If you don’t have the luxury of air conditioning, you may well toss and turn through the hot and humid nights of summer. When the temperature and humidity rise, it’s difficult to get settled comfortably enough to sleep through the night.
Luckily I have twelve tips to help you get a cool night’s sleep on a hot summer’s eve…
1. Unplug To Cool Down
If things like computers, televisions, laptops, and light bulbs generate heat. It makes sense that if you turn off all of your electronics in a room, you will cool it down considerably. However, many of these gadgets continue to give off heat even when turned off, so unplugging them altogether will help cool almost any indoor environment after dark.
2. Dress Loose and Airy
A flimsy cotton nightgown for the ladies or a loose flowing pair of shorts will keep you cooler and more comfortable once you hit the hay. After all, if sweat gets trapped between tight layers it sticks to body and turns up the core temperature.
3. Get Caught In a Cross-Breeze
Creating a cross-breeze—with an electronic fan situated diagonally from a window—will certainly cool down your bedroom. If it’s really hot, you can situate multiple fans across from one another around your bedroom to create even more airflow.
4. Go With Cooling Cotton
If you want a cool bed with light coverage, forgo the polyester or silk sheets for light-colored, lightweight cotton linens made from breathable thread counts to encourage free flowing ventilation.
5. Sleep With a Cold Pack
In winter you might stay warm by sleeping with a hot water bottle between the sheets or wrapped in a towel. Do the same in summer, but substituting boiling water with ice water or stick the entire pack in your freezer and then wrap it in a towel before crawling into bed with it.
6. Call in the Fan Army
If one fan simply blows hot air around your bedroom, enlist several fans and point them adjacent to one another to create a cross breeze while blowing hot air outside. Also run ceiling fans counter-clockwise to pull hot air up and away from you. Give hot air help to rise upwards.
7. Encourage cold feet
Did you know that your feet and ankles contain several pulse points that effect temperature? You can start your night’s sleep in cooler climes by simply immersing your feet in cold water before going to bed.
8. Full-Body Cool Down
Speaking of pulse points—in addition to the feet, you will find pulse points in the neck, wrists, elbows, groin, and behind the knees. Applying cool cloths or ice packs to these areas will offer full-body cooling.
9. Cold Shower?
Most times of year a cold shower would be agony, but on hot humid nights a cold shower can be heaven if you just can’t cool down. So jump in a cold stream of water before bedtime to rinse away sweat.
10. I Sleep Alone
I know that cuddling with your sweetie can be a dream come true, but on humid nights, sharing a bed just increases temperature, body heat, and perspiration all night long.
11. Swing Low
If you can’t catch a cool break in your monstrous platform bed, try a temporary cot or hammock that’s slightly off the ground to create airflow. Since hot, humid air rises, setting up temporary digs in a cooler basement would also be wise.
12. Get Back to the Ice Box Era
In days of old iceboxes were just that—boxes filled with literal blocks of ice to keep perishables cool. So create your own icebox cooling system by placing a shallow bowl filled with ice directly in front of your fan. And aim the fan at your bed so it blows a cooling mist right at you as the ice melts.
