Feeling hot and bothered   Summer has finally arrived but along with the pleasant sensation of sunshine, and those fabulous family barbecues comes the problem of a poor night's sleep due to the increased heat and humidity.
The easy solution is to throw off the bedding, but that can quickly lead to waking up with an unpleasant chill as the temperature drops through the night.
A more reliable solution is to invest in a wool duvet or wool quilt if you are feeling a little old fashioned.
Wool, yes that old-fashioned fiber from sheep has some very interesting properties to aid a good night's rest when the weather is warm and humid.
Wool naturally absorbs moisture, it will hold up to about 1/3rd of its weight of water without feeling damp to the touch.
It has such an appetite for water that it will pull moisture out of the air surrounding your body reducing the humidity.
This allows your body to continue to produce moisture or perspiration, as the perspiration evaporates from the surface of our skin we get a cooling effect which is what our body's ability to perspire is all about.
Research has shown that sleeping under wool in warmer conditions can help reduce heartbeat and consequent stress compared to other less absorbent bedding fibers.
This helps improve the quality of you sleep.
A good weight for a summer wool duvet is 200 to 250g/mtr2 which equates to approximately 3 to 4 Togs [due to wool's absorbent nature and constantly changing moisture content it is not really suitable for tog measurements but this is a reasonable approximation.
] For wool, warmth primarily relates to thickness and weight.
The thicker and heavier for winter, thinner and lighter for summer.
A good solution is a duo combination duvet where the duvet is formed from two 250 g/mtr2 duvets poppered together so that you can have the best of both worlds thin and light for summer, thick and warm for winter.
Sheep grow a thick coat for winter which needs to be cut for summer so why not follow the flock, 2 billion sheep worldwide can't be wrong.
For wool duvets and lots of information on wool fiber and products visit http://www.
thewoolroom.
com