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Credit: Good Housekeeping by By Lexie Sachs and Grace Wu

Mattress shopping is tough, and if you're a hot sleeper, it only gets more complicated, especially as heat-trapping memory foam has grown in popularity.

When you overheat at night, it can negatively impact your sleep quality, making it especially tough to have a restful sleep if you're dealing with night sweats. Luckily, the mattress industry has changed exponentially in the past decade, bringing with it innovative cooling mattresses to help alleviate your hot flashes.

Do cooling mattresses really work?

Yes, but they can't work miracles. Cooling mattresses can help you sleep at a more comfortable temperature throughout the night, but the efficacy depends on the cooling features in the mattress. If you have a condition that causes night sweats, a cooling mattress can't cure it, but it can certainly help bring you some relief.

While night sweats can be caused by many factors ranging from medical conditions to summer weather, a mattress that traps heat can make it worse. A hot mattress can even cause overheating for someone that wouldn't otherwise have night sweats. The worst offender? Memory foam mattresses. Unlike innerspring mattresses with built-in ventilation, memory foam is denser, so there's not as much airflow. This means the heat around your body gets trapped, causing overheating and night sweats.

When shopping for cooling mattresses, look for those that use cooling technology — beyond a cold-to-the-touch cover — and those with more breathable construction. For example, Phase Change Materials (PCM) will store and release heat to ensure you're at a comfortable temperature throughout the night, while a hybrid mattress (that combines combine memory foam with coils) will offer more breathability than memory foam alone.

What type of mattress is best for staying cool?

There are various types of cooling features built into mattresses, and just because a mattress brand claims to be cooling, doesn't mean it'll actually keep your body temperature lower. Here are the main types of techniques you'll find in cooling mattresses:

✔️ Cool-to-the-touch materials: Typically made of synthetic fibers, like rayon or nylon, these surface fabrics quickly draw heat away from your body, but likely won't stay cool all night long.

✔️ Built-in cooling features: Metal particles, gel or phase-change technology embedded into foam materials to help pull heat away.

✔️ Breathable construction: Even without cooling technologies, mattresses that are more breathable with chambers for air or with a spring construction can prevent heat from staying trapped around your body.

✔️ Electric capabilities: Some plug-in options use cool water or air that flows through the mattress to keep it continuously cool. These are more high maintenance and have added components, like a unit next to your bed.

How we test cooling mattresses

The Good Housekeeping Institute Textiles Lab has been evaluating bedding and home products for over a century. Since the online mattress industry's rapid expansion in 2014, our experts and analysts have delved in even further, building categorical knowledge and becoming subject experts. We choose the best mattresses through various sources of data.

Each year, we work with consumer testers to directly evaluate dozens of mattresses in addition to routinely surveying our larger tester panel and readers on beds they own. On top of this, our analysts thoroughly review the materials, special features and other relevant specifications of each mattress. Throughout this process, we research each brand, including vetting certifications and consumer complaints, to ensure we stand behind our recommendations.

Regarding cooling mattresses, we consider both company-provided lab data that proves the bed's cooling capabilities and first-hand user experiences from our own surveying. We also consider the claims to see whether any brands may be overpromising on their chilling powers.

When it comes to collecting feedback from our consumer testers and panel, each user fills out various surveys about their user experience. For our consumer testers, surveys are sent out after several weeks of sleeping on the mattress to get initial feedback. We continue to survey them over an extended period, from months to years, to see how the mattress holds up over time. For our panel of Good Housekeeping readers, we send one questionnaire to get additional in-depth feedback on the mattresses they already own. Each survey addresses a range of aspects, including:

✔️ Ordering and delivery: Users provide ratings and comments about the ease of ordering, how quickly it arrived and whether there were any issues throughout these steps.

✔️ Set up: Whether it's DIY or white glove delivery, we explore how easy the process was and whether the mattress took shape quickly.

✔️ Firmness level: Often, the perceived firmness doesn't match the brand's specified level. This helps us understand how soft or firm it feels in real life.

✔️ Edge support: Reviewers let us know whether the bed sinks when they sit on the edges or if it holds the shape well under weight.

✔️ Comfort and support: Testers weigh in on whether they liked sleeping on the mattress immediately and again later in the review period. They can provide comfort and support ratings as well as detailed comments.

✔️ Temperature: We ask users whether they stayed at a comfortable body temperature throughout the night so we can note whether any cooling features were observed.

✔️ Sleep quality: Respondents let us know if the mattress has had any effect on their sleep, whether they wake up sore and whether they are overall satisfied with the mattress. They also have the opportunity to compare the mattress with other models they've owned.

✔️ Additional feedback: Through a series of open-ended questions, testers can share any likes, dislikes and further comments about their experiences.

Things to consider when shopping for the best cooling mattresses

On top of the cooling features, here are things to keep in mind as you shop for your best mattress:

✔️ Sleep position: Stomach sleepers need a firm surface, side sleepers need a softer surface and back sleepers (or anyone who changes position) will need something in between. The goal is to keep your spine in neutral alignment as you sleep.

✔️ Weight: Heavy people need a firmer bed, while lightweight frames are better suited with a softer mattress. This is also for proper spine alignment, and you can take into account both your weight and sleep position when choosing your bed's firmness level.

✔️ Back pain: A pressure-relieving mattress with all foam or a mix of foam and coils is ideal to relieve upper and lower back pain. Also, look for medium firmness for a balance of cushioning and support.

✔️ Motion isolation: If you're sharing a bed with your partner, nothing's worse than being woken up by another person's tossing and turning at night. For good motion isolation, look for foam or hybrid models and avoid "bouncy" mattresses like those made of latex.

✔️ Return policy: It's difficult to know whether a mattress is a good fit without sleeping on it first. To help you shop online, most mattress companies offer a trial period for at least 100 nights. This is especially important for cooling mattresses since brands make bold claims about keeping your temperature lower. Before you buy, check whether there are any hidden return fees and how you go about making the return.

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Why trust Good Housekeeping?

The Good Housekeeping Institute Textiles Lab has tested all kinds of bedding and home products for more thana century. Each year, our experts actively research and review hundreds of mattresses in addition to surveying our readers, organizing consumer testing, and analyzing countless data points.

Lexie Sachs is the executive director of the Textiles, Paper & Apparel Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute where she oversees all bedding content and testing. She has been actively researching and reporting on mattresses since online bed shopping hit the mainstream in 2014 and has extensively reviewed dozens of models by meeting with brands, surveying real mattress owners and conducting consumer tests.

Grace Wu most recently updated this story. She's a textiles product review analyst at the Good Housekeeping Institute and has researched and evaluated hundreds of mattresses using feedback from thousands of consumer testers and survey panelists. Grace has written several stories about various types available, from firm mattresses to mattresses for adjustable beds. Prior to joining GH, Grace earned a Master of Engineering in Materials Science & Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in Fiber Science from Cornell University.