It’s day four of BC’s first heatwave of the summer and it seems it’s about to get worse before it finally cools off.
Daily Hive spoke with an expert for the tips and tricks to help you get some rest while the heat is on.
Why does the heat impact sleep?
To start off, Wendy Hall, an emeritus professor at the UBC Nursing School, explains you might be noticing your sleeping habits change because the standard core temperature for your body may be shifting because of the warm environment.
“That core temperature needs to be in a certain range for us to fall asleep. So, for example, we don’t recommend high impact physical activity right before bed because it raises your core body temperature, and that can take an hour or two to diminish, which then permits you to go to sleep,” she explains. “So if you think about it that way, when we’re in environments where the temperature is very high, it’s hard for us to cool our bodies down, thereby affecting our core body temperatures.”
