5 Tips for Better Sleeping with Night Sweats

Using the right fabrics in the right layers helps you sleep dry and wake up refreshed

Fun fact: the 2 most common fabrics used for sleepwear and bed linens are also the worst for people with chronic night sweats.

The most common fabrics?

1. Polyester

2. 100% Cotton

Polyester (and microfibre) is made from petroleum, and traps all the heat and sweat your body produces next to you. If your pjs, sheets, and comforter are made from polyester it's like sleeping in a plastic cocoon - definitely not great for night sweats!

Cotton is highly absorbent. Even though it grabs the mositure from your skin, it doesn't like to let go, so it stays next to you keeping you damp and soggy.

The thicker the cotton, the slower it dries.

The wrong fabrics for sleepwear and bed linens will keep you soggy, clammy, hot, and cold, and have you waking up exhausted and drained.

can you relate?

The Right Fabrics will Help You Sleep Better

The right fabrics manage the heat and sweat your body produces by pulling the moisture through each layer from sleepwear to comforter/blankets, while storing some heat in the layers next to you and letting excess heat escape.

So what are the best fabrics for a drier, more comfortable sleep?

We're so glad you asked!

Imagine a dry and comfortable sleep again!

The best fabrics for night sweats are:

Hemp and hemp/cotton blends
Linen and linen/cotton blends
Tencel (especially made from eucalyptus) and Tencel/cotton blends
Cotton, wool and silk when used strategically

5 tips for better sleeping when you suffer from night sweats using fabric

We recognize that sleepwear and linens may be hard to come by in these materials so we've created 5 tips to help you sleep better using commonly available materials as well. Read our five tips and start sleeping better tonight!

Tip #1: Sleepwear

Ditch the polyester sleepwear. If your fave pjs are made from polyester, you can always go back to it if/when your night sweats go away.

Use sleepwear made from hemp, hemp/cotton, linen or linen/cotton or Tencel, Tencel cotton. This type of sleepwear is breathable, heat and moisture-managing.

Check your summer sleepwear material. Summer sleepwear is often made from very light cotton, linen or Tencel.

If you don't sleep in pjs, your sheets will act like sleepwear as your first layer.

Tip #2: Sheets

Ditch the polyester sheets (are you sensing a theme here?).

ALSO, ditch the luxury cotton sheets - cotton loves water!

Replace with: light 100% cotton sheets in 250-350 thread count.

If possible, switch to linen, hemp, Tencel sheets. These materials blended with cotton are great too and provide softness and faster wicking. When blended with cotton, the majority fibre should be hemp, linen or Tencel.

Tip #3: Thermal Layer

Swap your polyester, down, feather or wool duvet/comforter for some lighter, yet highly effective, warm layers. Use:

Wool blankets - wool is a highly effective insulator so less is more. You may need 1-3 blanket layers so experiment.
Cotton blankets - the cotton pulls the water from the other layers to the outside where it can evaporate. You may need 1-3 blanket layers. Cotton isn't as effective an insulator as wool.
Silk-filled duvet, summer weight. If this is too light, supplement with above blankets
Hemp or linen coverlets or empty duvet covers.

Tip #4: Mattress Cover

Replace your waterproof mattress cover with a non-waterproof mattress cover (if possible).

You can probably get away with 100% polyester, but 100% cotton is better.

On the uber expensive and challenging-to-find scale, mattress covers made from hemp or linen are ideal.

Tip #5: Room Temperature

This may be a bone of contention between you and your partner, but a cold room helps keep the night sweats at bay. Ideally, 15-18C is best - but you may need to negotiate with someone.

We've Created a Handy Guide

We have a handy guide in PDF format so you can print it out and refer to. It also comes with some examples of the best fabric combinations to sleep in so you can start getting that shut-eye ASAP.

Just fill out your info and tell us where to send it.

Any questions? Contact us! We answer every email we get.

Thanks for dropping by!