This Is Why Sleeping With the Fan on Is Dangerous

There are many health-benefits related to sleeping in a cold room, like slowing down the aging process and helping fight disease. When regulating the temperature of your room, however, you'll want to avoid fans and opt for an AC instead.

This info might come as a surprise to those of us who were raised to think that air conditioners are evil. Overseas, there seems to be a stigma associated with air conditioners and an almost sneering attitude to Americans who are obsessed with keeping the climate in their homes a cool 72-degrees all year round.

But as it turns out, sleeping with the AC on is actually the primo choice and it's fans that are the problem: here's why.

You think sucking in the air from refrigerant-powered ACs is bad? Think again! Air conditioners are actually designed to do a pretty darn good job of keeping foreign pollutants out of your home. Fans, on the other hand, just whip them up into a flurry.

So what does this mean for you? It means that you're going to be inhaling the same stuff in the room that's been circulating round and round. If you don't clean your fan regularly, that means it'll probably accumulate a lot of dust as well. So you're just eating the same dust bunnies that are being tossed around the room. Yuckaroni. Got asthma? Then you probably shouldn't sleep with the fan on or clean that boy up nice and good.

Air conditioners change the temperature of the entire room, but to feel the effects of a fan, you're gonna need that air blowing directly on you. Doing that all night will inevitably result in muscle stiffness, soreness, or pain. Yes, sustained gusts of wind, no matter how tiny, can make you feel crummy after constant exposure for hours while you sleep. Not cool.

Fans, by their very nature, dry the air around them, as the constant circulating of the air removes moisture. What does this mean for you and your skin? Well, if you're a lotion-a-holic, then I've got some bad news for you.

Constant fan exposure will dry out your skin, which isn't that big of a deal if you're moisturizing before you go to sleep (good for you), but that still leaves your lips and eyes. If they're even a little bit open while you sleep, you could suffer from irritation due to extreme dryness on the inside of your mouth and in your eyeballs. 

If you have to sleep with a fan on, keep a bottle of water near your bed (not cup, you don't want the top of that exposed to whatever it's pushing around in the air all night).

All the fan air will also ultimately do a number on your sinuses by drying them out. That'll give you pain in your face and nasal tract, and your body might start to produce more mucus for lubrication, which means you now have a runny nose. Thanks a lot, fan.

Now sleeping with a fan on is a bad idea and if you have the option, definitely go for an AC. Because the health benefits to sleeping in a cold room are out of this world, like...

That's right: One of the leading contributing factors to insomnia is the poor regulation of body temperature. There's a reason why we toss and turn in the summer on a hot night — when the temperature in our bodies is higher, we're biologically wired to stay awake. 

A colder body temperature, however, means that you'll be able to sleep easier. Your body naturally becomes more relaxed at cooler temperatures, so if you've been having trouble getting to sleep in the summertime, going to bed in a cold room might just do the trick.

Sleeping in a cold room (of around 66 degrees Fahrenheit) could boost your metabolism and improve your insulin resistance, which decreases one's risk for diabetes. It also increases the "good fat" in your body. Might be why so many athletes are opting for short-burst cryotherapy sessions.

Getting old and dying is inevitable. However, you could slow that process down by sleeping a cold room. How? Well, the magic chemical is melatonin! Your body produces the stuff when you sleep, and produces more of it when you're sleeping in ideal conditions, i.e., a cold room. Take that, age.

So if your S/O is always bugging you about the bedroom being too cold, just tell them that you're trying to live longer so the two of you can ultimately spend more time together. If they object to that, well, they automatically lose the argument. 

(h/t the hearty soul)