How To Sleep When You’re Sick: Tips To Rest With a Cold, Cough or Fever

Struggling to sleep when you’re sick? Congestion, coughing, fever and body aches can make it hard to fall asleep and stay asleep. The good news is that the right sleep habits and symptom relief strategies can help you rest more comfortably and recover faster.

No matter the specific virus, nearly every sickness has one recommended treatment in common: lots of rest. Getting extra sleep when you’re sick doesn’t just give you a few hours of respite from unpleasant symptoms: Sleep is like medicine for the immune system and acts as a catalyst for recovery.

“Sleep is important even when you’re not sick, but it's probably even more important when you are sick. Illness is a stressor on the body, and it needs more time for recovery,” explains Alpen Patel, M.D., at LifeBridge Health and board-certified in sleep medicine.

With that being said, getting quality shut-eye when you’re under the weather isn’t always easy.

Even if you’re sleeping when sick, the congestion, coughing, fever, chills and general aches in the body can make it hard to drift off.

Fortunately, there are some things you can do to ease your symptoms and create a sleep environment that helps your body heal faster. Here’s the best way to sleep when you’re sick and why slumber speeds up recovery, according to experts.

Sleep helps your immune system fight infection more effectively and supports faster recovery when you’re sick. This feeling of tiredness and overall sluggishness is a not-so-subtle clue that you need to slow down in order to get better. Sleeping when sick allows your body to channel all its resources toward breaking a fever, fighting pathogens and recovering from a virus, rather than helping you power through a typical active day.

“Sleep is the only time of anyone’s day or night where we have restoration processes happening. It’s the only time when we replenish our energy sources, which are exhausted when you’re sick,” explains Allison Brager, Ph.D., a neurobiologist with expertise in sleep and circadian rhythms.

But sleeping when sick is even more important than simply resting on the couch while binge-watching your favorite reality shows. There’s a close connection between sleep and the immune system that can impact your recovery from an illness.

“When you’re fatigued and run down from being sick, your immune system needs to ramp up and fight the infection,” says Patel.

As you sleep, your body releases proteins called cytokines, some of which communicate with cells in the immune system to help knock out a viral infection. Interestingly, some cytokines help promote sleep. Giving in to those feelings of fatigue and sleeping when sick helps the body make more cytokines and fast-track your recovery.

“If you’re not sleeping well, the body doesn’t produce cytokines as productively,” notes Julia Kogan, a health psychologist who focuses on behavioral sleep medicine at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “The lack of sleep sets you up to potentially be more sick and makes it harder for your immune system to fight things off.”

Sleep also has an impact on the cells the body uses to fight off viruses, which could impact how well you recover from a sickness. Research suggests that sleep helps T cells (a type of white blood cell) more easily stick to infected cells and destroy them. Sleep also releases certain hormones that help steer T cells into lymph nodes to make the immune response even more effective, according to a 2024 study.

What’s more, slow-wave sleep (also known as delta sleep, our deepest stage of sleep) and the circadian rhythm induce hormonal changes that help send T cells to the lymph nodes and stimulate an immune response against a pathogen.

Sleeping when sick may be important for the functioning of natural killer cells, another type of immune cell that can attack cells that have been infected by a virus. Research shows that even modest amounts of sleep loss (like restricting sleep time to just four hours in a night) cause natural killer cell activity to drop significantly. Chronic sleep problems like insomnia have also been linked to broader immune disruptions, suggesting that poor sleep doesn’t just slow recovery from a cold—it can throw the whole immune system off balance. That could mean feeling sicker for longer in the short term, and increasing your risk factors for autoimmune issues and other serious diseases, too.

More research is needed to figure out exactly why these virus-fighting immune responses occur during sleep, but experts say it may be because the body doesn’t have the same demands on its resources as it does when we’re awake.

“Being awake is extremely stressful for the body,” explains Brager. “When you’re sleeping, it can instead focus on keeping the immune system healthy.”

Kogan adds: “Sleeping gives the immune system an opportunity to function at its best.”

When you’re sick, your body typically needs more sleep than usual, not less. There’s still the question of just how much to sleep when sick to promote recovery.

“There’s no set amount, but the more sleep you can get when you’re sick, the better,” advises Brager.

If you’re looking for a magic number, aim for more than nine hours. That’s the amount of sleep that may be appropriate for people with illnesses to get on a regular basis, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society, so it’s probably a safe target if you’re dealing with a brief sickness, like the common cold.

But don’t stress over trying to get that exact right amount of sleep (especially if you’re going over it). As long as you’re giving your body the sleep it’s asking for, you’re doing the right thing for your recovery, says Brager.

“When the body wants to be awake, it will be awake. It has its own set points,” she says.

In addition to getting enough sleep, timing your sleep can also be important when you’re sick. You can take naps throughout the day to boost the overall amount of sleep you get over a 24-hour period. But if possible, try to still aim for a long continuous stretch of sleep over the course of the night when you’re sick.

“It’s better to get good nighttime sleep because that’s when you’ll hit all the stages of your sleep cycle,” Brager says, including that restorative slow-wave sleep.

Being sick can disrupt your sleep by changing how long you spend in each sleep stage and making sleep more fragmented. Research suggests that sleep and immunity work in a bidirectional relationship.

When you’re sick, cytokines (like IL-1 and TNF) actually alter the sleep cycle (typically leading to more slow-wave sleep and less REM sleep) to support recovery. At the same time, studies show that infections and inflammation can also throw off your body’s circadian rhythm, disrupting the timing and depth of each sleep stage. And poor sleep, in turn, can cause inflammation to build up in the body and make slumber even more fragmented.

That helps explain why you might feel even more tired when you’re sick, yet struggle to feel like you can ever get enough of the high-quality, undisturbed sleep to feel restored the next day. More research is needed to understand how various types of sickness affect your sleep cycle.

Common symptoms like congestion, coughing and fever can make it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep.

“There are a lot of frequent nighttime interruptions from some of these upper respiratory infections or common cold symptoms,” says Patel.

If you can’t sleep when sick, one of the biggest culprits is often congestion. “When my patients are sick, they often have nasal symptoms, including stuffiness, which can disrupt sleep, cause snoring and even affect others in the same bedroom,” he adds.

Other symptoms, like having a sore throat, body aches and coughing, can also make it difficult to get to sleep when sick. Even if you do drift off, you might wake up in the middle of the night feeling awful, sweating through your sheets one minute and shivering the next. That can make it even harder to slip back into dreamland.

All those symptoms add up to one simple truth: being sick is exhausting—even when you’re doing everything you can to sleep.

If you can’t sleep when sick, it might not just be the cold and flu symptoms keeping you up. What you’re doing before bedtime may be making the situation worse without you even realizing.

Ignoring basic sleep hygiene advice can make it much more difficult to sleep when you’re sick, says Patel. “Having routines when it comes to bedtime and wake-up time is important,” he explains.

It’s also easy to get inadvertently exposed to sleep-disrupting blue light from screens (like TVs) too close to bedtime when you’re stuck on the couch or scrolling in bed. That can throw off production of melatonin in your body and make it harder to get to sleep.

Then there’s the medications you might turn to for relief from cold and flu symptoms. Patel says that while some medications (like over-the-counter nasal steroids and acetaminophen) can help ease symptoms that may otherwise keep you up at night, taking other drugs too close to bedtime can actually interfere with your ability to get some shut-eye.

“You want to avoid the oral decongestant called Sudafed and other medications like that,” Patel explains. “They can keep you up almost like caffeine does and give you an inability to go to sleep or stay asleep for that seven, eight or nine hours of sleep that you need, especially when you’re sick.”

The best way to sleep when you’re sick is to reduce symptoms before bed and create a sleep environment that supports rest. Here are some expert-approved tips to try next time you’re down with a bug.

Don’t eat too close to bedtime

“Eating no less than three hours before going to bed can help your body focus on sleep instead of digesting,” says Kogan. If your sickness has sapped your appetite, try to take a few bites of something nourishing several hours before hitting the hay. “If your body is hungry, that can wake you up more frequently, as well,” Kogan adds. Try to minimize processed foods and focus on vegetables, fruits and lean protein, as well as soups.  

Avoid screens at night

“A lot of people want to watch movies and veg out when they’re sick, but artificial light from technology is never sleep-promoting,” warns Brager. “Reading books, listening to music or doing something that doesn’t involve screens can help you maximize your sleep.” 

Use a humidifier

Dry air during the winter can lead to dry sinuses and other symptoms that make it even harder to sleep when you’re sick, so try turning on a humidifier at night. “Adding that moisture to the air can help soothe the throat when it’s sore, decongest the nose and clear the infection,” Patel notes. You can also try taking a hot shower before bed for similar benefits.

Consider a vitamin D supplement

“There’s some evidence that shows vitamin D supplementation can help with sleep…and it’s good for the immune system,” says Brager. But before adding any supplement to your regimen, talk with your doctor to make sure it’s the right move for you. 

Gargle with warm saltwater

This remedy can help reduce swelling and pain if you’ve got a sore throat, which may ultimately make it easier to sleep, says Patel.

Patel recommends using over-the-counter medications, like acetaminophen or ibuprofen, to help control the fever at night.

“They can help regulate the body temperature a little bit,” he says.

You should also reduce the temptation to crank up the heat when you’re dealing with chills and instead make sure your bedroom is comfortably cool when it’s time to sleep.

“Studies have shown that the ideal temperature for the human body to sleep, whether you’re sick or not, is anywhere from 65 to 68 degrees, and my guess is that most people are probably not at that level,” Patel says.

Finally, be mindful of your bedding. Opting for breathable sheets made from natural materials can help with temperature regulation and keep you comfortable as you sleep.

Start by making sure you’re staying hydrated throughout the day. Research has uncovered a potential link between shorter sleep duration and inadequate hydration. Since common sickness symptoms like sweating, diarrhea and vomiting can make you more susceptible to dehydration, try to increase your intake of fluids when you’re under the weather.

If your throat is sore before bedtime, try sipping warm fluids, says Patel. Warm soup, lemon water and non-caffeinated tea with honey can be especially soothing and help you feel more comfortable when it’s time to hit the hay.

“Ginger has also been shown to be helpful with soothing the throat, and overall, it has properties involved with fighting infection,” Patel adds.

You might also want to snack on a few nuts or seeds in the evening.

“Melatonin helps people sleep, and you can find small bits of it in nuts like pistachios and walnuts and pumpkin seeds,” Patel says.

For another sleep-promoting snack, reach for a banana.

“Bananas have magnesium, and we have a lot more research and data suggesting that magnesium can help us sleep more restfully and deeply,” explains Patel.

Patel recommends propping your head up on a high-loft pillow, so you’re less likely to wake up coughing or stuffy.

“Keeping the head higher than the rest of the body will help with congestion in the throat, head and nose region,” he says.

Other than that, just try to keep yourself as comfortable as possible. Patel says the exact sleeping position you choose won’t make a huge difference overall, as long as you feel supported and cozy.

Getting quality sleep when sick gives your immune system the energy it needs to fight infection, reduces inflammation and helps the body heal.

Addressing symptoms like fever, coughing and sore throat before bedtime can help you drift off more easily. Warm fluids can help you stay hydrated and soothe a sore throat. You can also relieve congestion overnight by keeping your head slightly elevated on a pillow.

Do what you can to get as much sleep as possible when you’re sick, and you’ll be back on your feet again as quickly as possible.