Sleep Cycles and Your Body

Every evening, your body starts letting go of some heat. This cooling off is one of the ways your body tells you it's time for bed. Once you drift off, your core temperature drops by 1 to 2 degrees. This helps your body save energy while you sleep.

As you descend through the stages of non-rapid eye movement sleep, your brain keeps your temperature level. But during rapid eye movement sleep, your temperature drops. As your body is going through all those changes, research shows a cool bedroom around 65 degrees helps you sleep more soundly. By about 5:00 AM your temperature drops to its lowest point and then slowly rises as the day begins. How cool is that?