How To Sleep Cooler At Night
Healthy adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep every night, but when it’s warm, you can expect to sleep an hour or so less.
Heat makes us toss and turn and affects our ability to stay asleep, with elevated temperatures associated with frequent awakenings.
With heat waves getting hotter and more frequent, you need clever ways to stay cool at bedtime to get the sleep you need. This article explores how to sleep more relaxed at night with a few tips from our sleep experts.
Let’s jump in!
Upgrade to a breathable mattress.
Breathable mattresses let air pass through them quickly, wicking away heat and letting moisture evaporate to keep you cool.
Memory foam is the most popular mattress material but is notoriously warm, trapping heat with low breathability. If you want memory foam, look at charcoal-bamboo memory foam like that you get with the Mlily Bamboo Superb.
Another option is any mattress with a vented border, like the Giltedge Beds Weeton, which lets air penetrate the sides for an upwards cooling effect.
Purchase a cooling gel mattress.
Memory gel is another option for more relaxed sleep if you can’t find a breathable mattress. Memory gel is memory foam infused with thousands of gel capsules evenly distributed in the foam to dissipate heat for active cooling.
The beads/capsules are usually silicone, polymer water beads, or graphene oxide beads, which can’t hold onto heat for long.
Because memory gel has active cooling, the foam can be thicker than regular foam, so mattresses are more luxurious. For example, the Giltedge Beds Geneva 3000 has 7.5cm of memory foam, while standard mattresses usually have up to 4cm.
Harness the power of windchill with a fan.
Windchill is the cooling effect of wind blowing on your skin. It helps lower your body temperature due to passing flow – air whips heat away. It’s why a summer breeze is so refreshing!
You can get windchill with a bedroom fan. Currys, Amazon, and other retailers have plenty of options, or you can go for a bladeless fan like the Dyson Purifier, which removes up to 99.97% of airborne dust.
If you don’t have the space for a fan on the floor, get a bedside fan that clips to your bedside table instead.
Lower your bedroom temperature with portable air con
Did you know you can get a portable air conditioner? These handy plug-in appliances will drop your bedroom temperature up to 15°C.
There are two main types:
- Ventilated – these air conditioners have the most powerful cooling effect, extracting hot air with ventilation to the outside. You get a window kit that lets you vent with your window open or use an existing duct.
- Unventilated or evaporative air coolers are not air conditioners that extract hot air but cool it. They use ice trays (you freeze them) and blow hot air over the ice to cool it.
The best type of mattress surface to keep you cool
The onset of the annual Great British Heatwave brings with it several challenges. While we all like the thought of sun and warm temperatures, it can get a bit much when we are not used to it and live in houses more aimed at keeping the heat in (to save on increasing fuel bills) than keeping cool. While regulating your temperature during the day can be more accessible, it becomes more complicated at night. Whatever the heat cause, simply opening a window or disposing of the covers doesn’t always help. What can make a big difference is looking to get a cooling mattress.
A cooling mattress is designed to create a more relaxed sleeping environment. This can be through layers of gel, materials such as bamboo, or increased ventilation.
Cooling Gel: This is the most popular way to create a cooling mattress. The gel is inserted into a memory foam layer. This stays cooler for longer and makes a more stable temperature, even amid a heatwave.
Open cell: These have been designed to incorporate better airflow. While a more traditional open coil or pocket sprung mattress will have better airflow, an open cell mattress allows you to have the comfort of a memory foam mattress with more control over temperature.
Natural Fibres: Mattresses that use natural fibres such as cotton and bamboo can help to create a much more relaxed feel. Natural wool is also breathable, allowing air to flow through the fibre layers in the mattress. Combined with cotton sheets and pillowcases, this would give a more natural and relaxed sleeping environment.
Top picks:
The Giltedge Beds Gel Bonnell Mattress has a tufted top and a soft knit cover, making it look and feel more expensive. It has cooling gel pellets infused into the foam for comfortable sleep—an excellent option for low budgets.
The Sleepeezee Pocket Gel Poise Plus is a premium mattress with 2,200 SoftTouch support springs and 1,000 comfort springs. It keeps you cool in summer with a layer of Staycool gel, breathable reflex foam, and air gaps between the layers.
The Birlea Paradise Coolgel is an exceptional mattress for the money, with 800 pocket springs for support and a plush comfort layer of memory foam. The foam is infused with gel to dissipate heat and keep you cool in summer.
Stop the sun from superheating your bedroom!
You can drop your bedroom by a few degrees during the day by keeping your blinds/curtains closed. Think about it – greenhouses are tropical because the glass lets heat in and traps it, and your bedroom will do the same.
We recommend curtains with a thermal lining – the white one reflects heat and keeps your bedroom more relaxed than other lining types.
Sleep with a lightweight duvet (or a sheet) and breathable pillow
If you are overheating in bed, a 2.5 to 4 tog duvet will keep you more relaxed, or you can ditch the duvet for a bed sheet or duvet cover.
Organic cotton is a soft, subtle material if you go down the bed sheet route, but you might find it sticks to you when sweating. Polycotton (a blend of cotton and polyester) is more breathable than cotton and doesn’t hold on to heat, keeping you more relaxed.
A breathable pillow is also crucial to keeping you cool – hollow fibre is the best option, or you can get a latex foam pillow for a bouncier feel.