I love summer, but I am not very good with sweaty, humid, boiling nights. My body feels uncomfortable. I get a headache. I just can’t seem to sleep or settle down. I have tried everything — ice on my wrists and neck, fans focused directly on me, naked and spread eagle like a dead starfish, and even drinking hot tea/coffee to bring my body temperature up so it “feels” cooler. My sister and I spent many nights of our childhood sleeping on our front porch, or waking in the middle of the night to run across our back yard to my grandparents house to dive into their pool for brief, sweet relief.

If you are like me, here are a few easy suggestions from WikiHow to beat the heat:

1. Plug in your fan and turn it towards you. Purchase a commercial bag of ice cubes. Empty the entire bag into a wide, shallow container (to contain the water as the ice melts) such as a roasting pan. Place the container of ice right in front of the fan (between the fan and you), at the level of the top of the bed. The ice-cooled air will be noticeably cooler than the room air for the amount of time it takes for the ice to melt — which is as long as it should take for you to fall asleep!
2. A cool shower will do wonders. Take a cool shower or wipe your body down with a cool wash cloth. Without fully drying yourself, hop back into bed, and let the air slowly dry you. This will keep you cool for a long time allowing you to fall asleep.
3. Consider using the “Egyptian Method:” Wet a sheet or bath towel that is large enough to cover you with cool or cold water and then wring it out or run it through the spin cycle on your washing machine until the sheet is just wet, but not sopping, dripping wet. Place the dry towel or sheet on your bed underneath your body and use the wet sheet as your blanket. The damp blanket will keep you cool.
4. If you have curtains made from a light material, like muslin or net, soak them with water (or put them through the washing machine and rehang them). Any breeze at all that blows through your window will immediately be vastly cooler.
5. A elaborate but effective method can be to use a wet towel hanging from two chairs to hold the ice as the ice water will chill the towel when it melts.

1. When sleeping in a hammock air flows over your whole body. A bed absorbs your body heat and keeps you hot. Get out that hammock you bought in Cancun and try sleeping in it with a fan blowing on you.
2. If you have a waterbed, turn the heater on the waterbed way down. Lay down on the surface of the waterbed. Even if its 85°F (29°C), your body is 98°F (37°C), and the heat transfer rate for direct contact is about 100 times larger than for convection. It could make you so cold you will shiver. Be aware that temperatures set below 85°F can lead to hypothermia with prolonged contact.
3. Keep the door to your bedroom open, so that there is proper air circulation from other rooms.
4. Partly fill a plastic bottle with water and then freeze it. Put it in front of the fan, and it’ll give the same effect, but is less likely to spill.

1. Cool Yourself Without Air Conditioning
2. Great Recipe for Ice Tea (or even better Long Island Ice Tea)
3. Summer Fashion Trends to Beat the Heat
4. Most Importantly. . .STOP GLOBAL WARMING!

Sweet Dreams. . .