While we all look forward to long hot summer days, summer nights are another matter altogether.
When you spend a sleepless night tossing and turning because of the heat, it can prevent you from enjoying all the good things summer has to offer. Luckily there are ways to combat the oppressive heat of a midsummer night to ensure you wake up feeling refreshed.
Room set-up
Maintaining a constant airflow will help to cool a room down, which you can easily accomplish by keeping windows and doors at least a little bit open throughout the day.
However, while keeping blinds and curtains closed may seem like a good way to block airflow, they prevent the glass in your windows from magnifying the heat when the sun is at its hottest, which will stop your bedroom from turning into a mini greenhouse.
Another simple cooling solution is to introduce some greenery into the bedroom, as plants absorb warm air and expel water when they get too hot, cooling the air around them.
Lastly, if you have the budget, consider replacing carpets with wooden floors, as carpet fibres seal in heat during the day, releasing it throughout the night.
The best sheets to use
Nothing is worse than the feeling of your sheets sticking to you on an oppressively hot night.
To keep yourself both covered and cool this summer, opt for bedding made from natural fibres rather than manmade poly-cotton, such as cotton, linen, and bamboo. Cotton is known for its lightness, linen is very breathable, and bamboo is wonderful at regulating body temperature, especially when it’s humid.
The pros and cons of fans and air conditioners
Buying a fan or portable air conditioner may seem like an obvious solution to heat-induced insomnia, but there are several things you should consider before making that investment.
Fans work not by cooling the air, but by moving it around the room. This will help sweat evaporate faster, which may make you feel cooler, but once the fan is off, the room quickly returns to its previous state. You will also need to be close to a fan to feel the benefit, and if you’re noise-sensitive, the sound of the blades may make sleep more elusive.
Fans are much more energy efficient than air conditioners, however, as well as much easier to store. An air conditioner will certainly cool down a room, but they use a lot of energy and take up a significant amount of space.
Both may help you sleep better on hot nights, but neither are the miracle solution they may first appear.
A cooling mattress
One thing that may well be holding you back from a cool, comfortable night’s sleep is your mattress. Traditional memory foam mattresses in particular store heat and make the sleep surface unbearably warm. Fortunately, this isn’t the case with Medical Grade™ foam mattresses from Mammoth, which are scientifically tested and shown to cool the body through the night.
In addition, the airflow channels between our PostureCells® help to disperse heat, moisture and allergens – making for a much more pleasant slumber
Your pre-sleep routine
What you do before bed can have a big effect on how well you sleep once you climb beneath the covers.
Eating a big meal 2-3 hours before bed will make you hotter, as your body will continue burning energy to digest, and while alcohol actually cools you down, it makes you feel warmer by widening the blood vessels closer to the surface of your skin.
Avoid heavy food and alcohol consumption before bed, stay hydrated, and perhaps take a lukewarm bath or shower in the evening to promote cool and restful sleep.