which is the problem with heavy pjs or blankets. Third, there is a slight weight to the wrap, which helps to calm the autonomic nervous system and shift it to the rest mode.
Bucky is primarily marketed for soothing sore muscles, aches, and pains—and we use it for this as well. (As a matter of fact, I’ve got it draped over my husband’s shoulders as I write.) But in our home, it gets the most use at bedtime, as it has become a staple in my cold-weather nighttime routine.
With sleep being a tenant of my Ageosophy to live well, age great, Bucky is a keeper.