Leaving Your Heating On At Night Could Be Making You Ill

During the long hot summer - yeah right - getting your bedroom cool enough to doze off can be a real challenge.

That said, if you don't have air-con or a decent fan and your windows are fully ajar then you may have to take desperate measures - wet socks, cucumber eyes, refrigerated pillow cases.

Also, maybe having a fan on isn't the smartest idea, either.

As winter sets in, the battle is flipped on its head. For those who couldn't give two s***s about their energy bills, the solution seems clear.

However, research has indicated that almost half of people who sleep with their heating on overnight report feeling ill the next day.

A survey conducted a few years back by bedding company, Slumberdown, found that 46 percent of people who slept with their heating on felt ill in the morning, with 37 percent reporting symptoms including headaches, dry mouths and dehydration.

One in five people also said they wake in the middle of the night soaking with sweat.

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Professor Jason Ellis, who is a sleep expert at Slumberdown, said the problem is that people often go to bed feeling snug, but don't allow for the body's natural temperature fluctuations during the night.

According to Deadline News, he said: "Our bodies do a great deal of work for us during sleep.

As part of that process, our body temperature changes over the course of the night and we tend to cool down towards bedtime and then naturally warm up towards the morning.

"As such, we may go to bed warm and cosy but as the research shows, wake up hot and bothered. The key is being comfortable when going to bed and staying comfortable throughout the night.

"The more comfortable you are the less likely you will wake during the night or too early in the morning."

So if the professor and the survey are to be believed, it would seem your sleep and health will be improve if you keep your heating off over night... rare that the solution to your problems is to spend less money, isn't it?

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The survey also found that 51 percent of people don't change their duvet for a higher tog winter duvet, but 70 percent said they would rather do this than leave the heating on.

Meanwhile, some people presumably just scratched their head and asked, 'what's a tog?'

Basically, it's a unit of measurement for thermal resistance, commonly used to denote how warm a duvet will keep you. In summer, you'll get by just fine with but a few togs, come winter though and you wanna be upping your togs to about a dozen.

So with the pennies you'll save on your heating meter, why not head out and get yourself togged up for the winter with the duvet of your dreams?

Alternatively, you could spend it at the pub and go to sleep wrapped up in a nice warm beer coat, which provides just as many togs... though with this method, you will probably still wake up with a headache and a dry mouth.

Topics: Winter, UK News, News, Bed, Sleep, Sleeping, Winter, UK News, News, Bed, Sleep, Sleeping

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey