There is no human being that can survive without getting regular proper sleep in the night. Sleeping well is essential for our body to rest and recover. Without enough sleep, there are risks to suffer from various chronic and even fatal diseases. However, not everybody gets quality sleep every day. Far too often, many of us have difficulties staying asleep soundly for the whole night. Who doesn’t want to improve the quality of their sleep?
But, it doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, improving the quality of sleep is probably as easy as taking off our clothes, including the underwear or bra, before getting into the bed. Sounds unbelievable, right?
There are studies that back the claim that sleeping nude will result in better quality of sleep. In fact, there are studies that demonstrate that there are a lot of benefits to sleeping without clothes, and they go beyond merely helping us sleep better.
Let’s look at some of the many health benefits of sleeping without underwear (bra and panties) and even sleeping with no pillow.
1. Increases Quality of Sleep
Numerous studies demonstrate that sleeping while wearing some clothes causes restlessness. This is probably due to the inability of clothes to adjust to the change of body temperature when we are asleep. As we doze, our body temperature declines and will climb up again before we wake up. This process of natural body temperature fluctuation can be interfered by the clothing that we are wearing in bed.
If you often find yourself tossing and turning during your sleep or waking up several times throughout your sleep, your clothes could possibly be the culprit. Therefore, to sleep more soundly and comfortably, taking off your pajamas, bra and underwear before tucking in is necessary.
2. Prevents Sleep Disturbance
For some people, the effect of sleeping with clothes will even go as far as causing sleep difficulties. To be able to sleep well, our body temperature needs to decrease by a half degree. When your body fails to achieve the ideal temperature, you will experience major sleep difficulties.
The human body’s temperature reaches its peak from around 11 PM to 4 AM. This is the reason some people feel uncomfortable during their sleep and they keep waking up sweaty. While most undergarments are thin and lightweight, it directly attaches to your skin and traps the heat. Taking off your clothes will help level down the temperature during these hours and thus, help you sleep without difficulties.
Some even report that sleeping naked helps release oxytocin.
3. Promotes Better Quality of Sperm
Men who plan to be fathers should start taking their boxers off before going to bed. The testicles, organs that are responsible for producing sperm, need a certain and stable temperature to be able to produce high-quality sperm.
According to various studies, testicles will only be able to produce the healthy quality of sperm at the temperature no higher than 98 °F or 36,67 °C. If the testicle temperature is higher than the degree, the morphology of the sperm will be altered. Wearing boxers or pajamas to sleep will make the crotch area and testicles warmer and increases the risk of men’s infertility.
Sleeping without clothes will also decrease the temperature in the area of the prostate gland. Besides promoting normal production of the sperm, this will also improve the blood circulation to the penis. As a result, erectile dysfunction will be prevented.
4. Maintains Healthy Weight
According to a study published in Journal of Diabetes, sleeping without clothes help people who want to lose their weight by igniting the metabolism. The 2014 study discovered that people who sleep in chilly rooms produce double the volume of brown fat compared to people who sleep in warmer temperature.
Cooler body temperature during sleep will help us to activate the production of brown fat. A brown fat is a type of healthy fat tissue stored in the neck which is responsible for generating body heat by burning calories. The amount of heat produced by brown fat is 300 times higher compared to other tissue or body part. When the brown fat is activated, we will lose a good number of calories just by sleeping.
Besides, sleeping without clothes will also make you sleep better which then leads to the decrease of your cortisol hormones (also known as stress hormones). When your body produces a high level of cortisol, your body will remain in “panic mode.” In “panic mode,” your body thinks that you’re in a time of crisis and, to respond, will store the fat instead of burning it.
The reduced levels of cortisol hormones will help you maintain energy, control hunger, and avoid the increase of abdominal fat. In the long run, this will help you s maintain a healthy weight. On the contrary, sleeping in warmer temperature will likely make you wake up a lot throughout the night and hence causes the levels of the stress hormone to level up. This is also one of the reasons why some people feel very hungry as soon as they get up in the morning.
So far we’ve discovered that not only will we sleep better and have better sex if we sleep without underwear, panties or bra, now we know that it might even aid in weight loss!
5. Reduces Stress
Prolonged stress is a bad news to your overall physical and emotional well-being. Constantly being under stress will suppress your immune system and makes it easier for you to catch contagious diseases.
Besides, prolonged stress also causes a number of physical ailments such as obesity and heart diseases as well as mental problems like depression and anxiety.
Since being naked helps you sleep more soundly and returns your level of cortisol hormone back to normal, it will also reduce your stress. You will wake up fresher and happier after a night of sleep without the clothes.
6. Releases Anti-Aging Hormone
Because sleeping in your underwear disrupts the cooling down mechanism of your body temperature, it also prevents the body from releasing melatonin and growth hormones. Both hormones require a certain degree of temperature to produce which is only possible to attain once you take off your clothes. Both hormones are very important because of their anti-aging properties.
Melatonin, also known as the sleep hormone, has a lot of benefits from preventing cardiovascular diseases to providing protection against diabetes.
Studies in animals also demonstrated that the high level of melatonin helps increase the life span to 20%. During this prolonged lifespan, the youthful characters are also maintained.
7. Promotes Beautiful Skin
Since both melatonin and growth hormone possess anti-aging properties and both of these hormones will be released well when we sleep naked, then sleeping without clothes will also make us look younger. Melatonin doesn’t only delay aging but also makes human age more gracefully. The chemicals will rejuvenate your skin so you can look more youthful and prettier for a longer time. It also fights aging signs on the skin such as wrinkles and discoloration.
Besides, since sleeping without clothes will also eliminate the risk of harsh contact or friction between clothes and skin (such as when we wear a bra or tight pants), it also reduces the risk of skin irritation and discoloration due to friction.
8. Improves Hygiene
Going to sleep naked also improves your overall hygiene. The underwear that you wear to bed is either worn several days in a row for sleeping or the ones that you have been wearing during the day. These clothes trap all sort of moisture, dirt, and sweat. Unfortunately, this is the condition where bacteria thrive. This is the reason why we should just take the clothes off before bed.
Besides, if it’s the underwear that we wear during the day, it probably has been in contact with germs and other harmful microorganisms. Wearing it to sleep while producing sweat throughout the sleep is certainly not the wisest thing to do in terms of hygiene.
9. Protects Crotch Area Against Bacteria
Your daily activities make your body release sweat. The sweat is mostly accumulated in areas that do not receive enough exposure to the air, such as the armpit, around the bra bands, and crotch. Sweaty body parts are home to bacteria because they grow well in the warm and moist environment.
When you wear a bra, pajamas or underwear to bed, your clothes will trap the heat and moisture. The more bacteria that inhabit your crotch area, the higher is the risk of the area to be exposed to infection when your skin is chafed or irritated. To keep your crotch dry, clean, healthy, and bacteria-free, skip your panties when you go to sleep.
10. Promotes Better Blood Circulation Around Breast
For women, wearing bras every day is an obligatory torture. It is necessary to fight the gravity that will ruin the aesthetic morphology of the breasts, but it also gives some pressure to the pectoral muscle. Of course, the pressure inevitably affects the blood circulation in the area.
Removing your bra before going to bed will enable the pectoral muscle to take a break from the pressure. The blood circulation will be significantly improved.
As a result, other parts of the body will also be benefited because of the less constricted blood flow.
11. Sleeping Without a Bra Prevents Breathing Problems
Tight clothes, especially bras, will also influence your ability to breathe easily during sleep. Heavy or hectic activities that women do during the day while wearing tight, underwired bras will make their lungs forced to work harder to inhale the air. This is because the tightness of the bra makes the diaphragm tied.
When you remove your bra and all clothing before going to bed, you will have easier breathing process throughout the sleep. You will also sleep better as the result.
12. Prevents Breast Disease
A study mentions that women are supposed to wear their bras for only 12 hours every day. Some women, who are misinformed on the effect of gravity on breasts’ shape during sleep, somehow still choose to wear bras all the time in the hope of maintaining the firmness of their breasts.
What happens when women wear a bra all the time? The study shows that women who choose to wear a bra more than 12 hours every day have bigger risks to suffer from breast disease. Not taking off bra during sleep will disrupt the blood circulation in the area.
The failure of blood to circulate well will trigger abnormal cells to emerge inside the breasts. Eventually, these abnormal cells will further develop into disease cells. Therefore, to reduce the risk of breast disease, it’s strongly recommended for women to take off their bras and other restrictive clothing before they go to bed.
13. Prevents Skin Irritation and Pigmentation
A large area of our skin is almost always covered in clothes everyday, except when we take showers. Our skin also needs to breathe. Multiple layers of clothes that restrict our armpits, bellies, and private parts, need to go at least for some hours every day. We need to give the skin on those parts some space and air to breathe.
This will also prevent the risk of contracting skin diseases. Athlete’s foot is an example of diseases caused by restricted and wet skin in the feet area.
Wearing a bra and tight underwear all day has the potential to cause skin pigmentation and irritation. This is because the elastic band of some boxers and the tight band and strap of bras constantly put some pressure on our skin. Bras with wire are especially dangerous because it applies a lot of pressure that may irritate the skin.
During sleeping, the pressure stays on one area for hours. This increases the risk of skin pigmentation. It will also cause red stripes and lesions that can be painful because the band irritates the skin.
14. Promotes More Intimate Love Life
If you share your bed with your significant other, both of you will get an extra advantage by sleeping nude. Skin-on-skin contact with the person you love is a good thing not only because it often leads to intimate and passionate sex, but also because the touching alone makes you feel happier.
This is a fact backed by science first discovered by a group of Swedish researchers. When you cuddle with or touch your partner during sleep, your brain will be stimulated to release a large number of oxytocins.
Oxytocin is the feel-good chemicals that reduce the level of stress and improve your sex drive. This is why couples who sleep nude are usually more intimate with one another. A different survey-based study even discovered that 57% of nude sleepers claim that they are happier with their relationships.
15. Boosts Confidence
Clothes are there to protect our body against environmental harm such as ultraviolet ray, low temperature, harsh wind, and pollution. Being fully clothed is also a basic decency, but the habit shouldn’t make you hate or embarrassed by our own body.
When we sleep in the nude, it will help improve body positivity. People with body image problems will learn to love and accept themselves and eventually become more confident in their own skin. Sleeping without clothes feels nice and free and encourages positive body image.
Do you sleep naked? What have you experienced as far as benefits and side effects of sleeping without clothes? Please let us know in the comments below!