When sleeping in a high quality sleeping bag, are you warmer with or without clothes? Why?

Answer 1

Without clothes. The way a good sleeping bag keeps you warm is a simple, age-old concept... What keeps you warm is actually the air around your body. The bag doesn't actually warm you up, it simply separates and insulates the outside air from the inside air. Your body heat warms up the inside air and keeps you warm and toasty because the bag keeps the outside air from getting in.

If you wear clothes, then you loose the cushion of air around your body. You are unable to heat the air inside the sleeping bag, and it stays just as cool as when you first crawled in.

This same concept is used when making winter parkas. They fit large and loose so that your body can heat up the air under them.

Answer 2

It really depends upon how you sleep .I'm a large male mesomorph and regardless of temperature I will generate a lot of heat and moisture when I sleep .I select sleeping clothing that wicks moisture away from my body because I know that I will be drier and therefore be warmer in the end. I know that anything like Capeline would work , I then combine that with a pair of Ragg sox and a wool / synthetic watch cap or balaclava and I should be nice and toasty at below zero temps .
The problem with wearing regular clothes in a high quality winter bag is that winter bags are intentionally designed to fit snug and clothing will actually compress the down and thereby reduce the effective loft and temp rating .The insulating qualities of the clothing may be less than the insulating qualities of the down that it's displacing .

Answer 3

I have 15 years of summer and winter camping and backpacking. When I first began my adventures, I began with a cheap bag I would use for summer trips. During the winter activities, I would beef-up the bag by wearing more clothes. I even wore insulated coveralls one time. These "tricks" did not work.

I finally broke down and purchased a high quality mummy bag for backpacking. This was about seven years ago, and I spent over 200 bucks for the bag. It is light weight at 3 pounds 14 ounces, yet will keep me warm to zero degrees.

The salesman said I didn't have to wear anything to bed. When you enter a bag, you should feel cool, but not cold. If you are anything close to warm, you will sweat. Sweating will chill the body and you will not sleep comfortably.

The first time to use my new sleeping bag was on a winter backpacking trip. I crawled into the bag with nothing on but my underwear. I slept nice. The only problem I had was the cold air on my chest. When you move in a mummy bag, the bag expands. The expansion sucks in air. I have never been the kind of person who could sleep with a draft across me. The second night, I used a poly-pro top. It was wonderful.

With the bag, I use a self-inflating ground pad. This add protection and comfort to your sleeping arraignments.

Answer 4

Without clothes. Even in Alaska at -70, you will do better without clothes, not that it matters a bag rated for -40 is more than warm enough at -70. Some bags are not rated properly however, but the higher the quality the more likely the rating is to be accurate. The reason is that the naked body heats up the bag much faster and the bag will retain the heat. Heat from the body actually cools as it transfers through clothing. I spent more nights than i care to remember in temps from -40 to -70 degrees and never in anything but a down mummy bag rated -40 usually naked and I was often to hot every where but my nose and that was due to a history of frostbite.

Answer 5

The idea that sleeping naked is warmer than with some clothes on is utter nonsense!! People who say otherwise have a poor understanding of thermodyamics and basic science. Just like a sleeping bag, clothes maintain a dead air space between your skin and the outside elements. The more layers of clothing you have on, the more dead air spaces you create and hence the the higher the differential between the air next to your skin and the outside air (this is how foam air pads work to keep you warm off the ground). Probably the reason people think sleeping naked is warmer is because they go to sleep in damp clothes which will counteract this, and in that case you could feel a loss of heat since the evaporative effect of moisture will suck heat away from your body. In some instances, clothes may insulate your body parts away from each other, so it is true that like a mitten the warmest scenario would be to be wrapped in cloth like a mummy with multiple layers on inside a good sleeping bag.

Ive done a lot of cold weather backpacking trips, woken up in the middle of the night freezing my tail off, then put several layers of clothing on and became much warmer in my bag. If removing extra layers actually kept you warmer, then when you went outside on a cold day you would actually feel warmer taking off layers of clothing which of course is idiotic. Inside a sleeping bag is no different...more layers means more warmth because more heat is trapped in ALL of those dead air spaces!

Answer 6

Without clothes is always warmer...when you sleep with your clothes on your body produces heat, but it doesn't share it with the rest of your body, so say your upper part of the body produces more heat than your legs, so that will be warm, but your legs will be cool, which will make you feel cool all over. If you sleep without clothes your body produces heat, and since your in a (high quality) sleeping bag it doesn't have a way to excape, so it stays inside and warms the air up around you.

Just look at it this way, if you sleep with another person you are always warmer cause of their body heat, even though you produce as much as they do...

Answer 7

Sleeping Bag Dress

Answer 8

You will be warmer without clothes on because the material and filling in a quality sleeping bag is made to react with your body heat.
When you leave your clothes on, your body heat is too diffused to react with the sleeping bag properly, so it does not work as well.
For best results, you should always sleep on a cot, in a sleeping bag, without your clothes on.
You can throw your clothes in the sleeping bag with you so that they are nice and warm in the morning, but do not wear them.
If you do not have a cot to sleep on then it is advisable to make a bed out of leaves or pine needles to separate yourself from the ground as much as possible.
It is actually the ground that will rob you of most of your body heat, not the cold night air!

Answer 9

I used to go camping 11 months of the year, back when I was in Scouts. I was even an asst. scoutmaster for a year or two. I can tell you from personal experience that if you have a bag rated for less than 10 degrees Farenheit, then you are probably better off disrobing in your sleeping bag. Especially so for the mummy type bags. Which is what I use (rated at -10 degF).

This may be surprising to some of you, but you will actually warm up quicker in the winter months, when you have less on. Especially if you were absolutely freezing outside of your bag. Your clothes will actually act as an insultation between your body and the bag. When the outside air is cold, it will take your bag MUCH longer to warm up when you have that extra layer of insulation between you and it. I can say from personal experience, that you might be freezing cold for a minute or two, but especially when camping in the snow, you will be warm in about three minutes. Your body gives off plenty of heat to fill the surrounding air in the bag.

One suggestion though is to get one of those foam pads to place under your bag as a protection to keep your bag dry. If it gets wet, you WILL freeze. Which brings about another reason to disrobe. It is that if you dont and when your bag does heat up, especially in those really thermally efficient bags, you WILL sweat during the night. And your bag WILL get wet. And again, you WILL freeze. A wet bag is the worst thing you can have in cold weather.

One very good tip of advice: Put the clothes are will wear tomorrow down by your feet in your bag, when you sleep. They will help keep your feet warm, and will be nice and toasty (as if fresh out of the dryer) in the cold morning air.

Answer 10

You can't use a sleeping bag? Are you in some kind of competition you haven't mentioned? Removable floor? Well, remove it, put lots of straw down, wear layers of dry clothes, put chemical hand warmers in a few strategic locations, wrap up in a wool blanket and snuggle down into that straw. Make sure you have dry, wool socks on with thin, synthetic or silk socks underneath, and put hand warmers in between the layers. Is there snow you can bank up around the sides of the tent? Or maybe there's lots of snow, and you can ditch the tent, build a snow shelter, and put the removable bottom of the tent on the floor, topped by straw, and you. That's all I've got, unless you want to hook up a car battery to a heater, placed outside the tent, with a vent coming underneath the tent wall blowing warm air inside. But that would be potentially dangerous, loud, and a pain. Now, why can't you use a sleeping bag?

Answer 11

Best without in all honesty.....aside from undies of course! Materials some clothes are made from will trap moisture when you sweat and, that's not good on a cold night. High end bags are designed to wick that away from the body and deposit it outside of the bag, thus keeping you warm and dry.

A lot can depend on the material and the design of the bag as well. I used to have a Mountain Equipment bag made from Pertex and, it was a good bag because it wicked away the moisture and, the baffles were very well designed so, they helped keep the heat where it was needed. Bear in mind that you also lose a lot of heat from your head so, use your bags hood as well and make sure to do up the shoulder baffle.....that will keep you snug as a bug in a rug :o)