There’s a particular kind of British summer suffering that happens around 2am, when you’ve kicked the duvet onto the floor, flipped the pillow for the fourth time, and started bargaining with the universe for a single cool patch of mattress. The fan is on. The window is open. Somewhere outside, a fox is screaming. And still, you are damp.
We’ve been there. We are, in fact, there right now with temperatures hitting 35 degrees in London this last week.
The good news is that sleeping cool isn’t really about willpower or expensive gadgets. It’s mostly about what’s touching your skin, what your bedroom is doing all day, and a few small tricks that punch well above their weight. Here are 15 things that actually work.
The quick version (for the desperate)
If you’ve stumbled in here at midnight on a 30-degree night, here’s the speed-run:
- Close your curtains and blinds during the day
- Open windows on opposite sides of the flat in the evening for cross-ventilation
- Swap to a 4.5 tog or temperature-regulating duvet
- Switch your sheets to linen or percale cotton
- Lukewarm shower an hour before bed
- Hair up, off your neck
- Ice pack on your wrists, back of your neck, or the soles of your feet
- Skip the late workout, heavy meal and last glass of wine
- Don’t nap during the day, however tempting
The rest of the article explains why each one works (and which ones are oversold).
Why is it so hard to sleep when it’s hot?
Your body temperature naturally drops as you fall asleep – that drop is one of the main signals telling your brain it’s time to switch off. When the room is too warm, your body can’t shed heat efficiently, so the whole process stalls. You stay alert, you sweat, you wake up. It’s not in your head, it’s physiology.
The sweet spot for a bedroom is around 16-19°C. Most UK bedrooms in July are sitting well above that, especially upstairs, and especially in older flats that were built to retain heat through a Victorian winter rather than survive a heatwave. So the goal isn’t really “feeling cool,” it’s “letting your body do what it’s already trying to do.”
The best bedding for hot weather (sort your sheets out)
If you only do one thing, do this one. The sheet is the layer closest to your skin, which means it’s doing most of the heavy lifting on whether you feel cool or clammy. Most of us are sleeping on whatever was on offer in a sale three years ago, and it shows.
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Linen is the actual winner. The fibres are hollow, the weave is loose, and the whole fabric is basically built to move air across your skin. It absorbs moisture without feeling damp and releases heat fast. The catch: it’s textured, it wrinkles like it’s personally offended, and it costs two to three times what cotton does. It also takes 10-15 washes to soften up properly, so the first few weeks feel a bit crisp. Worth it if you sleep genuinely hot and don’t mind the rumpled look.
Percale cotton is the sensible middle. Percale is a plain, one-over-one-under weave that’s crisp, matte, and breathable. Long-staple cotton (Egyptian, Pima, Supima) in a percale weave gets you most of the cooling benefit of linen at a fraction of the price. If linen feels like too much commitment, this is the upgrade to make.
Bamboo is fine but oversold. It’s almost always bamboo viscose, which is bamboo chemically processed into a regenerated fibre. It feels lovely and silky, manages moisture okay, and sleeps cooler than sateen cotton, but it’s not the natural miracle the marketing suggests. It also tends to wear out faster than cotton or linen.
Avoid sateen cotton, polyester microfibre, and cotton-poly blends if heat is your issue. Sateen has a four-over-one weave that’s gorgeous and soft but traps heat. Polyester is the worst option for thermal regulation full stop.
Switch to a summer duvet (your 13.5 tog is not your friend in summer)
A summer-weight duvet is non-negotiable if you run hot. Sleeping under a 13.5 tog in July because you can’t be bothered to swap it is genuinely making you suffer. A 4.5 tog (or lower) for summer is the standard recommendation, but the real game-changer is a duvet that adapts to your temperature rather than just being thinner.
The temperature-regulating duvets by Simba Sleep use a fabric tech that pulls heat away from your body when you’re warm and traps it when you cool down, which is particularly useful if you’re someone who runs hot then suddenly gets chilly at 4am (hi, hello, hormones).
If you share a bed with someone whose internal thermostat is on a completely different setting to yours, this is also where the peace is made.
How to cool down your bedroom before bed
Bedrooms in the UK are almost always too warm for good sleep. The room itself is doing things all day that affect how you sleep at night, and most of us aren’t paying attention to any of it.
Shut the curtains during the day. Especially if your room gets afternoon sun. Letting the room bake all day and then trying to cool it down at bedtime is fighting a losing battle. Blackout blinds or thick curtains are best, but anything is better than nothing.
Open opposite windows in the evening. This is sometimes called the Mediterranean method — creating cross-ventilation by opening windows on opposite sides of the flat once the outside air has cooled below the inside temperature. Wait until the sun’s off the building, usually around 8-9pm in the UK in peak summer.
Use a fan properly. Once the outside air is cooler than inside (evening onwards), point a fan at an open window blowing hot air out, with another window open elsewhere to draw cool air in. During the day or early evening when outside is still hot, point the fan at yourself instead — moving air over your skin helps sweat evaporate.
Turn off electronics. Anything left on standby is putting out heat. Unplug what you can.
Sleep downstairs if you can. Hot air rises. If your flat has a sofa bed downstairs or you’re in a house with a cooler ground-floor room, taking the bedding down there for the worst nights isn’t defeat, it’s strategy.
What temperature should your bedroom actually be?
Around 16-19°C, with most sleep experts landing on 18°C as the sweet spot. Below 16, your body has to work too hard to stay warm; above 19, the drop in core temperature you need for sleep doesn’t happen efficiently. If you’ve got a smart thermostat or a cheap room thermometer, it’s genuinely useful to know what your bedroom is doing overnight rather than guessing.
The lukewarm shower trick (and other ways to cool your body down)
Your core body temperature needs to drop to fall asleep, and there are a few ways to nudge it along.
Take a lukewarm shower about an hour before bed. This sounds counterintuitive but it’s backed by sleep researchers — a lukewarm (not cold) shower opens up the blood vessels near your skin, which helps your body dissipate heat. A cold shower does the opposite, your body fires up to warm itself back up. The slight dampness on your skin afterwards also helps you cool further as it evaporates.
Cool your pulse points. A cold flannel or ice pack on your wrists, the back of your neck, behind your knees or the soles of your feet cools the blood passing through those areas. Quick, free, surprisingly effective.
Lukewarm hot water bottle, feet on top. This one’s from sleep expert James Wilson, aka The Sleep Geek. Fill a hot water bottle with lukewarm water and rest your bare feet on it before bed. It sounds wrong but it helps your core temperature drop in the same way the shower does, by opening blood vessels in your feet. (Don’t freeze your hot water bottle — they’re not designed for it and rubber can split. Use an ice pack or a bag of frozen peas if you want something properly cold.)
Stick your feet out of the duvet. The soles of your feet are one of the body’s main heat-release zones, which is why one foot out feels disproportionately effective.
What to wear, or not. This is genuinely personal. Light cotton or linen pyjamas wick sweat away from your skin, which can feel cooler than nothing once you’ve sweated through the night. Other people sleep best with nothing on at all so the sweat can evaporate freely. What you definitely don’t want is silk or synthetic nightwear — both trap heat and moisture. Try both and see which feels better in your bed.
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Small tricks that punch above their weight
- Freeze your pillowcase for 20 minutes before bed. Pop it in a sealed bag first so it doesn’t pick up freezer smells. It only stays cool for the time it takes to fall asleep, but that’s often all you need.
- Hair up. Hair against your neck traps heat. A loose plait, a silk scrunchie or a low bun keeps it off your skin and your pillow stays cooler too.
- Drink water before bed, but not so much you’re up three times. Mild dehydration makes everything worse — the headache, the restlessness, the temperature regulation.
- Damp flannel on the bedside table. When you wake up at 3am sticky and furious, a cool wipe on your face and neck buys you another couple of hours.
- Spritz your sheets with cold water. A clean spray bottle of cold water on the sheets right before you get in won’t soak them, but it will make the bed feel meaningfully cooler for the first 20 minutes — long enough to drop off.
What not to do (the stuff that’s making it worse)
- Don’t nap during the day. We know, the heat makes you lethargic and a 4pm collapse on the sofa feels mandatory. But napping eats into your overnight sleep pressure, which means you’ll be even less likely to drop off when it matters. Save the sleepiness for bedtime.
- Don’t drink alcohol before bed. It feels like it knocks you out, but it disrupts your body’s ability to thermoregulate and you’ll wake up at 4am hot, dehydrated and full of regret.
- Don’t eat a heavy meal late. Digestion raises your core body temperature, which is the opposite of what you want. If you’re eating late, keep it light.
- Don’t exercise within two hours of bed. Same logic — your core temperature is elevated for a while afterwards. Morning or early evening workouts are kinder to your sleep in summer.
- Don’t break your routine completely. It’s tempting to give up on bedtime entirely when it’s hot, but irregular sleep schedules make everything worse over time. Stick roughly to your usual hours even if the falling-asleep bit takes longer.
If you only do five things, do these
- Swap your sheets to percale cotton or linen
- Get a lower-tog or temperature-regulating duvet
- Cool the room properly before bed (curtains shut during the day, cross-ventilate at night)
- Lukewarm shower an hour before bed
- Feet out, hair up, pillowcase in the freezer
Most of this is free or low-cost. The sheets and duvet are where the money is, and they’re also where you’ll feel the biggest difference. The fox screaming outside, sadly, is on you.
Sweet dreams,
Nonchalant x
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This article was written by one of our creative team writers here at Nonchalant Magazine.
