The pain and frustration of chronic insomnia affects one in 10 American adults, most of whom find no relief from current therapies. Now a new study finds that simply cooling the brain area just behind the forehead can help.

In a study presented this summer at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s SLEEP 2011 conference, researchers fit 12 insomniacs with caps that use circulating water to cool the prefrontal cortex. The cap helps the insomniacs fall asleep about as fast—and stay asleep about as long—as adults without insomnia.

“When you get into the neurobiology, insomnia is a disorder of hyperarousal,” says Eric A. Nof­zinger, a psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who worked on the study. In adults with normal sleeping patterns, the metab­olism of the prefrontal cortex decreases as they fall asleep. In insomniacs, however, it increases—corresponding with the incessant worrying or brain chatter that many insomniacs report experiencing. Using the cap to perform a cooling process on the brain called cerebral hypothermia, the researchers were able to reduce the brain’s activity and lull the subject to sleep.

The finding is significant because current treatments such as hypnosis and sleeping pills help only about one in four insomniacs. The cooling cap, which had a 75 percent success rate, may soon offer patients a safe, comfortable, nonpharmaceutical way to enjoy a good night’s sleep. Participants reported that wearing the cap was a “soothing, massagelike experience,” Nofzinger says. “Imagine your grandmother putting a cold washcloth on your forehead.” He hopes that the cap may also prove useful to patients with anxiety and mood disorders, which also involve the prefrontal cortex.

This article was originally published with the title Putting Insomnia on Ice.

4 Comments

1. 1. neurolite 10:12 AM 12/21/11

   As an insomniac who can't take medication because it dulls my mind too much during the day, this is very exciting, I'll be trying this tonight

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2. 2. Burnard 11:34 AM 12/21/11

   Maybe this is why I, like most people, like to turn my pillow over and lay on the cool side.

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3. 3. RedRoseAndy in reply to neurolite 10:41 AM 12/23/11

   Most sleep experts say that poor, and little, sleep are the reason for most mental illness. To get the sleep you get at the coast when the wind blows in from the sea just heat salt water in an oil burner overnight. In just five nights insomnia is cured.

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4. 4. bucketofsquid in reply to RedRoseAndy 05:47 PM 1/10/12

   If you heat saltwater then it isn't cool is it? Wouldn't it be better to just use cool water inside a plastic bag of some kind?

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