What to Know When Choosing a Cooling Mattress
Mattress Type (Material)
Construction materials are the major determinants of a mattress's ability to regulate temperature. It makes sense to begin your search by considering how different materials perform.
Memory Foam
Memory foam is a top choice for most people buying a bed-in-a-box online today. Memory foam's major strength is its ability to use your body heat to provide personalized body-hugging comfort. Unfortunately, this strength also happens to be its major weakness. Regular memory foam does not allow adequate heat dissipation, so it reflects the excess body heat back to you. As a result, you sleep hot and wake up sweaty.
Don't be too fast to strike memory foam out of the list, though. The market now has several variations of memory foam that tend to improve this mattress type's breathability:
i) Open-cell memory foam- this type of foam is often placed at the top of the mattress. In an open-cell memory foam, more than half of the cells have an open structure that promotes unrestricted airflow.
ii) Gel-infused memory foam- gel memory foam mattresses are popular among hot sleepers because they create a cooler sleeping surface than conventional memory foam beds. Gel works by absorbing and wicking excess heat away from your body instead of trapping it around you. Gel infusion also makes your mattress springier than a standard memory foam bed.
iii) Graphite-infused memory foam- as a super-conductive material, graphite works well to dissipate heat and provide a cooler sleep environment.
Latex
Latex mattresses naturally sleep cooler than memory foam beds. And there are several reasons to explain this. Latex is temperature-neutral, meaning it does not trap heat around you like memory foam. Secondly, latex foam has an open-cell structure that allows air to move freely in and out of the layers. Latex foam also has pinholes that further reduce heat buildup by increasing breathability.
In the world of latex, Talalay latex is less dense than Dunlop, meaning it has better airflow and, therefore, sleeps cooler. Also, keep in mind that natural latex is more breathable than synthetic latex.
Sprung
Traditional open-coil sprung mattresses beat all other mattress technologies in terms of breathability. These are the best mattresses for hot sleepers and summertime. In addition to being more budget-friendly, sprung mattresses offer tons of support, making them ideal for heavy people, particularly those who sleep on their stomachs.
Hybrid Mattresses (Pocket Coils plus Foam)
Hybrid mattresses combine several layers of foam and a pocketed coil spring base. These mattresses sit between traditional sprung mattresses and all-foam mattresses in terms of breathability. The space between the pocketed coils allows steady air circulation, which prevents overheating.
Most of the heat retention in hybrid mattresses happens on the foam layers at the top. The degree of heat retention will vary, depending on the type of foam used.
