Orion and Hot Flashes: What Women Told Us About Cooler, Calmer Nights

We asked women already using the Orion sleep system about two things that can turn a good night into a hot, restless one: hot flashes, and the temperature changes that come with the menstrual cycle. Their answers were strong and consistent.

The hot flash result also held steady across ages. In every age band among women who shared their age, at least 85% reported reduced sleep disruption.

We asked the 103 women who experience hot flashes that disrupt their sleep how Orion has affected those disruptions. 88 of the 103 women, or 85.4%, reported that Orion reduced sleep disruption from their hot flashes. The other 15 (14.6%) reported no change, and no one said it got worse.

Whatever your age, the results looked much the same. Women in their twenties, their sixties and every decade in between reported reduced sleep disruption from hot flashes at consistently high rates. These results were not limited to one stage of life.

Hot flashes are not the only temperature shift that can interrupt a woman’s sleep.

Across the menstrual cycle, a hormone called progesterone rises and falls, and your baseline core body temperature rises and falls with it. That means your thermal comfort at night can be a moving target from one week to the next. (We explain how this works in the Menstrual cycle temperature changes 101 section below.)

Of the women who answered the question, 74 said they experience sleep disruption due to temperature fluctuations throughout their menstrual cycle. We asked those 74 women how Orion has affected those disruptions.

64 of the 74, or 86.5%, reported that Orion reduced their sleep disruption from temperature changes during their cycle. 9 women (12.2%) reported no change and 1 woman (1.4%) reported that it worsened.

Results for the cycle group varied more by age than the hot flash results did. They were highest among women in their forties, where 95.0% (19 of 20) reported reduced sleep disruption, and lowest among women in their thirties, at 76.2% (16 of 21).

If you have ever felt a sudden wave of warmth rise through your face, neck and chest, you know what a hot flash feels like. Hot flashes are the most common experience of the menopausal transition, and about 75% of women have them.¹ They are a normal part of how the body changes during this stage of life.

Here is what is going on. A small area of your brain called the hypothalamus works like your body’s built-in thermostat, keeping you at a comfortable temperature. During the menopausal transition, shifting estrogen levels make that thermostat a bit more sensitive. A small rise in temperature that you would normally never notice can suddenly register as “too warm.”

Your body then does what it always does to cool off. The skin warms and may look flushed, and you may start to sweat. A hot flash usually passes within a few seconds to a few minutes, and you might feel a little chilly afterward as your body settles back down.

To fall asleep, your core body temperature needs to drift gently downward. To stay asleep, your body needs to hold that lower temperature through the night. A hot flash works against both. It can make it harder to drift off in the first place, and when one arrives in the middle of the night, it pulls your body out of that cooler sleep state and can wake you up.

You may wake up warm and a little sweaty, then find it hard to get comfortable again as you go from too warm to a bit chilly. When this repeats through the night, sleep becomes broken up and fragmented, and mornings feel far from rested.

When a hot flash hits, your body is trying to get rid of heat, and fast. With ordinary bedding, that heat has nowhere to go. It builds up in the warm pocket of air between you and your blankets, and your mattress warms up and holds it right against you.

The Orion sleep system changes that. Orion is a water-cooled sleep surface that holds a steady, cool temperature beneath your body all night. That makes it a constant heat sink: when your body releases heat, the heat moves out of you and into the cool Orion surface instead of hanging around you. Orion keeps drawing that heat away, night after night, flash after flash.

For the moments when a hot flash wakes you up, Orion has a dedicated Hot Flash Relief mode. Turn it on from the Orion app and it delivers a timed burst of extra cooling right when you need it. It is designed to help you cool off before the heat builds into real discomfort, so your body can get back to a comfortable temperature and you can settle back to sleep.

Your body temperature naturally shifts over the course of your cycle. It tends to be at its lowest during your period, known as the menstrual phase, and at its highest during the luteal phase, the stretch between ovulation and your next period.

The luteal phase usually lasts about two weeks. After ovulation, your temperature starts to climb and keeps rising, reaching its warmest point around the middle of the phase. From your lowest point to your highest, the difference is typically about 0.5 to 1 degree Fahrenheit (roughly 0.3 to 0.6 degrees Celsius).²,³ That may not sound like much, but it is enough to change how warm you feel at night.

This warmer stretch is the temperature change many women notice most, and it is often the least comfortable. Nights can feel warmer than usual, and settling in can take more effort.

Then, as your period begins, your temperature falls back to its lower baseline. This drop can happen fairly quickly, which makes it very noticeable. A bed setup that felt just right a few nights ago may suddenly feel too cool, so your comfort level becomes a moving target.

Behind all of these shifts is a hormone called progesterone, which has a direct influence on your core body temperature.

Progesterone is one of the hormones that naturally rises and falls each month as part of a regular cycle. After ovulation, your body starts making more of it, and one of the things progesterone does is warm you up a little.²

Remember the built-in thermostat in your brain from the hot flash section? Progesterone gently turns that thermostat up a notch, so your body settles at a slightly warmer temperature for a while. Later in the cycle, your body makes less progesterone again. The thermostat eases back down, and so does your temperature.

Just like with hot flashes, good sleep depends on your body cooling down a little at night and staying there. During the warmer part of your cycle, you start the night from a slightly warmer place, so it can take longer to cool down and get comfortable. You might notice you feel warmer in bed, toss and turn more, or wake up more often during this part of the month.

Because your temperature shifts across your cycle, the bed setting that feels perfect one week may feel too warm or too cool the next. The Orion sleep system lets you keep up. It gives you full control over the temperature of your sleep surface, so your bed can match what your body needs right now.

Orion can both cool and warm. During the warmer stretch of your cycle, set Orion cooler to offset that extra warmth. When your temperature drops as your period starts, set it warmer so you do not wake up chilled. As your comfort needs rise and fall, you adjust Orion to match, and each side of the bed can be set on its own.

The result is a bed that stays at your personal comfort level all month long, whether your body is running a little warm or a little cool.