There’s nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. It’s basically torture. If you struggle to get your full night’s rest because your sweaty pajama shirt is waking you up, or maybe you’re too hot to fall asleep in the first place, this post is for you. In this cooling bed review, we’re going to run through our picks for the best mattress for hot sleepers, including the best cooling memory foam mattress and the best cooling bed for side sleepers.
A lot of mattresses claim to have cooling capabilities, but many fall short in comparison to some of the physically cold beds we’ve tested here at the Slumber Yard. Learn all about the mattresses that made the cut below and why we thought they were cool enough for our list (no pun intended).
Top 6 Cooling Mattresses Of 2022
- Editor’s Choice :Brooklyn Bedding AuroraStarting at $999 Shop Now
- Best Cooling Bed for Side Sleepers :Purple HybridStarting at $1699 Shop Now
- Best Budget Mattress for Hot Sleepers :Cocoon by Sealy ChillStarting at $769 Shop Now
- Best Cooling Memory Foam Mattress :GhostBed LuxeStarting at $1845 Shop Now
- Best Natural and Organic Cooling Bed :Avocado Green MattressStarting at $1399 Shop Now
- Best Cooling Mattress for Back Sleepers :Loom LeafStarting at $1095 Shop Now
Compare Mattresses For Hot Sleepers
Editor’s Choice
Aurora is one of the best cooling hybrid mattresses online. It’s made in the USA, comes in multiple firmness options, and has a cool-to-the-touch cover.
Brooklyn Bedding Aurora Luxe Cooling is a hybrid mattress that incorporates various technologies and textiles to actively cool you down at night. It might feel too cold for some sleepers, but if you consistently sleep hot at night, we think it’s one of the coolest beds available today.
Brooklyn Bedding Aurora Luxe Cooling’s best features
- The Aurora Luxe Cooling mattress from Brooklyn Bedding comes in three different firmness levels (Soft, Medium, and Firm) and is a viable option for all sleeper types. Especially side sleepers, thanks to the “soft” model.
- Its durable hybrid construction offers plenty of support for heavier individuals.
- The cooling cover is seriously cold thanks to its special phase-change technology.
- Bottom line—the Brooklyn Bedding Aurora Luxe Cooling is among the nicest mattresses we’ve reviewed to date, especially if you’re a hot sleeper.
Best Cooling Bed for Side Sleepers
Purple Hybrid is a coil mattress that features a proprietary comfort layer called Hyper-Elastic Polymer. It’s a unique mattress that’s comfortable and great for hot sleepers. Not only is it supportive for all body types, but it’s unique design offers great pressure relief to side sleepers.
Purple makes some of the most unconventional mattresses on the market today. The hybrid model utilizes the same breathable Hyper-Elastic Polymer, combined with pocketed coils that add support, durability, and even more breathability.
We think Purple is the best cooling bed for side sleepers because it offers a heck of a lot more airflow than most mattresses on the market, and it’s super pressure-relieving if you’re a side sleeper open to a bed with a unique feel.
Purple Hybrid’s best features
- Purple 2 Hybrid is 11” thick and uses their special Purple Grid in the top comfort layer. It contains Hyper-Elastic Polymer which is a stretchy, soft, gel-like material that’s ultra pressure relieving for side sleepers, back, stomach, and combination.
- The feel is one-of-a-kind and really comfortable if you’re open to an untraditional mattress feel.
- It doesn’t incorporate any cooling tech, but it’s a cooling bed by design; it’s naturally incredibly breathable. The top layer offers airflow as it contains a ton of little air pockets, and the bed is really great at not retaining heat.
Best Budget Mattress For Hot Sleepers
Cocoon Chill is one of the best budget-tier cooling mattresses. It’s a firmer bed with a dense memory foam feel, but it incorporates cooling technology in the cover to help hot sleepers rest more comfortably.
Cocoon Chill by Sealy is a moderately-priced bed that uses phase-change materials in its cover to keep you cool at night. It sleeps similar in temperature to Brooklyn Bedding Aurora Luxe Cooling, maybe slightly less cool, but it also costs less. It’s physically cool-to-the-touch, and it is a great option if you’re looking for a budget mattress with a memory foam feel that hugs your body.
Cocoon Chill’s best features
- Cocoon comes in two different firmness levels –– both of which are best for back, stomach, and combo sleepers.
- If you’re open to a dense feel, Cocoon is a comfortable and cooling memory foam mattress. Sealy does offer a number of different options with their bed-in-a-box mattress, but we think the best for really hot sleepers is the firm Cocoon Chill.
- The firmer the bed, the cooler it will sleep, generally speaking. Therefore, your best bet is the “Firmer” option of Cocoon Chill for hot sleepers.
- There’s a Cocoon Chill Hybrid bed for all the folks who need a more supportive, durable mattress.
Best Cooling Memory Foam Mattress
GhostBed Luxe is a premium memory foam mattress that incorporates special cooling materials in the cover and a “Ghost Ice” layer that makes it physically cold to the touch.
GhostBed Luxe is as much a memory foam mattress as it is a cooling mattress. What we mean by that is, the memory foam is there for support and pressure relief, but the cooling gel and other technologies are there to help regulate your body temperature effectively. Ghostbed Luxe is a top pick for the best memory foam mattress for hot sleepers. It’s also accommodating for any sleeper type, thanks to its medium firmness profile.
GhostBed Luxe’s best features
- GhostBed Luxe has a layer of Ghost Ice on top of the gel memory foam to help with your core body temperature.
- The cover incorporates cooling fibers that make the mattress feel cold and is another contributing factor to its cooling feel.
- It’s a thick foam mattress, standing at 13” tall. It’s best for petite to average-sized sleepers, but the thick construction makes it a decent option for heavy sleepers fixated on a foam bed.
- Another great thing about GhostBed Luxe is that Nature’s Sleep is always discounting it. So, while it looks relatively expensive on paper to some, they often have specials that make it more palatable.
Best Natural And Organic Cooling Bed
The Avocado Green Mattress is the most sought after natural/organic mattress online. It’s supportive, comfortable, and constructed with high-quality, certified organic and eco-friendly materials.
Avocado is a luxury mattress made with pocketed coils and a number of eco-friendly, breathable materials, including organic latex foam. This allows for increased air circulation, which helps to dissipate heat, thereby keeping you cooler at night. We think Avocado is the best natural cool mattress for hot sleepers. Avocado is technically not designed to be a cooling mattress, but the firmness level and construction to naturally keep you at a comfortable temperature.
Avocado’s best features
- Avocado is made with two layers of material (three if you purchase the additional topper). It utilizes recycled steel pocketed coils, organic latex, organic cotton, and organic wool.
- Natural latex, like Avocado’s, is hypoallergenic and antimicrobial. It’s also perforated for airflow.
- The firmness level is also a huge reason why we like this bed for hot sleepers. By default, our editors consider Avocado to be a truly firm mattress around an 8 to 9 out of 10 on the firmness scale. Even if you add the optional pillow-top, Avocado is still a medium-firm mattress.
Best Cooling Mattress For Back Sleepers
Loom & Leaf is one of the nicest, most luxurious memory foam mattresses online. It comes in two firmness profiles and has an organic cotton cover. Not to mention, the center includes a special cooling gel strip that helps make it a cooler sleeping bed.
Loom & Leaf is a premium mattress brought to you by the folks over at Saatva. It’s their firm memory foam mattress offering, and it even comes in two different firmness options that are suitable for back and stomach sleepers.
In the middle of this memory foam mattress, you can find a laminated cooling gel spinal panel that helps keep you cool while you sleep. This sets it apart from many memory foam beds that tend to have a hot-sleeping reputation. We also aren’t mad at the price of this bed, compared to other hotel-luxury mattresses on the market.
Loom & Leaf’s best features
- Its laminated cooling gel is made with the same material found in hospital burn units. We think it’s a nice touch to keep this memory foam bed on the cooler side of the sleeping spectrum.
- You can choose Relaxed Firm, which we rated a medium-firm, or Firm, which we rated a true firm. Either way, this bed will have a firmer mattress profile that will keep back and stomach sleepers properly supported during their sleep.
- It’s not a hybrid, but it is about 12” thick, making it a suitable mattress for all body types, including some heavy sleepers.
- Loom & Leaf is moderately priced, especially considering it’s a luxury bed.
How To Find The Best Cool Beds For Hot Sleepers
Pay attention to construction and materials
We just want to talk in more detail about mattress construction and how it comes into play when you’re looking for a cool mattress.
The Cover On Your Mattress Is Important To Cool Sleeping
Most people largely ignore the cover of their mattress, but it can be a key element in keeping you cool at night. The best mattresses for hot sleepers will have special covers to help cool you down. If you sleep hot, you should be looking for one of two types of covers.
Combining Two Cooling Technologies
This is the Holy Grail of mattresses for hot sleepers or people with night sweats/hot flashes. If you get a cooling bed that has phase-change materials plus innersprings or pocketed coils, you’re in for an Arctic experience. It will be cool to the touch and get great airflow from the coils.
Do not get these beds if you sleep just kind of warm. They’ll be too cool of a mattress for your preferences. Do not get them if your sleeping partner is petite and runs cold. They will freeze to death. You should only consider one of the best cooling mattresses if you absolutely burn up at night. Sometimes we even see beds with coils, cooling memory foam, and a phase-change cover. That bed should be a really nice refuge for hot sleepers.
Add a Cooling Pillow
Believe it or not, sometimes just swapping your regular pillow for a cooling pillow one may do the trick. Turns out cooling pillows can help lower the temperature in your upper body, specifically around your shoulders, neck, and head to provide you with the comfort you need for a good night’s sleep. If you’re interested in a pillow with cooling technology, we highly recommend the Purple Pillow.
Avoid Softer Mattresses (Generally)
In general, a firmer mattress (usually for back sleepers and stomach sleepers) is going to sleep cooler than a softer mattress, simply because you sleep more on the bed rather than in it. We’ve tried plenty of mattresses that we expected to sleep more in the neutral range, but they ended up being warmer because either the cover wasn’t breathable or the mattress was on the softer end. If you need a more plush mattress, look for one that has a phase-change material in the cover. While the bed won’t be especially cool, it also won’t be alarmingly warm.
In most cases, for a queen mattress, the cost of a cooling mattress is about $1,500 after discounts. That’s a fairly reasonable price to pay considering most of these beds for hot sleepers are more luxurious.
If you’re not ready to invest in an actively cooling mattress, mattress pads or toppers are an inexpensive way to stay cool at night. Memory foam tends to trap heat, so be careful with which one you choose. It’s also a good idea to think about what type of sheets you use –– jersey will often leave you waking up sweaty.
A cooling cover is typically one with a phase-change material that uses a really neat chemical reaction to get colder when it passes a certain temperature. At a micro level, the cover actually liquefies to cool you down.
Some do and some don’t. You can’t always trust marketing language when it’s on a mattress brand’s website. We recommend you look at mattress reviews to get perspective on how cool-sleeping a mattress actually is.
Breathable mattresses like latex foam and hybrid beds typically produce the least amount of heat. Purple is also great at not retaining your body heat because of its gel-like, airy design. Memory foam beds have a reputation for retaining heat, but you can find some that incorporate cooling technology if you really like the material.
Why Trust Us
Get the kind of sleep you’ve only dreamed of with some help from our team of mattress experts. We personally test more than 175 of the best sleep solutions from over 60 leading brands on site, so you can be sure you’re getting unbiased reviews, fair comparisons and personalized recommendations.
