The Best Cooling Pillows to Help You Stop Sweating and Start Snoozing

Getting a great night of sleep should be no sweat, but that's not always the case. If you happen to have a pre-existing condition that causes night sweats, you sleep in a stuffy or hot environment, or you find yourself tossing and turning night after night, deep sleep can feel frustratingly elusive.

Luckily, cooling pillows have emerged as a potential solution. Although no two brands are exactly alike when it comes to construction and efficacy, their unique, refreshing feel can help provide some sweet relief, especially if you tend to sleep hot.

The Best Cooling Pillows

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What to Consider

Each cooling pillow you'll find is a little bit different, but when it comes to choosing the best cooling pillow for you, these are the most important things to consider:

Pillow shape

The best cooling pillow shape depends largely on your main sleeping position. Stomach sleepers should opt for a soft, airy pillow, side sleepers need a flat, firmer pillow, and back sleepers are best suited with something in the middle. A cooling pillow should keep your head and neck in total alignment on its own and not need any added bolsters to provide adequate height for you.

If you like the feel and weight of your current bed pillow, start your cooling pillow search with one that has a similar construction.

Fill material

Most cooling pillows are either filled with memory foam or down-alternative material. Memory foam provides ample support, but it tends to be a little weighty and heat-retentive. To counteract this, many cooling pillow brands use perforated foam, shredded foam, or other design features to help push out the hot air.

Conversely, down-alternative fiber tends to be lighter and airier than foam, but it doesn't provide the same reactive feel, and it has the potential to lose its puffiness over time.

Cooling element

The main cooling element of most of these pillows is in the outer cover. Some cooling pillows are made with cool-to-the-touch fabrics such as lyocell or Outlast, while some use materials that are completely proprietary to the brand. There are also a few products that feature heat-wicking gel as a part of the pillow’s inner fill construction.

Much of this particular choice comes down to personal preference, but one important thing to keep in mind is that no cooling pillow stays ice-cold after hours of sleeping on it. This is why you need to consider the total package, inside and out. A cooling pillow's inner airflow design is just as important as its cool-to-the-touch cover.

How We Tested

We curated this guide to the best cooling pillows to help all types of sleepers get their most satisfying sleep, selecting products that we've personally tested or that are beloved and well-rated by hundreds of reviewers. The cooling pillows we tested were slept on for 3-week periods by our editors, who were asked to give feedback on the pillows' cooling covers, ability to regulate body temperature through the night, and general comfort level.

Ready for cooler nights and more refreshed mornings? Read on to find out how these six cooling pillows stacked up.

Learn more about how we test products, from the questions we ask our testing team to the types of products we feel are actually worth testing to the overall time we put into our testing process.