Everybody and their mother complain about sleeping hot these days. Night sweats, tossing off blankets, flipping pillows, and waking up drenched in sweat have become far too common. While medical issues, menopause, SSRIs, autoimmune issues, room temperatures, and polyester bedding are major culprits, your mattress may be contributing to the issue. A mattress is not a refrigeration system nor is it a medical device. If a mattress company claims it will, "make you cool,” that claim should be viewed with skepticism. A mattress can, however, make you hot, and the science behind that is simple.
Over the last few decades, the mattress industry has become obsessed with foams like memory foam, polyurethane foam, and latex foam. These materials are a recipe for disaster for hot-sleepers. Foam may feel comfortable initially, but the structure and composition of foam traps heat. Instead of breathing, foam holds warmth close to the body for hours as you sleep. This is why you wake up sweating at 4 A.M. Your body releases heat all night, and foam acts like insulation.
In response, many mattress companies now advertise cooling gels, copper infusions, graphite layers, or “phase change” technologies embedded in foam. But these additions do nothing, truly, to remove the heat that foam traps. What a mattress can do, is allow heat to escape. This is the simple science behind the 1855 mattress.
Natural fibers like wool, linen, cotton, and horsehair allow air to move through the mattress and allow moisture to evaporate. Instead of trapping body heat, they breathe and release it.
If you sleep hot, you've got to ditch the foams.