7 Ways to Cool Down and Sleep in the Heat

What’s the most important factor for a good night’s sleep? Keeping cool. Your body needs to be able to cool down in order to fully rest and catch deep, quality sleep. Have you ever tried to sleep on a hot and humid night? The summer heat and extreme temperatures can harm our health and cause poor sleep, which can then affect our wellness long-term. How can you cool down and get good sleep in the heat? Here are some tips to keep cool and catch sleep on those hot, humid nights. 

Research shows that quality, deep sleep and rejuvenation requires a 1-2 degree drop in body temperature. Cooling down your internal temperature is a natural part of your sleep cycle and is necessary for your body to repair, rebuild and detoxify. One of the most important factors for healthy sleep is called thermoregulation, and it is how well your body regulates your internal temperature. There are many ways to support your body’s thermoregulation or body temperature regulation, including sleeping in a cold and cool environment. But if it is too hot and you can’t get your temperature down, your sleep quality will suffer. Your body won’t be able to get to the right temperature for you to fall asleep, or you will struggle to stay asleep, and may experience fatigue and other more serious health issues later on.  

For your best night’s sleep, keep your bedroom temperature around around 65F. While A/C can help, studies show that the air flow can interrupt deep sleep cycles, so it may do more harm than good. 

When trying to sleep in the summer months, you may by feeling overheated and dehydrated, which not only effects your sleep, but the repair that happens and is needed for your body during deep, restful sleep. When you don’t get a good night’s sleep from heat, your body pays the price. Not getting adequate sleep can impact your heart, energy, circulation, and inflammation, all health issues that are already at risk when temperatures are too high. That’s why cooling down and getting restorative healthy sleep is essential for your overall health and long-term wellness.  

To help cool you down and ease you into deep, relaxing sleep, try these tips to help release extra heat from your body and regulate your internal temperatures.   

1. Stay hydrated! When it’s too hot out, whether during the day or at night, your body will lose a lot of fluids. You can lose up to 2 liters of fluid while you sleep! 
2. Take a warm shower before bed (or place your feet in warm water). While it may sound contradictory, the warm water will release heat from your body by circulating blood flow to your skin. Taking a cool shower forces your body to try and warm itself back up, forcing your body to heat up again.  
3. Sleep on ice packs or freeze your sheets. If you need some extra cool down support, wrap ice packs in a cloth and put them under your sheet to help keep your body cool. Placing ice behind the knees, wrists, ankles, and back of your neck can help cool you off more quickly. Or, try wrapping them and cooling your sheets down quickly in the freezer. 
4. Use a cold damp compress and apply it to your forehead or body to help cool off.  
5. Turn off all lights and electronics. These can increase the temperature of your room and also disrupt melatonin production and give off blue light, which can further deplete your sleep quality and keep you awake.  
6. Spread out. When you sleep with your arms and legs spread out, you release more of your body heat and can keep cooler during sleep.  
7. Try supportive, cooling ingredients in sleep supplements like ecoSleep for deep sleep and healthy temperature regulation.*  

Along with these tips, calming nighttime routines including reading, taking a relaxing Epsom salt bath, meditation, and other selfcare and soothing practices can help put your mind at ease for sleep.  

In order to get good sleep in the heat, you need to cool your body inside and out. ecoSleep is a rejuvenating sleep supplement that gives you the deep, restful and reparative sleep you need to optimize your overall health, with calm and cool relaxing effects so you wake up refreshed, the way a good night’s sleep should.* 

Taking ecoSleep before beds helps you relax and sleep more deeply, promoting healthy brain GABA activity, which helps with excess heat production in the body, keeping you cool when you’re exposed to hot temperatures.¹*  

Soothing, supportive sleep benefits from ecoSleep are due to the unique physician-formulation, blending sleep-inducing ingredients including antioxidants like Honopure pure honokiol for healthy relaxation, and a small amount of melatonin to support your body’s natural melatonin production, without leaving you groggy the next day. Together with Chinese herbs, this complete sleep support formula will help you get the sleep you need in the summer, and have you feeling refreshed when you wake up.

If you’re unable to fall asleep and feeling the effects of the heat at night, it’s time to find a soothing solution that works.  

By incorporating these nighttime cooling strategies, and including ecoSleep for deep, restful sleep repair, you can keep your body cool and protected, and wake up with energy all summer long.  

Sources:

1. Miyazawa T, Kawabata T, Suzuki T, et al. Effect of oral administration of GABA on temperature regulation in humans during rest and exercise at high ambient temperature. Osaka City Med J. 2009 Dec;55(2):99-108.