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Comment by CrispyBaby | Hacker News Reader

Anyone have advice on staying cool at night? Now that it’s getting warmer I’m having a hard time sleeping at night. I don’t want to just turn the air down really low since others in my house wouldn’t like it. I don’t want to run a fan all night either. This tech doesn’t really seem to be there yet

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What's the problem with running a fan all night? Legitimate question, as it's never occurred to me not to do that in the warmer months.

I also find the white noise from a fan helps me sleep...ymmv.

sometimes i find even having a ceiling fan on low speed, slightly dries out my eyes overnight/when I wake up in the morning. It may be all in my head, but I seem to remember reading something that your eyes either flicker or don’t always close all the way shut while sleeping. so no fan for me at night ( I just generally keep other AC vents closed a tad so that more pressure comes into my bedroom AC vent and i have thermostat thermostat schedule to be a few degrees lower at night while I sleep, then a few degrees higher around an hour or so before I need to wake up, the heat/warmer temp helps wake me up kind of like an alarm clock )

Some people like the background noise, some people really don't. I'd personally prefer silence. As you say, YMMV.

Chops up the air molecules, you'll suffocate! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

In my experience I’ve had great results using a buckwheat pillow: it warms very slowly, and the opposite side is pretty much always cool. After a lot of searching for the filling with least/no pesticides and the like sprayed on the buckwheat hulls, I ended up going with L-Oma.com and have been very satisfied.

You can regulate your environment based on the weather. If it's humid, you might benefit from a de-humidifier. If it's dry, evaporative cooling. If the humidity outside is 'average' or 'comfortable', a cross-breeze will help a lot. If it's hotter inside than outside, set up a fan to pump air outside, crack one window from the bottom to let in cool air, and one from the top to let heat escape. As a last ditch measure, you can try filling a hot water bottle with ice water and sleep with your feet on that.

Put it under your pillow rather than your feet. Your brain temperature needs to drop for sleep, and if you cool your extremities the blood will go to your core and make it even harder.

I'd get a window AC unit.

I grew up in New Orleans. My advice is a cold shower before bed, don't sleep under a sheet, being skinny helps too - fat's an insulator. If you've got a lot of that then I suggest, in the most non-judgemental way possible, that you do what you can to change that.

Get a breeze going through the room if you can, open windows in two different walls or something, the air outside may be hot but it's still better to have it moving.

Look up Chilipad and similar products.

An evaporative cooler (a "swamp cooler") can help get you a few more degrees cooler if that's all you need.

Im also pretty fond of Purple products (their original pillow and any of their mattresses) as they don't get much warmer when you use them.

Swamp coolers are effective in dryer environments, if the relative humidity is close to 100%, you won't get any benefits.

Also, they raise the humidity, which in itself has many drawbacks.

A simple fan can be remarkably effective.

For sure. They didnt say anything about humidity and specifically didnt want to run the fan all night, so... /shrugs. Options!

Adjust your air balance to cool your room more. The vents for your A/C have little control flaps to increase/reduce airflow. Open yours all the way up, and slowly reduce the others until everyone is comfortable.

I've found that cleaning/cooling my feet before bed with cold water (stand in the shower for 30s) helps a lot.

On very warm days, wear cold wet socks to bed, or in extreme cases a cold wet shirt.

Fill a glass bowl with ice and have a fan blow air over the ice. The more insulated the ice, the better.

Mini split systems are not cheap, but would allow you to keep your room cooler than others.

a large glass of ice cold water and a quiet oscillating fan at the opposite end of the room

you could try switching up your linens: percale cotton in a lower thread count

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