5D Library › Ecological Cultivation, Stress-Induced Polysaccharide Synthesis and Fresh-Extract Rheology of Dendrobium officinale · 中文
Chapter 5 Body Temperature and Sleep
The night-time fall in core temperature
Core body temperature follows a daily rhythm. It is highest in the late afternoon or early evening and lowest in the early morning, a swing of roughly half a degree to a degree in most adults. In the evening the body sheds heat mainly by opening the blood vessels of the hands and feet, so that the skin of the extremities warms while the core cools. Sleep tends to begin on the falling limb of this rhythm.
Evidence
Kräuchi and colleagues measured skin and core temperatures in healthy men in the evening. The difference between distal skin (hands and feet) and proximal skin (trunk) was the best predictor of how quickly they fell asleep, better than core temperature, melatonin or heart rate: the warmer the hands and feet relative to the trunk, the sooner sleep came (Kräuchi et al. 1999).
Evidence
Raymann, Swaab and Van Someren warmed the skin of sleeping volunteers by about 0.4 °C with a water-perfused suit, without changing core temperature. Night-time wakefulness fell and sleep shifted towards deeper stages, especially in older people (Raymann et al. 2008).
Evidence
A meta-analysis of passive body heating found that a warm shower or bath at 40–42.5 °C taken one to two hours before bedtime was associated with better self-rated sleep quality and sleep efficiency and with falling asleep sooner, even when the bath lasted only about 10 minutes. The authors attribute the effect to increased blood flow to the hands and feet and a subsequent faster fall of core temperature, but the number of studies was small (Haghayegh et al. 2019).
Three points follow from this evidence. Skin temperature, especially the warmth of the hands and feet, is at least as important as core temperature. The bath works through a large heat load that triggers sustained opening of the skin’s blood vessels. And none of these studies involved a drink.
How much heat is in a warm drink?
Calculation
The heat that a warm drink brings to the body, compared with the body’s own heat production and with a bath.
# How much heat does a warm drink bring, compared with the body's own heat flows?
C_WATER = 4.186 # kJ kg⁻¹ K⁻¹ (a thin decoction is close to water)
C_BODY = 3.47 # kJ kg⁻¹ K⁻¹, mean specific heat of the human body
mass, core = 70.0, 37.0 # kg, °C
for ml, temp in ((200, 45), (200, 55), (300, 50)):
q = ml / 1000 * C_WATER * (temp - core) # kJ given up as the drink reaches 37 °C
rise = q / (mass * C_BODY) # if all of it stayed in the body
minutes = q / (80 * 60 / 1000) # resting heat production ≈ 80 W
print(f"{ml} mL at {temp} °C: {q:4.1f} kJ, mean body temperature +{rise:.3f} K at most, "
f"= {minutes:3.1f} min of resting heat production")
# For comparison: a 40 °C bath that raises core temperature by 0.5 K stores about
print(f"\nbath raising the core by 0.5 K: ≈ {0.5 * mass * C_BODY * 0.7:.0f} kJ "
f"(taking the warmed mass as 70 % of the body)")
# 200 mL at 45 °C: 6.7 kJ, mean body temperature +0.028 K at most, = 1.4 min of resting heat production
# 200 mL at 55 °C: 15.1 kJ, mean body temperature +0.062 K at most, = 3.1 min of resting heat production
# 300 mL at 50 °C: 16.3 kJ, mean body temperature +0.067 K at most, = 3.4 min of resting heat production
#
# bath raising the core by 0.5 K: ≈ 85 kJ (taking the warmed mass as 70 % of the body)A cup of warm decoction brings a few kilojoules, enough to raise mean body temperature by a few hundredths of a degree at most and equal to a few minutes of the body’s own heat production at rest. A bath that raises core temperature by half a degree stores more than ten times as much. Whatever effect a warm drink has on the night-time fall of core temperature, it cannot come from the heat it contains.
A model of the night
Calculation
A two-compartment model: a core and a shell, linked by blood flow. The core’s set point follows a circadian cosine (mean 36.8 °C, amplitude 0.4 K, lowest at 05:00); blood flow to the skin rises when the core is warmer than its set point; the shell loses heat to the bedding. Four evenings are compared: nothing, a drink at 22:00, a drink followed by 30 % more blood flow to the skin, and a warm bath at 20:30.
import math
def setpoint(h):
"""Circadian set point of core temperature: cosine, mesor 36.8 °C, amplitude 0.4 K, lowest at 05:00."""
return 36.8 - 0.4 * math.cos(2 * math.pi * (h - 5) / 24)
def simulate(heat_kj=0.0, at_h=22.0, vasodilation=1.0, start=14.0, end=32.0, dt=1 / 60):
"""Two compartments, core and shell (kJ, hours). Heat flows core -> shell through blood flow,
whose conductance rises when the core is above its set point (the controller); the shell
loses heat to the bedding. 'vasodilation' multiplies the conductance after 22:00."""
C_CORE, C_SHELL = 160.0, 80.0 # kJ/K
M = 288.0 # kJ/h, about 80 W
T_ENV, H = 29.0, 52.0 # bedding microclimate °C; shell -> environment kJ/h/K
core, shell = setpoint(start), 34.4
out, h = {}, start
while h <= end + 1e-9:
k = max(20.0, 75.0 + 900.0 * (core - setpoint(h))) # kJ/h/K, bounded below
if h >= 22.0:
k *= vasodilation
q_cs = k * (core - shell)
core += dt * (M - q_cs) / C_CORE
shell += dt * (q_cs - H * (shell - T_ENV)) / C_SHELL
if abs(h - at_h) < dt / 2:
core += heat_kj / C_CORE # a drink or a bath adds heat to the core
out[round(h * 60)] = core
h += dt
return out
def report(label, run):
at = lambda hh: run[round(hh * 60)]
slope = (at(24.0) - at(22.5)) / 1.5
print(f"{label:41s} 22:00 {at(22.0):.2f}, 00:00 {at(24.0):.2f} °C, slope {slope:+.3f} K/h")
print("core temperature; slope from 22:30 to 00:00")
report("nothing", simulate())
report("drink 200 mL at 45 °C, 22:00 (heat only)", simulate(heat_kj=6.7))
report("drink + 30 % more blood flow to the skin", simulate(heat_kj=6.7, vasodilation=1.30))
report("warm bath at 20:30 storing 85 kJ", simulate(heat_kj=85.0, at_h=20.5))
# core temperature; slope from 22:30 to 00:00
# nothing 22:00 36.97, 00:00 36.78 °C, slope -0.095 K/h
# drink 200 mL at 45 °C, 22:00 (heat only) 22:00 37.01, 00:00 36.78 °C, slope -0.096 K/h
# drink + 30 % more blood flow to the skin 22:00 37.01, 00:00 36.75 °C, slope -0.098 K/h
# warm bath at 20:30 storing 85 kJ 22:00 37.00, 00:00 36.79 °C, slope -0.103 K/hThe model shows a regulated system. The core follows its set point, and any heat added is dissipated within about an hour. Even a sustained 30 % increase in skin blood flow, far more than a drink could plausibly cause, makes the core only a few hundredths of a degree cooler at midnight and changes the slope of its fall by less than 0.01 K per hour. The bath’s heat, too, is gone by bedtime in this model; the model cannot by itself reproduce the bath’s benefit, which is thought to depend on vasodilation that continues after the heat has gone. In this model, then, core temperature is a poor target for a drink. If a warm, thick drink affects sleep, the more promising route is through skin temperature, as in the Kräuchi and Raymann studies, or through relaxation and routine, which are not thermal at all.
Restating the hypothesis
The original proposal was that a warm, thick decoction of D. officinale taken before bed speeds the night-time fall of core temperature through vagal signals from the gut and changes in the microcirculation, and so increases deep sleep. The calculations narrow it. The drink’s heat is too small to matter, and a regulated core resists small changes in heat loss. The hypothesis is still testable, and Chapter 8 tests it, but its most plausible form concerns the warming of the hands and feet and deep sleep, with the core-temperature slope as a secondary measure.
Hypothesis · not established
Not established. In healthy adults, 200 mL of a warm (45 °C) decoction of fresh D. officinale stem taken 30 minutes before lights-out increases the distal–proximal skin temperature gradient during the first hour in bed and increases slow-wave sleep (N3) by at least 10 minutes, compared with a placebo of the same temperature and viscosity. The hypothesis predicts both changes in a double-blind crossover trial. If N3 sleep does not rise by 10 minutes or more, the hypothesis is refuted. The trial does not test, and a positive result would not show, that the decoction treats insomnia.
References
Fan, Y. (2026). Ecological Cultivation, Stress-Induced Polysaccharide Synthesis and Fresh-Extract Rheology of Dendrobium officinale: CAM Photosynthesis, VPD Water Control, Growth-Differentiation Balance and Nocturnal Core-Body-Temperature Regulation [铁皮石斛的生态栽培、逆境多糖合成与鲜汁流变学] (Version 1.0.0). 5D Library. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23729740 · Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).