Keep Your Cool: The Ideal Temp for Great Sleep

When it comes to optimal sleep all year round, think of your bedroom as a cave: quiet, dark, and cool. But that last one stumps a lot of people … howcool, exactly?
Before discussing room temperature, let’s chat very briefly about your body temp. It decreases once you start drifting off to sleep. Because of that, it’s recommended that you sleep in a relatively cool environment to match. The Cleveland Clinic notes that the suggested bedroom temperature for optimal sleep is between 60 to 67 degrees F -- and the National Sleep Foundation falls right in line with that, suggesting an ideal temp of 65 degrees F. (For babies and toddlers, a very slightly higher temperature — between 65 and 70 degrees — is optimal.)
If the temperature falls much hotter or lower than that range, you have more of a chance of waking up throughout the night, which impacts the quality of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep — the most restful sleep (and the one where you dream).
Since we’re currently in the depths of August heat, we figured you might be looking for ways to sleep cooler besides just turning on the A/C. So here are some tips, a number of which will serve you not just in summer, but all year round:
REFERENCES:
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-is-the-ideal-sleeping-temperature-for-my-bedroom/
https://www.sleepadvisor.org/best-temperature-for-sleep/
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-keep-your-bed-as-cool-as-possible-this-summer-1826397130