Abstract

There is increasing concern by patients and providers seeking help with sleep initiation and maintenance yet little verified evidence on the efficacy of non-medicinal treatments for sleep disorders. Some articles have suggested relationships exist between anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), body temperature, temperature and sleep quality which suggests measuring heat loss at the peripheral skin level has potential to predict sleep initiation and potentially providing a means of regulating body temperature during sleep. This may help adults achieve more restorative sleep and improvement in overall quality of health. The following is a mini literature review related to sleep disorders and the potential benefit of thermoregulation and other non-medicinal modalities. Key words: anxiety; veterans; sleep disorders; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); temperature; sleep A literature search was performed utilizing the key terms: anxiety, veterans, sleep disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) returning 182 articles. Articles from this sample were examined and reviewed for appropriateness and relation. A snow-ball effect was utilized to find additional articles related to the key terms. A separate literature search utilizing key terms temperature and sleep was performed finding 79 articles. Only 4 principle systematic reviews were found directly relating to the topic. N = 47 articles were determined as directly related.