Better sleep with a temperature-controlled pillow

I finally got the Moona. It’s a temperature-controlled cooling pillow mat to be placed on your own pillow, just beneath the pillow case.

I’d been procrastinating on the price for forever, but Black Friday came along, and I just had to grab the deal: Usual US$399, now $325 (with BF discount plus a promo code I found online)!

Why a cooling pillow

I’d always been a hot sleeper, and I often wake up in the middle of the night due to a hot pillow. On days when the weather is hot (we’re talking hot like in tropical climate), my sleep is noticeably worse. Even on cold rainy days I find myself waking up occasionally to flip the pillow. I’d always suspected that being a hot sleeper is the one critical factor that affects my sleep quality most of the time.

It doesn’t help even when I turn the AC temperature down. That’s the problem - cooling down the ambient air further won’t help in this case, because the cool air can’t get between my head and the pillow. Convention won’t help, so we need conduction instead. Those cooling gel pillows won’t work either, because it gets warm after a while.

There’s also a larger option by another brand called the Ooler by Chilipad, but that’s twice the price and is a mattress pad for the entire bed. I do get hot lying on my back too, but decided that the price and size might be an overkill for me. We’ll see!

How the science works

Quick summary from the Moona website:

• Studies show cooling your head while keeping your body temperature warm is the BEST way to achieve a good night’s sleep.
• It’s more efficient to target just the head/neck area.
• It auto-adjusts the temperature throughout the night, in three phases: 1) Cool down to fall asleep faster, 2) Maintain a low temperature for better sleep, 3) Warm up to wake up gently
• I get to choose the right temperature by setting my temperature profile
• Tiny sensors coupled with machine learning algorithms non-invasively measure my movements and the sleeping environment (temperature, humidity and light intensity)
• The ‘compressor’ part of the device is quiet, as quiet as or quieter than typical ACs

Sleep biohack experiments to come

What got me most excited about my purchase is solving the hot sleeping issue, since that’s the reason I sleep poorly most of the time. If the Moona solves it and I sleep better, that’s already worth the $325 price tag.

The best part is experimenting with the right temperature for my profile, and adjusting the timings of the three phases to fit my current 4:30am morning alarm. If warming up the pillow helps wake me gently, that would be icing on top of the cake.

Can’t wait for it to arrive!