Here’s our guide on how to stay cool at night – our hot sleeper solutions, helping you to regulate your body temperature and avoid overheating while sleeping.
How to keep a room cool at night
Fortunately for hot sleepers, there are several ways you can keep a room cool. From encouraging airflow to eliminating electronics, here’s how to keep a room cool so that you can get some shuteye.- Give warm air in your home an escape route. Do you have an attic room? Even if the attic isn’t your bedroom, leave the window open slightly at night. As hot air rises, this will give the heat in your house somewhere to go.
- Encourage good air flow. Even in the depths of winter, if you’re a hot sleeper, leaving a couple of windows cracked throughout the night will encourage cross-flow, helping you to stay cool while sleeping.
- Switch off unnecessary electronics. When it’s too hot to sleep, turning off TVs, laptops, and other electronics will reduce the temperature in your bedroom. You may not think it will make a difference but just one laptop will generate about 50 watts of heat, and that’s not including the light from the monitor and the fan that cools the processor.
- Keep the blinds closed during the day. When the midday sun hits your windows, it will inevitably heat up your home. So, keep the daytime heat at bay by closing your bedroom blinds, or invest in some blackout curtains that will lock out sunlight throughout the day reducing heat gain in your home.
- Do you use ceiling fans? Make sure you’re putting them to good use. By adjusting them to run counter-clockwise at a higher speed, you can create a cooling breeze that will keep your bedroom pleasantly cool.
How to stay cool while sleeping
If you’re a hot sleeper, you’ll know that regulating your body temperature is a challenge. Here are some tips that will help you stay cool at night by keeping your body temperature at a comfortable level.- Avoid strenuous exercise before going to sleep. Exercising regularly is a great way of improving your overall quality of sleep. But exercising too late into the evening may leave your core body temperature at a higher level, making it difficult to completely cool down before bedtime.
- What time is dinner? Eating later in the evening can also cause a rise in body temperature by about 2 °F. It may not sound like much, but even that small rise in temperature could affect your sleep. Try to eat a little earlier and choose a lighter meal to prevent your metabolism from working overtime.
- Stay hydrated. At any time of day, if you’re not hydrated your body temperature will rise. This is because your body does not have enough fluid to sweat, and regulate core temperature. Have a glass of water before bed, and keep one to hand on your bedside table to make sure you’re hydrated through the night.
How to make your bed cooler
Many hot sleepers find they just can’t find the right bedding. Too thick. Too hot. And far too cumbersome! Finding cool bedding - a breathable comforter and pillows - that helps you regulate your body temperature will work wonders when trying to stay cool at night. Here’s how to keep your bed cool with the right bedding and a setup that’s right for you.- Switch up your sheets. A fresh cotton sheet instead of a polycotton blend may help you to regulate your core temperature. Choosing cotton sheets will help conduct heat away from your body while synthetic materials will not absorb moisture, leaving you feeling sweaty and uncomfortable. And if you suffer from night sweats? This applies too. 100% cotton sheets will make a difference to your night-time temperature.
- Invest in natural, wool-filled, cool bedding. As a hot sleeper, you may think the key to a cool bed is no bedding whatsoever. But if you opt for natural comforters, this can support your body’s own thermo-regulation. It’s not widely known, but wool-filled bedding helps to regulate body temperature. This is because wool wicks moisture away from the body, drawing perspiration away. It is also breathable, and has heat-regulating properties keeping the body cool when your core body temperature is high.
- When summer comes around… Opt for a summer weight comforter. Changing from your regular comforter to a much lighter version will help you stay cool and comfortable when temperatures soar. And if you’re a hot sleeper all year round, you may even want to stick to your summer weight comforter when the rest of your family are wrapped up in extra blankets!
