Best Bedding for Night Sweats

Night sweats are not just unpleasant, they occur due to more severe underlying conditions or problems. Of course, waking up drenched with sweat or finding your bedding soaked with sweat can be detrimental to your sleep pattern as well. In fact, night sweats often lead to some forms of insomnia, keeping you from staying asleep through the night so that you don’t receive the proper amount of restorative sleep.

It’s important to first find the cause of your night sweats

There are multiple causes of night sweats, some of which can be remedied and others that can’t. Certain medications can lead to the condition presenting or worsening, including antidepressants, hormonal therapy drugs, and diabetic medications (hypoglycemic agents that lower the amount of sugar in your blood). In relation to this last cause, extremely low blood sugar can lead to sweating, especially at night. A number of underlying medical conditions can also cause night sweats. Some of the more common ones include:

• Overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism)
• Stomach inflammation (gastritis)
• Neuropathy (damage to the autonomic nerves)
• Bacterial infections (such as Brucellosis)
• Menopause
• Sleep apnea (and other sleep disorders)
• Tuberculosis
• Myelofibrosis (a bone marrow disorder)
• Infected heart lining (Endocarditis)

Perhaps the most common disorder linked to night sweats, though, is anxiety. The first step to correcting this issue is to reduce the perceived amount of anxiety in your life. There are a number of ways to achieve this goal, including certain types of meditation.

Sometimes there is no cure for night sweats, but you can do things to help reduce them.

How to Deal with Night Sweats

It’s important to reduce the negative effects of night sweats, as they can cause serious health issues. Consider that sleeping in wet clothes and sheets can chafe the skin, and moving into a position in your sleep (subconscious movement) to avoid laying in the moisture can put you in a position that strains and stresses your back, which leads to discomfort all day. This can even affect your posture and inhibit movement during the day.

Unfortunately, not all ailments that cause night sweats are easily remedied, including overwhelming anxiety. Therefore, it’s important to find ways to deal with the worst of the night sweats. First, you might need to consider reducing the number of blankets or the thickness of the bedding that you sleep with. These can add fuel to the fire, making you sweat sooner and with more fervor. Another way to reduce the amount of sweating is to turn down the heat, or conversely, turn up the air conditioner (or turn on a fan). Keeping the room too warm can lead to more sweating, as well as to overall discomfort. Cool, dry places are most conducive to restful sleep, and this is particularly essential when dealing with chronic night sweats.

When these are not enough to remedy the situation, though, be sure to use cooling bedding. These linens use a new technology that helps balance the temperature of your body and the bedding while you sleep. Therefore, when you turn up the heat, the cooling elements of the fabric assist in keeping the temperature balanced, effectively assisting in the reduction of night sweats. This is not a cure. You may need to see your doctor for a diagnosis to confirm exactly what underlying condition is causing the problem. However, it can keep you a bit more comfortable during the worst hours of the night, when you tend to wake up frequently in drenched clothing and sheets.

Best Bedding for Night Sweats

Pillows

The first thing you need to invest in is a cooling pillow. It’s common knowledge that most of the heat leaves our body through our heads and feet. Therefore, we know that our heads are the hottest parts of our bodies. This is especially true of women experiencing menopause. Hot flashes and night sweats are common, but no woman wants to get up in the middle of the night and stick her head in the freezer. Cooling pillows should be made with the technology to draw excess heat released from your head and neck, absorbing it so that you essentially stay cooler through the night. This reduces the amount of bothersome sweat released, especially in your hair and on your neck, leading to a more peaceful slumber. Add a cooling pillow cover to double the effect. Also, look for the right amount of support for your needs.

Cooling Mattress Pads

Consider a cooling mattress pad, as well. This is an all-over solution that helps the entire body maintain a constant temperature. When you get too hot and are starting to sweat, the proper mattress pad will absorb the excess heat and quell the need to drench your sheets. Then, when you cool down, the mattress pad releases the heat back to you, regulating your body temperature when your body can’t do that on its own all the while providing proper ventilation. The Outlast® technology in the Core Mattress Pad is one of the best products on the market and comes highly recommended by multiple bedding product reviewers including the experts at the Good Housekeeping Textiles Lab.

Cooling Sheets

This may not help remedy the actual night sweat situation, but it will certainly protect your expensive mattress from the excess of bodily fluids that soak into the bedding at night. A waterproof mattress protector or encasement is a great way to do this. Cooling sheets should be crisp and lightweight, as well as soft and breathable. If your current sheets don’t have proper breathability, this could be adding to your discomfort and promoting sweating. Check out some of these awesome sheet sets to see which one works best for you.

Blankets and Duvets

Even if you have night sweats, you might want the comfort of a thicker blanket or cover. However, such typical creature comforts can really set you on fire at night, their thickness and lack of airflow working like an oven around you. Add these layers with cooling measures as well to keep your sleep space conducive to your physical and mental health. Look for blankets and duvets that carry just enough weight to give you the feeling of being wrapped up without the heavy qualities of something that is going to suffocate you. A lightweight cotton duvet, crafted with breathable material and technology that is also infused with the cooling technology can really help you feel cozy and cool at the same time, preempting episodes of sweating in your sleep. The same is true of blankets. Look for a lightweight cotton that is ultra-soft to the touch, allowing you to have that snuggly feel without the additional source of heat.

Mattresses

There are tons of great mattresses that can help with your night sweat situation. Models that can keep you cool with technology, beds with better ventilation, and ones that help you maintain a better overall rest so you can cut down on your night sweats. Be sure to do your research and look into some at The Sleep Judge.

Controlling Night Sweats

While there might not be a way to resolve the underlying problem that is causing your night sweats, or it might be a long, grievous process to do so, you can manage the discomfort of night sweats with the proper tools in the meantime. Make sure you have bedding that promotes comfortable sleep and cool slumber so that your rest is restorative. Don’t stop with a single cool bedding device; surround yourself with them so that you get the maximum effect.

Think of it as remodeling a space. You wouldn’t remove one old cabinet in your kitchen and replace it with a new one that didn’t match the others, especially if the boards in the old cabinets were rotting out. Likewise, the best way to handle night sweats is to effectively ‘remodel’ your idea of the perfect bedding for you. Take advantage of new, cooling technology, and reduce the symptoms of your underlying cause. Maybe you can’t defeat the need for chemotherapy or turn back the clock on the changes of life. Perhaps you need your antidepressant. You can’t change anything that causes the night sweats, but you can certainly take precautions to reduce how bad they are and how often they occur.

Cooling bedding is the ultimate way to go if you suffer from night sweats. Be sure to try other alternative remedies as well, such as stress reducers for anxiety. But investing in good, cooling linens with the right technology to regulate your body temperature while you sleep will lead to much better, longer, and more restful sleep.