When sharing a bed with another person, there is a chance that there will be an eternal nighttime thermal war, with one person roasting in the heat and pulling the duvet down, while the other freezes and seeks refuge under the covers. For years, this has been treated as a simple couple anecdotebut the truth is that it has a physiological reason behind it. And something that has been seen is that women, statistically, sleep worse than men, with the thermostat being the culprit.
Sleeping differently. To understand this phenomenon, we must first know how our body works when it prepares to rest. In this case, in order for us to fall asleep and enter the deeper phases, our core temperature must drop. However, during the REM phasethe body needs this temperature to rise slightly again.
This is where the biological conflict comes in, as is exposed in the podcast Sleep is a Skillwhere a specialist explains how women generally tend to have less muscle mass and a lower basal metabolism than men. This translates into a skin temperature between 3 and 4 degrees colder, meaning that, with colder extremities, women prefer warmer environments to be able to reach that optimal temperature that induces sleep. Something that opens up many anecdotes, like how in a couple women need a sheet to sleep in in the summer.
Their differences. In general terms (which is not universal), while men need the room and bed to be cold at the beginning of the night to lower their core temperature quickly, Women require a warmer environment to compensate for colder skin. and not suffer alterations in your sleep architecture.
What science says. In the literature, there are multiple studies that confirm these gender differences in thermoregulation. One of these was published in 2023, where it was shown that women recorded higher skin temperatures than men during the sleep phase where there is higher quality. That is, it requires a warmer microenvironment to have a much more adequate sleep.
Furthermore, several studies published in Journal of Sleep Research reveal that women reach nocturnal body temperature minimums earlier than men. But also, its temperature drops are less pronounced, which directly affects the quality of continuous sleep.
The use of technology. Given this problem, there are companies that have set to work to do something that would a priori solve this problem for couples: use smart mattress covers to regulate the temperature on each side of the bed so that women sleep better. It is true that the data they rely on internally to sell their mattresses still has to be validated.
Even so, the pre-existing scientific evidence is robust. Women are not “chilly” on a whim, but their biology requires a different thermal environment to be able to rest properly. Perhaps the definitive solution to disputes over the duvet is not by giving in, but by dividing air conditioning technology in the bed.
Images | Vitaly Gariev
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