Explore the science of temperature and sleep with Dr. Matt Walker, plus how you can leverage temperature and neurostimulation for a better night, every night — with Eight Sleep and Somnee.
Trying to get a good night’s sleep can have you feeling like Goldilocks: If your room’s too hot or too cold, it’s nearly impossible to fall and stay asleep through the night.
On the one hand, you have hot flashes that make it hard to fall asleep… On the other, cold sweats that wake you up in the middle of the night and leave you exhausted in the morning.
If you’ve struggled with temperature regulation, you’re not alone. A Gallup survey of 3,900+ US adults found that over half of respondents (57%) reported occasional to frequent nights where they felt too hot to sleep. 36% reported sleep issues due to the cold.1
But whether you’re too hot or too cold — a mismatched bedroom temperature can cost you sleep, focus, performance, mental health, and more.
Of course, temperature is just one of many factors that influence your sleep quality.
Your brain’s habits around bedtime play an equally significant role in your ability to fall asleep quickly and feel well-rested in the morning.
The good news: Somnee’s personalized neurostimulation helps promote your brain’s natural sleep rhythms, creating new, sleep-healthy habits for a better night’s sleep. Combined with Eight Sleep’s smart pod cover that dynamically adjusts your mattress temperature for better sleep — you’re practically guaranteed a good night’s sleep, whether you run hot or cold.
This article covers:
➣ The ideal sleeping temperature for your sleep environment
➣ The benefits of personalized neurostimulation for better sleep
➣ How Eight Sleep + Somnee support deeper, more restorative sleep
Temperature: the Secret to a Better Night’s Sleep
Temperature struggles don't mean you have a medical condition or health issue - Some of us just run hotter or colder.
According to UC Berkeley Professor, author of the New York Times bestseller Why We Sleep, and Chief Sleep Advisor at Somnee, Dr. Matt Walker — temperature plays a huge role in your ability to fall asleep easily and sleep soundly through the night.
In fact, his research has found that peak sleepiness hits at the exact point of the steepest decline in core body temperature.
“Your brain and your body need to drop their temperature by about… 2 to 3° F for you to fall asleep and stay asleep,” Matt shares.
The research says the best temperature for sleep is between 65° to 67° F.
If that temperature feels too cold, Matt suggests wearing thick socks or holding a hot water bottle to warm your hands and feet. This could further promote a full night’s rest, according to a series of studies led by Professor Eus van Someren. He found that warming participants’ hands and feet by just 1 degree Fahrenheit prompted their core body temperature to drop.
The results:
➣ Healthy participants began falling asleep 20% faster
➣ Insomnia patients began falling asleep 25% faster
Temperature also plays a role in the morning, with core body temperature rising in the last 30 minutes before you naturally would wake up. For easier mornings, Matt suggests a room temperature of ≈ 70° F.
Personalized Neurostimulation for Deeper, Faster Sleep
Adjusting your sleep environment temperature is a great first step for better sleep. But if your brain is wired to become energized and alert as soon as you slip under the covers, it might take more to get your sleep habits back on track…
That’s where neurostimulation comes in. While the word might sound intimidating, neurostimulation refers to gentle electrical stimulation designed to engage with the nervous system.
Electrical stimulation has been used in both diagnostic and therapeutic settings for years to help with everything from muscle recovery to anxiety relief. Most neurostimulation devices currently on the market use fixed, general stimulation.
But Somnee does things differently… It’s the only device that uses personalized stimulation matched to your brain’s natural sleep rhythms and patterns. Specifically, it provides personalized tACS, or transcranial alternating current stimulation.
Research on Personalized tACS
Research published in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience by our Science Team, Dr. Matt Walker, Dr. Robert Knight, Dr. Richard Ivry, and Dr. Ram Gurumoorthy, compared the effectiveness of Personalized tACS to Fixed (non-personalized) tACS.
➣ Participants who’d received the Personalized tACS increased sleep quantity by 22 minutes.
➣ Participants given Fixed tACS only saw an extra 3 minutes of sleep a night.
Researchers also found that Personalized tACS reduced time to fall asleep by 28% compared to Fixed tACS. So instead of taking 30+ minutes with no stim to fall asleep every night, participants were falling asleep in just 16 minutes with Personalized tCAS.
The most exciting part? The benefits of Personalized tCAS for increased duration and onset of sleep happened with just 1 week of use! A follow-up study found benefits continued growing as participants used Somnee for 2-3 weeks.
Get a Better Night, Every Night — with Temperature Control & Brainwave Stimulation by Somnee and Eight Sleep
Gone are the days of insufferable sweating while sleeping and having to get up every few hours to adjust the thermostat; of feeling energized the minute you slip under the sheets and waking up every few hours...
Now, you can enjoy a night of fully optimized, deep, regenerative sleep with the help of Somnee’s Smart Sleep Headband and Eight Sleep’s Pods.
Fall Asleep 50% Faster with Somnee
Somnee isn’t just another sleep tracker. It’s a Sleep Fixer. With 3 years of lab testing and a pilot study involving 1,500+ nights of sleep data, Somnee’s Smart Sleep Headband is the only “sleep tracker” clinically validated to directly improve your sleep quality.
Somnee takes a unique approach to sleep support, as the first of its kind to provide personalized closed-loop neurostimulation. And according to the research, it’s Somnee’s medical-grade personalization that makes it so effective.
For the first 7 sessions, Somnee provides gentle stimulation (tCAS) to help you sleep while it learns your brain’s unique sleep patterns. Once it’s fully mapped your brain’s distinct electrical activity, it begins providing stimulation designed to naturally promote sleep by nudging your brain’s preferred sleep pathways.
After just 2-3 weeks of use, 80% of our users experience significant benefits to their sleep.
Including:
➣ Falling asleep 50% faster
➣ Increasing total sleep time by 30+ minutes
➣ Reducing nightly tossing and turning by ⅓
On average, Somnee is 4x as effective as melatonin, 2x more effective than Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT-i), and 1.5x more effective than Ambien in improving sleep efficiency and duration.
The best part? You don’t need to wear Somnee all night — All you need is 15 minutes before bed to enjoy all the benefits Somnee has to offer.
An Inside Look at Eight Sleep
Eight Sleep provides an elegant approach to sleep tracking and temperature with an intelligent cooling and heating mattress cover system (which they call “sleep pod”) that adjusts your bed’s temperature throughout the night.
With their Autopilot feature, Eight Sleep monitors biometrics like your heart rate, heart rate variability, and breathing rate. This gives them real-time insights into your stages of sleep, which they then pair with your sleep preferences and research-backed ideal temperature settings to dynamically adjust your bed’s temperature through the night.
The best part: If you run hot and your partner runs cold, Eight Sleep’s got you covered. Using their sleep app, you can customize the temperature for each side of the bed. Each morning, you can expect to wake to gentle vibrations and a thermal alarm that warms your bed to help you rise easily.
Ready to unlock a lifetime of restorative nights and more productive, enjoyable days?
Both Eight Sleep and Somnee come with a 30-day risk free trial. So why not try us out for yourself and see how your sleep transforms?
Explore the Power of Somnee, The Smart Sleep Headband >>
Learn more about Eight Sleep’s temperature-regulating mattress cover >>
References
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Inc, G. (2023, June 21). Sleep Temperature Linked to Overall Sleep Quality, Wellbeing. Gallup.com. https://news.gallup.com/poll/506201/sleep-temperature-linked-overall-sleep-quality-wellbeing.aspx
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Walker, M. (Host). (2022, January 17). Temperature - Part 1 [Audio Podcast Episode]. The Matt Walker Podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/13-temperature-part-1/id1578319619?i=1000548106979
- Walker, M. (Host). (2022, January 31). Temperature - Part 1 [Audio Podcast Episode]. The Matt Walker Podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/14-temperature-part-2/id1578319619?i=1000549515706