If the Standard Model ( SM ) Higgs is weakly coupled to the inflationary sector , the Higgs is expected to be universally in the form of a condensate towards the end of inflation . The Higgs decays rapidly after inflation – via non-perturbative effects – into an out-of-equilibrium distribution of SM species , which thermalize soon afterwards . If the post-inflationary equation of state of the universe is stiff , w \simeq + 1 , the SM species eventually dominate the total energy budget . This provides a natural origin for the relativistic thermal plasma of SM species , required for the onset of the ‘ hot Big Bang ’ era . The viability of this scenario requires the inflationary Hubble scale H _ { * } to be lower than the instability scale for Higgs vacuum decay , the Higgs not to generate too large curvature perturbations at cosmological scales , and the SM dominance to occur before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis . We show that successful reheating into the SM can only be obtained in the presence of a non-minimal coupling to gravity \xi \gtrsim 1 , with a reheating temperature of T _ { RH } \gtrsim \mathcal { O } ( 10 ^ { 10 } ) \xi ^ { 3 / 2 } ( H _ { * } / 10 ^ { 14 } { GeV } ) ^ { 2 } ~ { } { % GeV } .