I've noticed my sleep quality is strongly correlated with my room temperature, but being in a moderate climate I find that I need my bed and room colder to sleep better. Looks like this only provides heating.
As someone who struggles mightily with sleep I can tell you it's science not preference that makes you prefer cold. I can't find the original source of this fact but here is a decent alternative[1].
> ...scientists were able to lower skin temperature less than a degree Centrigrade without affecting core body temperature. The changes were dramatic. People didn't wake up as much during the night and the percentage of the sleep spent in stages 3 and 4 (deep sleep) increased. ... A 0.4 C decrease in skin temperature caused a decline in the probability of early morning waking from 0.58 to 0.04.
That article is wrong. The quote that you gave, is contradicted in the last paragraph of the same article:
>> Recent research by Dutch scientists found that by increasing skin temperature the sleep quality in elderly people could be enhanced.
Also the study, that the article links to [0] says:
By employing a thermosuit to control skin temperature during nocturnal sleep, we demonstrate that induction of a mere 0.4 degrees C increase in skin temperature, whilst not altering core temperature, suppresses nocturnal wakefulness (P<0.001) and shifts sleep to deeper stages (P<0.001) in young and, especially, in elderly healthy and insomniac participants. Elderly subjects showed such a pronounced sensitivity, that the induced 0.4 degrees C increase in skin temperature was sufficient to almost double the proportion of nocturnal slow wave sleep and to decrease the probability of early morning awakening from 0.58 to 0.04. Therefore, skin warming strongly improved the two most typical age-related sleep problems; a decreased slow wave sleep and an increased risk of early morning awakening.
I have trouble sleeping if my blanket isn't heavy enough -- it's not a warmth issue, as far as I can tell, but rather a weight one. That, and having a warm body but breathing cold air seems to be something I like. That might be what the parent was talking about, rather than feeling too-hot in the blankets.
It's a real challenge if you live somewhere warm. Even using only a sheet and with a fan blowing directly on me I still want/need colder. Here in NC it'll often be 85-90F and humid, even at night.
This is obviously not a nightly solution - but a family member of mine moved from our northern US state to Africa for a time and swore by the following strategy to stay cool: utilize evaporative cooling by wetting/wringing out a lightweight sheet and use a fan to blow air over your bed.
if you could figure out a way to get microfibers to straighten out / curl up on command (like under a DC electric field), you could make a smart blanket. it would regulate the loft of the material by making the fibers straighter or more curled, making it more or less insulating. i dont know if this is a stupid idea or not.
There's been some recent studies that suggest a cooler temperature is better for quality of sleep and improves insulin sensitivity [1]. There's another company that sells pads that can lower the temperature of the bed [2].
