January 27, 2019 – What amount of time do you consider a “good” night of sleep? These days, I find that 7-8 hours of good sleep is the ticket for me. I feel like I’m rested, wake up in a better mood, and seem to be much more socially ready for the day.

Well, it turns out that recent studies point to getting good sleep will directly benefit your social life as well.

Sleep is really everything! It’s been determined that getting the right amount of good restful sleep impacts our ability to interact with others immensely. It improves your capacity to connect emotionally and have empathy for others, be less angry or aggressive human beings, and opens us up to feel good about meeting and interacting with new people.

If during the course of your day you suffer a traumatic or emotional experience with someone, sleep is also the hero here. Getting to REM sleep faster (the deep sleep your body and mind longs for) gets you into the place where you can dream. Dream sleep helps reactivate emotional and memory-related structures of the brain. Getting past emotional experiences sets you up for better interpersonal relationships as you navigate your day.

We hot tubbers know that one way to guarantee you’re set up to get a good, restful slumber is by taking a soak before bed. A lot of research has been done about the way your body reacts to hot water immersion before you hit the sheets. Soak for about 30-40 minutes, then get yourself ready for bed. During your time in the tub your body’s core temperature will elevate. About an hour or so after that soak, your core temperature cools down. This triggers a “ready to rest” response in your mind and sets you up to fall into that precious REM sleep faster. Not only does it tend to help with REM sleep, many find there is less tossing and turning, and far fewer middle-of-the-night awakenings. All this contributes to a much more restful sleep.

If you think you need to get your social life in order, hot tubbing before bed to get that all important sleep could be the answer!