Many people frequently have difficulties initiating sleep due to cold feet. In otherwise healthy people this is caused by a functional disorder of the vascular regulation resulting in complains of thermal discomfort of extremities, e.g. cold feet and cold hands. Laboratory studies have shown a close relationship between long sleep onset latency, the time it takes to fall asleep, and decreased blood flow circulation in hand and feet. The medical terms this is referred to as distal vasoconstriction. In a recent study of the University of Basel with 2800 people between 20 and 40 years a total of 31.1% of women and 6.9% of men complained about cold feet and hands. Their main recommendation to treat cold hands and feet is a thermo physiological approach meaning active warming of hand and feet.

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