You Asked: Why Do I Sweat When I Sleep?

It can be disconcerting to climb into bed, fall asleep easily and wake up drenched in sweat hours later—or to feel overheated once insomnia kicks and you just can’t seem to turn off your brain. What’s the cause of these nighttime blasts of heat? “I started studying night sweats because I had patients asking me about them, and I wanted to give them an answer,” says Dr. James Mold, emeritus professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. In 2011, Mold published a review study that looked at all the available research on the causes and symptoms of night sweats. He turned up more questions than answers. Even the definition of “night sweats” is not well-established, and descriptions of the condition range from mild to “drenching” perspiration. “One thing we did find is that sweating at night is associated with states of arousal, and that some of the things that cause people to sweat at night include [antidepressants] or blood pressure medications, alcohol or eating too close to bed,” Mold says. Each of these can disrupt the body’s natural metabolic slow-down or temperature-control mechanisms, and so disrupt or curtail sleep, his study suggests. Of course, the hormone shifts associated with menopause are also a common cause of nighttime hot flashes, says Dr. Hadine Joffe, an associate professor in the division of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School. Even if ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthytime sleep Source Type: news