For What It’s Worth is a live podcast about the stuff we use, the trends we question and the products we can’t stop talking about. Stream new episodes bi-weekly on YouTube, hosted by NBC Select editorial director Lauren Swanson and NBC Select reporter Zoe Malin. Shop our product picks below and on Amazon.

Is there really a right way to sleep? Technically, no: As long as you’re restfully snoozing for at least 7 hours each night, the mattress, sheets, pillows and pajamas you use are totally a personal preference. That said, there are a couple of highly debated sleep topics, some of which I’m sure you feel very passionately about, as do the experts I’ve consulted throughout my years of reporting. Top sheet or no top sheet? Socks or no socks? What’s the ideal sleeping temperature? And is slumbering on your stomach actually bad for you?

In this episode of For What It’s Worth, NBC Select’s live podcast, NBC Select editorial director Lauren Swanson and I are talking about all of it. We’re also sharing some of the game-changing products that upgraded our nighttime routines, and those that help us get out of bed without hitting snooze… more than once.

Want more from NBC Select? Sign up for our newsletter, The Selection, and shop smarter.

Products we recommend during this episode

Casper Original Pillow

Hatch Restore 3

Bearaby Cotton Weighted Blanket

BNRendles Satin Ear Piercing Pillow

$16.98

Amazon

Quince European Linen Cotton Stitch Quilt Set

Ikea Trippevals Black-out Cellular Blind

$64.99

IKEA

Episode transcript

ZOE: I feel like we should be in our PJs for this episode.

LAUREN: I could take a nap. I could fall asleep. Are you a napper?

ZOE: No, I’ve never been a napper, not even as a baby. My parents will tell you if you want to know about my horrible sleep as a child, but I’ve redeemed myself in my teen and adult years. I love sleeping, but I am not a napper.

LAUREN: Why?

ZOE: I can’t do it. I think for me, once I’m in my clothes for the day, and I’ve had my morning, I cannot rest until it’s bedtime. My brain, I don’t know, I just can’t do it. I will say, though, I don’t know why, but in the past couple of years — actually, I do know why. It’s because I got a puppy. When I got the puppy, and I was on her sleep schedule and crate-training her and stuff, I found myself falling asleep anywhere, anytime. I was just so tired. And then she obviously is a great sleeper now. She’s one. Yay, go Mabel. But I still find myself just falling asleep places now.

ZOE: Oh, I could drift off on the couch if we’re watching TV.

LAUREN: A nap with your eyes open.

ZOE: Yes, a nap with my eyes open. I am very well known for falling asleep on the couch at 8 p.m. and then suddenly it’s 5:30 a.m., time to wake up. But I can’t nap in the middle of the day. Can you?

LAUREN: I cannot relate. I nap all the time. I can nap right now. Sometimes, if it’s a particularly busy day and I have 30 minutes between one meeting and the next, I’m sitting at my desk, I close the door, I just close my eyes for a minute and I nap sitting up.

ZOE: You can do it?

LAUREN: Yes.

ZOE: Really?

LAUREN: And it gets me going through the rest of the day. I wake up, or I open my eyes. It’s not even like I’m fully asleep. It’s just closing my eyes.

ZOE: It’s just powering off your brain for a minute.

LAUREN: Yes. And then I’m up, and I’m like, All right, that was great. Let’s go.

ZOE: That’s extremely impressive to me. I dream of being able to do that.

LAUREN: I am an extreme napper. I could nap in any place with noise, sound or light.

ZOE: So on planes, trains, automobiles, et cetera?

LAUREN: Yes.

ZOE: Wow.

LAUREN: I can definitely do a plane. Whether it’s a great nap or not is in question, but I can nap on a plane. I always have these great ambitions of writing the next great American novel on a plane, and then I get there and I’m like…

ZOE: Goodnight.

LAUREN: I don’t even want to watch a show. I put on a podcast, and I fall asleep to the podcast, and then I have dreams of murder while I’m sleeping. And I’m like, interesting.

ZOE: Of course. How relaxing.

LAUREN: I can do it anywhere. Sometimes I get home from work and I nap on the couch for an hour.

ZOE: That’s extremely impressive to me, seriously.

LAUREN: And then I still can go to bed.

ZOE: See, no. For me, I think it ruins my sleep.

LAUREN: Some people are immune to caffeine, like, they could have a cup of coffee at 11 p.m. and still go to sleep.

ZOE: That’s me.

LAUREN: I could nap at 5 p.m. and still go to bed at 9 p.m.

ZOE: That’s impressive. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. I really wish I could, because there’s some days where I just know that if I got 30 minutes of extra sleep, I would just be better. But I just physically can’t do it. That’s when I go get an espresso.

LAUREN: You can’t shut your brain off like that?

ZOE: I can’t shut my brain off, no. Unless it’s bedtime, I cannot do it. And on planes, et cetera, any moving vehicle, there’s sometimes where all I want is to fall asleep. I cannot do it. Sometimes when I’m on road trips with my family, I’ll start to doze off a little bit, but I’m still fully aware of what’s going on, what they’re saying, where we are. My brain does not work like that. Wow, that’s impressive. I very much am the kind of person who, when we talk to sleep doctors and they tell us, “These are the things that you need to sleep,” I’m the person that needs every single one of them. I’m not the kind of person that can compromise on light or sound.

LAUREN: Really?

ZOE: Oh yes. When I moved to my current apartment, I had these kind of eh shades, and we installed them, because I was like, I don’t want to buy new ones right now. And for a year, I had them, and I was waking up a million times a night. And then I realized it was because — I mean, I changed my mattress, I changed my pillows, I got the sunrise alarm clock, I did everything and nothing was working. And then I realized, Oh, it’s because there’s so much light that comes into my room. And for my birthday, I asked my parents if they could please buy me, for my birthday gift, light-blocking shades. And they did, and I sleep like a baby now. So I’m very sensitive to those kinds of things.

LAUREN: Wow, you’re a high-maintenance sleeper.

ZOE: I’m a high-maintenance sleeper.

LAUREN: A maximalist. A sleep maximalist.

ZOE: I’m a maximalist when I sleep. I can’t do the eye mask.

LAUREN: No? Is it sensory overload?

ZOE: Yes, I cannot have it on my face. I don’t even sleep with the Oura Ring or the Apple Watch. They can track your sleep, but that will never be me. I cannot do it. I can sleep in my necklaces and my earrings, but that’s it.

LAUREN: We were talking about this yesterday: We got the flat backs. They’re called the nap earrings.

ZOE: But when you get those pierced, it makes sleep challenging, unless you get a piercing pillow, one of my favorite purchases on the planet of Earth. That piercing pillow has now been transferred to my mom because she got piercings. I mean, it makes the rounds, that thing. It’s a donut-shaped pillow for your ear, so if you’re having trouble sleeping when you get your piercings, there you go.

LAUREN: So what else do the doctors say? What do you need? Lights?

ZOE: The darkness is super important to trigger that in your brain, telling your brain…

LAUREN: That’s circadian rhythm?

ZOE: Yes, the darkness says to your brain, We are powering down. It’s literally a chemical situation that goes on in your brain, and it starts to really wind you down. So that’s A. I think noise, I wouldn’t say the doctors have so much of an opinion on that. I think that some people can’t do quiet. I’m not someone that can sleep in the quiet. I have to have a noise machine. And then there’s other people, like you: It doesn’t bother you at all. So I feel like that’s up to your personal choice.

Sleeping position is very important, and that’s tough.

LAUREN: Do tell, do tell.

ZOE: Doctors say that there are few things that you absolutely should not do when you sleep. Very few.

LAUREN: Laying on your stomach?

ZOE: That is one of them. That is correct. I know.

LAUREN: Get out.

ZOE: I know. I know. Literally, the doctors that I’ve talked to when we wrote about wedge pillows and body pillows, I asked them about the ideal sleep position. And they said, Truly, I don’t care how you sleep, as long as your body’s aligned and you’re not compressing your neck and you’re keeping your spine straight. But I really care if you’re sleeping on your stomach, because there’s just simply no way to do the right things. There’s no way to properly align your body. And I was like, Oh, not me, not me.

LAUREN: You sleep on your stomach?

ZOE: Yes. I will sleep anyway, as long as I’m comfortable.

LAUREN: What’s your preferred sleeping position? Show me how your body looks.

ZOE: Well, my sleep position is fully dictated by my pets.

LAUREN: Oh, okay. They say you shouldn’t have pets in your bed.

ZOE: I know. Let me tell you something: They say don’t do that. Say no pets in bed. No. I actually have a really hard time sleeping without them in bed. The first time I went away after I got my puppy, I had my cats for years, so I already knew that I would have a little bit of trouble sleeping without them, but not so much trouble. But there’s something about the dog in the bed. I couldn’t sleep the entire time I was on the trip. I couldn’t do it. So sorry to the doctors. That’s just not going to be me. But I used to sleep on my side, and I had one cat who kind of nestled herself in my neck, and then one cat who liked to be in the crook of my knees. And then I got the puppy, and she likes to be under the covers, which they also say don’t do. Sorry. She likes to be under the covers. And she presses herself on my legs, so I can’t really move my legs. Then, one of my cats sits on top of my ankles, so I can’t move my feet. Then, the other cat sits on my chest and stretches her whole body into my neck, so I sleep basically like a starfish slash skeleton in a coffin kind of situation. And I wake up in so much pain, Lauren. I wake up in so much pain.

LAUREN: So if I ever wake up to a news report that says, “young woman suffocated in her sleep by her pets”… I’m going to be like, RIP Zoe.

ZOE: You already know. There she goes. I wake up and everything cracks. I’m in pain. I know it’s bad for me, but it’s the only way I can sleep. What about you? You have a cat.

LAUREN: Yes, but he likes to sleep on my husband’s side on his feet. My husband is much taller, so the smarter position for him to be in is around my feet, because otherwise he gets kicked all night. But he doesn’t mind. We had to put him in a cone right after the holidays, after we got back from traveling right after Thanksgiving, and he was so needy with that cone on that he was all in our business all the time. He could not leave us alone, because he was like, Please take it off. Please take it off. And so he started this habit of, in the middle of the night, just laying on my husband’s chest and nuzzling into him and licking his hair. Sometimes I wake up and I turn over, and the cat is on his chest licking his hair. I’m like, That’s adorable.

ZOE: It is. He’s probably like, This is so annoying. I can’t sleep.

LAUREN: He’s like, This is not what I wanted, but it’s adorable.

Every sleep doctor would be horrified and appalled by the way that I sleep. I mean, maybe they’re not because I actually fall asleep, and so, it’s like, as long as you’re getting sleep? I sleep like a wrestler, or like a mountain climber. So I’ve got one hip and leg that’s up in the air.

ZOE: So completely not aligned.

LAUREN: Completely not aligned. My spine is probably making a backwards J. I fall asleep with the TV on, and we just discovered that for a while, we were not putting a sleep timer on it, and we would wake up at 2 a.m. and we were 12 episodes in on Futurama or something, and we were like, huh? My husband was like, Our TV doesn’t have a sleep timer. Yes, it does. All TVs have a sleep timer. So I found the sleep timer: game-changing. I set it for an hour, but I’m asleep before that hour’s up, so the TV’s off. But I always have to fall asleep to a show.

ZOE: Really?

LAUREN: Since college, I’ve been like this because in college, I would fall asleep — Oh, my God, you’re going to love this story. In my sorority house, senior year, we all slept in the same room, all 30 girls.

ZOE: How?

LAUREN: We slept in what we called the cold dorm. The house was this old historic house, and it had a big attic that used to be the ballroom. There were not a lot of wonderful things about it. It’s not like this was an old, historic university that had all of these houses. But this house just had a lot of history to it, and it had a big ballroom, and they had turned it into a cold dorm. So it’s always kept at 65 degrees. I used to have to be the one during sorority recruitment who would have to sell the cold dorm.

ZOE: Girl, you would not have to sell me. I’d hear 65 degrees and I’d be like, I’m in.

LAUREN: Well, a lot of girls were creeped out by it, which I understand. So it’s kept at 65 degrees, always dark and everybody’s bed was in there.

ZOE: It kind of sounds like how I want to sleep.

LAUREN: Well, it sounds lovely until you discover that some of your sorority sisters are snorers, or talk in their sleep, or are the kind that don’t wake up to alarms or any of those things. But you would get some good naps in there where you’d wake up and you’d be like, Is it colonial time? You had no idea. You were like, Did I just fall asleep through World War Three? You’d wake up and you could just tell. We were not allowed to have electric blankets, but I had an electric blanket, and so it was 65 degrees and an electric blanket. But for some reason I just sometimes felt like sleeping in there, and sometimes didn’t. And when I didn’t, it was often because I was like, I both want to be entertained, but I’m also exhausted and I need to fall asleep. So I would sleep on, we had a couch in our room, so I’d sleep on the couch, falling asleep to Netflix. And I just would do that almost every night.

ZOE: So now you can’t get out of the habit.

LAUREN: Now, in my adulthood, I have to fall asleep to a show. It’s almost always an animation show now, which is not always the most soothing sound-wise, but it’s what I need. We don’t have blackout curtains, sometimes Chad leaves the lights on.

ZOE: Wow, so it’s just the TV. You’re a low-maintenance sleeper.

LAUREN: I’m a very much sleep minimalist. I do not need a ton of gizmos and gadgets. We don’t have a sound machine. We don’t have a sunrise alarm clock.

ZOE: Oh, I have both.

LAUREN: The thing is, it’s just me that’s a lower maintenance sleeper. Chad’s terrible sleeper. He does the eye masks. Any gadget or gizmo that you could imagine you could buy for sleep, he has it and he tries to use it. We have a little red light that he turns on to help him fall asleep. And so if it’s me that falls asleep first, you can kind of tell, because everything is chaotic. If it’s him falling asleep first, it’s set up as a sleep sanctuary.

ZOE: Wow. If I’m in the dark and I have my sound machine, I’m pretty good to go. Those two factors for me, as long as I have those two things, I am fine. I mean, obviously the pets are a bonus, but don’t really need any specific pillows, specific blankets. I’m not really that kind of person, but it’s the darkness and the sound for me.

LAUREN: And the cold.

ZOE: And the cold. Oh man, yes. Let’s discuss the ideal sleeping temperature. So all the sleep doctors that we have talked to, every single one, has said it’s between 60 and 67. That’s been the range that I’ve heard every time I interview a sleep doctor. I am definitely a 67 girl, 67 to 68 to me is perfection. If it is even a tad bit warmer, I physically feel like I am being cooked alive under my blankets. I can’t do it. I’ve tried cooling pajamas, cooling sheets. No, no, none of that matters, as long as it’s not above 67 or 68 degrees.

LAUREN: I would even say a little bit cooler.

ZOE: I could, too. I would not complain.

LAUREN: I like a good 65, 66, 67 — that temperature. I want to feel my face cold, but my body warm.

ZOE: Me too. I completely agree.

LAUREN: I love it. And then your body starts to get a little bit warm, and you sneak a foot out. And you’re like, This is perfect.

ZOE: Like a toe — perfect. toe perfect.

LAUREN: Well, here’s another good question: socks on or socks off?

ZOE: No socks. I can’t.

LAUREN: No. Sensory overload.

ZOE: I don’t even wear socks in my apartment. I can’t. The minute I get home, I take my shoes and my socks off and I put on slippers. I can’t wear socks inside. I don’t like it. The sensation to me, I don’t know what it is, but it really irks me out.

LAUREN: I can do socks in the apartment, but as soon as I get in the bed, they have to come off. Otherwise, I can feel them the entire other night. They have to come off. Actually, I think you’re supposed to take your socks off because it allows your body to regulate its own temperature better.

ZOE: You are. That’s what I’ve heard, too.

LAUREN: My grandma has to sleep with her socks on.

ZOE: It’s okay, grandma can do whatever she wants.

LAUREN: I know, she gets a pass.

ZOE: Once you get to that age, I’m sorry, but you can sleep in a clown costume for all I care. I don’t care.

LAUREN: But I absolutely cannot. And now there’s a little pile of socks to the left of my bed from me shedding them.

ZOE: But that’s what I want. That’s exactly what I want.

Another good question, and I think we’re going to disagree: top sheet or no top sheet?

LAUREN: No top sheet.

ZOE: Oh, no. You’ve got to do a top sheet.

LAUREN: I get overstimulated.

ZOE: I love my top sheet. And actually, I wrote that article two years ago maybe because we did a social video about it, and it blew up, and we had so many differing opinions in the comments, differing opinions among the team. So I talked to doctors and sheet makers, and all the experts said that you do need a top sheet.

LAUREN: I think it’s a scam.

ZOE: it is more sanitary.

LAUREN: I just don’t believe that, because, here’s the thing, and we also talked about this when we talked about showering.

ZOE: Yes, do you shower before bed or not.

LAUREN: I always shower before bed, so I’m getting into bed clean, and yes, I get it, I sweat in the middle of the night, but I don’t know, I just feel like top sheets are a scam. I would rather sleep without it. I feel like there’s too much fabric, and then it gets bunched up at the end of your bed and they’re not really providing any warmth or coziness.

ZOE: It’s literally just like a napkin for your bed, basically.

LAUREN: Yes, it’s a napkin for your bed. To keep you sanitary? I want to be warm. I want to be cozy.

ZOE: So then do you wash your comforter and stuff every week?

LAUREN: No.

ZOE: That’s what you’re supposed to do.

LAUREN: Do you think I have time to wash my comforter every week?

ZOE: But that’s why I do it. I love a quilt. I have a quilt that keeps me nice and cool, and then I have my top sheet and that way I don’t have to wash the quilt every week. Can you imagine? It’s so annoying. That grosses me out. No?

LAUREN: Is it bad that I’m just not grossed out by it?

ZOE: No. It’s okay, but…

LAUREN: I just don’t find it gross.

ZOE: Well, that’s what the experts told us, I’m a top sheet girl forever.

LAUREN: I’m going into bed clean.

ZOE: I don’t disagree with that. I don’t disagree with that because I am not the kind of person that can go about their day and then get into bed in pajamas, even though I showered in the morning.

LAUREN: I shower every single night.

ZOE: Me too. I usually shower in the morning and at night, because I work out in the morning, I shower, I go about my day, shower, go to bed. I don’t know, it just grosses me out. So I understand that perspective. I would not understand people who wear their outside skin in their bed.

Do you have one thing that you feel like — I mean, I feel like the answer is no, because you are a minimalist sleeper — but, one thing that changed your sleep setup, be it a pillow, anything like that?

LAUREN: I mean, my favorite pillow of all time is the Casper one.

ZOE: Just the standard Casper pillow?

LAUREN: Yes.

ZOE: It’s a fan favorite.

LAUREN: I think it’s the standard one. It’s the right level of firmness for me. Chad keeps trying to get me to switch and swap out my pillow, because he’s like, You’ve had this pillow forever. And I’m like, I don’t think you understand. This is it. I have no notes. I don’t wake up being like, You know, I wish it was a little… no. I don’t even think about it when my head hits it. So I love that pillow. I mean, we have a great mattress, but that’s because Chad works for a mattress company. We have a great mattress. No, I don’t think there’s anything else. There’s not a thing that changed my sleep, but I have a strategy to help me sleep, especially when my mind is racing.

ZOE: Please share.

LAUREN: I’m a genius, and I discovered this innovative technique where, when I was falling asleep, my brain was hopping between different topics and categories. The most random of thoughts. And when I discovered that I could replicate that on my own, like, I’m having trouble falling asleep, let me force my brain to be so free that it can hop between random topics and subjects, or random things, like purple kangaroo, pink lollipop, yellow stairs, whatever. And just truly, let it be free. It replicated that mind pattern that was right before I went to sleep and I could be out in the next five minutes.

ZOE: That’s very cool.

LAUREN: I only use that technique, though, when I have 30 minutes to nap.

ZOE: Oh okay, so to be out really quick.

LAUREN: Yes, so in the middle of the day, and you’re like, I only have 30 minutes, my mind is still racing, because I just maybe came from something that had my mind activated. And I’m like, I need to calm my nervous system. I need to calm my heart rate. I need to not be thinking about what I need to do next. Then I use it. And I’m like, do this fast. And then I can.

ZOE: You’re like, I need to get this done. That’s impressive. I like that. I’m going to try that.

LAUREN: Try it.

ZOE: I think for me, the most revolutionary thing I did was get my Ikea blackout shades. I swear.

LAUREN: So you have blackout shades and the curtains?

ZOE: No, I just have shades. They truly changed my life. Those were phenomenal. And I would say my Hatch sunrise alarm clock, because it doubles as a noise machine, so just the fact that I don’t wake up to my blaring alarm on my phone anymore, and it really gently nudges me awake…

LAUREN: Do you really wake up?

ZOE: Oh my god. The first couple of weeks, I couldn’t believe what was happening. Now I’ve been using it for years and years, so I’m really not amazed by it anymore, but those first couple of weeks, I was like, this is magic. Because you set it up however you want, so I set it up for the sunrise to be 30 minutes, really slowly, gradually getting my room lighter. I would say that the first five minutes I don’t really notice it. Then once it gets to five minutes to 10 minutes, I really start to feel like I’m still sleeping, but I’m not really out. I’m a little conscious. And then it just gently nudges me awake to the point that it gets to its brightest point, I would say, two minutes before my beautiful songbirds go off and make sound to be awake. I’m awake before the sound, because the light alone really gently gets me into this wakeful state.

LAUREN: I would be so anxious that it wouldn’t wake me up.

ZOE: I was worried the first couple of times. I remember that I set it up on a Friday night to get used to it.

LAUREN: That’s what I would do.

ZOE: But by Monday, I was fully like, Wow, this works. I was so impressed. And so I’ve always, now had that, and I know for a fact that will get me up. I never worry about it. And the thing I love about the Hatch is, at night, you set up a bedtime routine. You can, you don’t have to. But I set a bedtime routine.

LAUREN: It winds you down?

ZOE: Yes, so a really nice, lovely, red, cool light goes off, and it makes my room have mood lighting, and then my sound machine starts. And then eventually, 30 minutes later, the light will go off, and then the sound machine gets a little louder, and I’m out. It really just nudges me in and out of sleep, that thing. I’m obsessed with the Hatch. I will really sing its praises forever.

LAUREN: Oh, good for you. I love that.

ZOE: And then I have a Quince quilt that I love, because it’s cool enough that I never feel like I’m overheating, but also warm enough that I’m cozy. I feel like sometimes, you want something that’s going to feel cozy, but if it’s too light, I don’t think you can feel cozy.

LAUREN: It needs to have a certain level of weight.

ZOE: Yes, for sure. So I love that. And I think the most magical thing on Earth is a weighted blanket too. I’m a weighted blanket girl.

LAUREN: You’re a weighted blanket girl? I tried to be.

ZOE: Only on the couch, only on the couch.

LAUREN: Oh, okay.

ZOE: If I’m trying to fall asleep on the couch for a little bit, or just really start to wind down, if I put that weighted blanket on, I will fall asleep. So some nights, I purposefully do not use it, because I don’t want to fall asleep like that. That deep pressure? Whoa. Truly, I will be asleep in minutes.

LAUREN: I tried to be a weighted blanket girl, and then it fell on the ground and I couldn’t get it back up. I was like, This has got to go.

ZOE: I have a Bearaby one and it’s 12 pounds.

LAUREN: It’s not the one that’s knitted?

ZOE: Yes, it is knitted.

LAUREN: It has holes in it?

ZOE: Yes.

LAUREN: That’s the one that fell on the ground and I couldn’t get it back up.

ZOE: I was just going to say, they make other weights, so yours is definitely heavier. And I wish mine was a little bit heavier, because at this point I’m such an advanced sleeper with the blanket that I need something heavier, but even just the 12 pounds alone knocks me out. I love that thing. I’m obsessed with it. So these are my sleeping hacks.

LAUREN: Good. Well, there you go.

ZOE: Well, we hope this helps you get a restful sleep.

LAUREN: Yes, especially with daylight saving time.

ZOE: Oh yes. And if it didn’t help you, we hope that you find something that helps you.

LAUREN: It’s about what works for you.

ZOE: It is. I mean, that’s the thing: Doctors can say this works, we can recommend anything, but ultimately, if you sleep on a sleeping bag on the floor best, you do you.

LAUREN: No. Not me.

ZOE: Not me, either. Bye.

LAUREN: See you next time.

Why trust NBC Select?

I’m a reporter at NBC Select and I co-host our live podcast, For What It’s Worth, with editorial director Lauren Swanson. In this article, I summarize Episode 14: How To Get the Best Sleep of Your Life. I included a summary of the episode, a transcript, products we recommend during the podcast and related articles.

Catch up on NBC Select’s in-depth coverage of tech and tools, wellness and more, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok to stay up to date.