Argh! Nothing worse than tossing and turning in a hot bedroom for what feels like semi-eternity while the minutes tick away reminding you that you have to get up again in the morning and face another sweltering tube journey to work. If the night air feels more Brazilian heatwave than British August, here are ten ways to help you sleep better on hot nights.
1. Is the air outside cooler than the air in your bedroom? Place a fan by the window to suck in that outside air.
2. Treat your feet to an ice bath. Our wrists, hands, feet, heads and the back of our necks are more sensitive to hot/cold temperatures, so soak your feet in a cold foot bath (add ice) to cool you off before you hit the sack.
3. Ditch those synthetic fibres. Even just a small percentage of elastane, Spandex, Lycra, etc. in fabrics can make you feel hotter than 100% cotton alone, as all of us who own 100% cotton and cotton/synthetic mix T-shirts already know.
4. Blow air over ice. Pour some ice cubes into a flat pan or tray and point your fan at them, towards you, this will help cool the air flow.
5. Refrigerate your pillow case. You could add your top sheet but number 10 below usually works better instead. Pop your pillow case in a freezer bag in the morning so it’s perfectly chilled by night. Ditto, those “gel eye coolers”.
6. Back to the freezer again…chill ice packs or if you don’t have any, take a frozen plastic bottle to bed with you.
7. Knock yourself out. Try Nytol, Balancing Blooms’ “Peace”, Therapie’s Himalayan Detox Bath Salts (these are just brilliant – they dissolve every strand of stress and help lull you into a really deep sleep, they keep selling out but they now do a trial pouch, £8.50) or Abahna’s Sleep Aromatherapy Pillow Mist (on sale this week for £7.50, was £15) are all naturally soothing sedatives.
8. Sleep naked (the jury’s out on this one though – some claim it’s cooler, some say no way and others opt for the damp T-shirt method).
9. Avoid caffeine and alcohol before bed.
10. Then there’s always the “Egyptian Method”. Dampen your top sheet and sleep in it, by the time it dries – cross fingers – you should have drifted off…