Before going to sleep in a hotel room he shared with his brother recently, Matthew Johnson slipped wool socks over his feet. He did what?
“My brother saw me putting on socks and he was like, ‘That’s crazy. You’re a crazy person,’” says Johnson, a senior at George Mason University in Virginia.
A growing understanding of the importance of sleep for health and lifespan has made slumber hacks and gadgets all the buzz—including the increasingly common advice to sleep with socks.
But an under-cover inquiry by The Wall Street Journal finds that socks-in-bed is dividing couples and the public square. Opponents physically recoil at the notion, and say people who snooze in socks can’t be trusted.
“That’s just psychopathic behavior right there, wearing socks to bed,” says Sean McMahon, a 32-year-old retail worker in Deltona, Fla., who called a former roommate weird for doing so. He recalls watching a murder mystery one time where a character in the movie wearing socks to sleep was the killer.
Matthew Johnson’s slumber socks. PHOTO: MATTHEW JOHNSON
In Virginia, Johnson wasn’t always a socker. He wore them—a pair of generic
Walmart
socks—to sleep for the first time after reading about the benefits. The first night, “it feels like you’ve put your feet into jail,” he recalls. “Your feet are like ‘Get me out of here.’”
But he woke feeling more rested. So now, Johnson has a few pairs of boot-length wool socks, some from a nearby Lidl grocery store, warm but not too warm, that he specifically wears to sleep. After his nightly shower, he kicks the air conditioner in his room to about 65 degrees, puts on the socks and drifts off to dreamland.
“I find that a magical combination, of a slightly colder room and slightly warmer clothes. There’s something primal about it,” he says. “It triggers that response in your brain of like ‘I’m a cave man sleeping in a cave right now. I am safe, time to go to bed now.’”
Authorities, from the Cleveland Clinic to the University of Florida Health have expounded on the positives of sleeping in socks. (On its website, Cleveland Clinic writes, “Here’s a bit of information that could knock your socks on,” while UF Health heralds socks as “the unsung hero of undergarments.”)
A study published in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology found that young men fell asleep 7.5 minutes faster, slept 32 minutes longer and woke up 7.5 times less often than those not wearing socks.
It might seem socks would make you too toasty. But counterintuitively, researchers say, socks help lower core temperatures, a process that assists sleep.
Chilly feet can raise the temperature by sending more blood, and heat, to core areas, according to the Cleveland Clinic, which explains: “So, what does adding in a fluffy pair of socks do? Those cuddly duds warm your feet, relaxing and widening blood vessels that constricted while cold. This improved blood circulation in your overall body helps release more heat through your skin.”
Dr. Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and sleep specialist, says he has been prescribing the sock method to couples with sleep compatibility issues. Breus, a self-described “sleep matchmaker,” would recommend the partner who feels colder at night wear socks to bed.
Breus, a “hot sleeper” who doesn’t wear socks to sleep himself, acknowledges the advice won’t work for everyone but insists, “It’s a valuable thing to think about.”
Statistics and footnotes on the topic are limited, though one small survey suggested 63% of us don’t sleep with socks on, 25% sometimes do, and nearly 12% regularly do. The informal study, on a Reddit forum, generated comments such as, “I sleep with socks when I’m too drunk to take them off, and honestly waking up with socks on is worse than the hangover.”
Not surprisingly, Big Sock is getting involved.
Darn Tough Vermont, a merino-wool socks manufacturer, describes itself as “Team Almost-Every-Situation-Calls-For-Socks” but recognized the nuance in the situation in a blog post: “Just like pineapple-as-pizza-topping, there are many people firmly in Camp 100% Yes and Camp Absolutely Not.”
The company even added the question—sleep-in-socks or not—to applications for brand ambassadors who promote its products. Answers received included, “Darn Toughs all day, but bare feet at night,” according to Emily Corley, Darn Tough’s director of marketing.
Courtney Laggner, a 37-year-old brand-and-community marketing manager there, diplomatically toes the line down the middle.
Courtney and Matthew Laggner, a married couple. Courtney has a sock practice that confounds her husband.
At home in Plainfield, Vt., she practices the “one sock on, one sock off” method, meaning she’ll go to bed with both socks on and then kick one off before falling asleep. Laggner, a mother of two kids under the age of five, has tried other sleep aids, such as melatonin, but says, “for me, taking off that one sock is like taking off a bra at the end of the day. It is like, I’ve found my comfort and now I’m ready to sleep.”
Her husband, Matthew Laggner, a no-socker, thinks she is crazy for doing so, and hates finding random discarded socks come Saturday morning when they change the sheets.
“It always amazes me how many socks fall out the end,” says Matthew, 38, a general contractor. “It’s anywhere from two to six pairs or whatever depending on the week.”
Advertisement - Scroll to Continue
Might he just join her in the sock camp? “At this point,” he says, “I don’t think even if I wanted to try that I could give in.”
Tyler Robbins wearing a pair of socks that he sleeps in. PHOTO: TYLER ROBBINS
Tyler Robbins, a 43-year-old quality-control inspector in Section, Ala., says wearing socks to bed is crucial to his sleep regimen. Without them, “it just doesn’t feel right,” he says. “It feels like my feet are naked, and I don’t like it.”
Robbins’s wife, Brandy Robbins, a 40-year-old schoolteacher, has called him out on his socking habit among friends and family. She prefers to go sockless even though her feet get chilly at night.
How does she warm them up? The sock guy.
Brandy says her frigid feet will trespass onto Tyler’s side of the bed for warmth, so she doesn’t have to get up to put on socks. Tyler says her feet are “like ice blocks” that make him jump.
Tyler will shoot back: “I don’t see how your feet don’t just fall off because they’re so cold.”
In South Bend, Ind., Nemeth McCormick, 23, was intrigued by the socks-in-bed strategy. Getting good sleep helps him keep a set schedule, livestreaming and editing for his work as a content creator.
But he tried it and didn’t like it. “It feels a little off,” he says, “and plus I like that little bit of breeze on your feet.”
Despite walking around in socks almost all day, McCormick cherishes the moment he takes them off at night. One time, he says, he fell asleep with socks on after a long hard day, and he woke up confused and wondered what he had done. “It felt out of place,” he adds, noting he had to shower to wash the feeling away.
Write to Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com
“My brother saw me putting on socks and he was like, ‘That’s crazy. You’re a crazy person,’” says Johnson, a senior at George Mason University in Virginia.
A growing understanding of the importance of sleep for health and lifespan has made slumber hacks and gadgets all the buzz—including the increasingly common advice to sleep with socks.
But an under-cover inquiry by The Wall Street Journal finds that socks-in-bed is dividing couples and the public square. Opponents physically recoil at the notion, and say people who snooze in socks can’t be trusted.
“That’s just psychopathic behavior right there, wearing socks to bed,” says Sean McMahon, a 32-year-old retail worker in Deltona, Fla., who called a former roommate weird for doing so. He recalls watching a murder mystery one time where a character in the movie wearing socks to sleep was the killer.
In Virginia, Johnson wasn’t always a socker. He wore them—a pair of generic
Walmart
socks—to sleep for the first time after reading about the benefits. The first night, “it feels like you’ve put your feet into jail,” he recalls. “Your feet are like ‘Get me out of here.’”
But he woke feeling more rested. So now, Johnson has a few pairs of boot-length wool socks, some from a nearby Lidl grocery store, warm but not too warm, that he specifically wears to sleep. After his nightly shower, he kicks the air conditioner in his room to about 65 degrees, puts on the socks and drifts off to dreamland.
“I find that a magical combination, of a slightly colder room and slightly warmer clothes. There’s something primal about it,” he says. “It triggers that response in your brain of like ‘I’m a cave man sleeping in a cave right now. I am safe, time to go to bed now.’”
Authorities, from the Cleveland Clinic to the University of Florida Health have expounded on the positives of sleeping in socks. (On its website, Cleveland Clinic writes, “Here’s a bit of information that could knock your socks on,” while UF Health heralds socks as “the unsung hero of undergarments.”)
A study published in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology found that young men fell asleep 7.5 minutes faster, slept 32 minutes longer and woke up 7.5 times less often than those not wearing socks.
It might seem socks would make you too toasty. But counterintuitively, researchers say, socks help lower core temperatures, a process that assists sleep.
Chilly feet can raise the temperature by sending more blood, and heat, to core areas, according to the Cleveland Clinic, which explains: “So, what does adding in a fluffy pair of socks do? Those cuddly duds warm your feet, relaxing and widening blood vessels that constricted while cold. This improved blood circulation in your overall body helps release more heat through your skin.”
Dr. Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and sleep specialist, says he has been prescribing the sock method to couples with sleep compatibility issues. Breus, a self-described “sleep matchmaker,” would recommend the partner who feels colder at night wear socks to bed.
Breus, a “hot sleeper” who doesn’t wear socks to sleep himself, acknowledges the advice won’t work for everyone but insists, “It’s a valuable thing to think about.”
Statistics and footnotes on the topic are limited, though one small survey suggested 63% of us don’t sleep with socks on, 25% sometimes do, and nearly 12% regularly do. The informal study, on a Reddit forum, generated comments such as, “I sleep with socks when I’m too drunk to take them off, and honestly waking up with socks on is worse than the hangover.”
Not surprisingly, Big Sock is getting involved.
Darn Tough Vermont, a merino-wool socks manufacturer, describes itself as “Team Almost-Every-Situation-Calls-For-Socks” but recognized the nuance in the situation in a blog post: “Just like pineapple-as-pizza-topping, there are many people firmly in Camp 100% Yes and Camp Absolutely Not.”
The company even added the question—sleep-in-socks or not—to applications for brand ambassadors who promote its products. Answers received included, “Darn Toughs all day, but bare feet at night,” according to Emily Corley, Darn Tough’s director of marketing.
Courtney Laggner, a 37-year-old brand-and-community marketing manager there, diplomatically toes the line down the middle.
Courtney and Matthew Laggner, a married couple. Courtney has a sock practice that confounds her husband.
At home in Plainfield, Vt., she practices the “one sock on, one sock off” method, meaning she’ll go to bed with both socks on and then kick one off before falling asleep. Laggner, a mother of two kids under the age of five, has tried other sleep aids, such as melatonin, but says, “for me, taking off that one sock is like taking off a bra at the end of the day. It is like, I’ve found my comfort and now I’m ready to sleep.”
Her husband, Matthew Laggner, a no-socker, thinks she is crazy for doing so, and hates finding random discarded socks come Saturday morning when they change the sheets.
“It always amazes me how many socks fall out the end,” says Matthew, 38, a general contractor. “It’s anywhere from two to six pairs or whatever depending on the week.”
Advertisement - Scroll to Continue
Might he just join her in the sock camp? “At this point,” he says, “I don’t think even if I wanted to try that I could give in.”
Tyler Robbins, a 43-year-old quality-control inspector in Section, Ala., says wearing socks to bed is crucial to his sleep regimen. Without them, “it just doesn’t feel right,” he says. “It feels like my feet are naked, and I don’t like it.”
Robbins’s wife, Brandy Robbins, a 40-year-old schoolteacher, has called him out on his socking habit among friends and family. She prefers to go sockless even though her feet get chilly at night.
How does she warm them up? The sock guy.
Brandy says her frigid feet will trespass onto Tyler’s side of the bed for warmth, so she doesn’t have to get up to put on socks. Tyler says her feet are “like ice blocks” that make him jump.
Tyler will shoot back: “I don’t see how your feet don’t just fall off because they’re so cold.”
In South Bend, Ind., Nemeth McCormick, 23, was intrigued by the socks-in-bed strategy. Getting good sleep helps him keep a set schedule, livestreaming and editing for his work as a content creator.
But he tried it and didn’t like it. “It feels a little off,” he says, “and plus I like that little bit of breeze on your feet.”
Despite walking around in socks almost all day, McCormick cherishes the moment he takes them off at night. One time, he says, he fell asleep with socks on after a long hard day, and he woke up confused and wondered what he had done. “It felt out of place,” he adds, noting he had to shower to wash the feeling away.
Write to Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com
