Sleep Like an Egyptian

For the first time in history, forecasters are predicting higher-than-normal temperatures over the entire U.S. for the next three months.  That means utter misery for anyone who either can’t afford air conditioning, or lives in a part of the country where not every building is air conditioned because it’s not usually necessary.  Sleeping in the heat while you’re sweating up a storm is extremely difficult, but fortunately there are people in the world who deal with heat all the time, and they can give us some great advice.

The “Egyptian Method” of sleeping is really quite simple.  Ancient Egyptians used to soak their blankets in water right before going to bed, to keep themselves cool while they slept.  Modern technology can improve on this method, however, to keep you from having a dripping wet blanket on your bed all night.  Here are the steps use can use to keep cool and not wake up in a puddle:

1. Get a sheet or even a large bath towel or beach towel, and soak it in water.
2. Squeeze out as much water as you can, and then run it through the spin cycle in your washer.  The towel or sheet will come out wet, but not dripping.
3. Put a towel or light blanket underneath you, and then sleep with the damp towel or sheet on top of you.
4. For added cooling, aim a fan at you or right above you while yView of pyramids from the Giza Plateau: three Queens’ Pyramids the Pyramid of Menkaure the Pyramid of Khafre and the Great Pyramid of Giza (Khufu or Cheops)ou sleep.
5. The evaporation of the water on the towel or sheet will help keep you cool all night, and should be dry by morning.

Another alternative to this method that we’ve seen is to soak a t-shirt, run it through the spin cycle, and then wear it to bed.  For this to work, it would be best to sleep without another blanket on top of you, to take full advantage of the evaporation.

To top it all off, sleep on a pillow with cooling technology, like SleepBetter’s Iso•Cool pillow!

For more tips on how to stay cool on a hot night, check out this SleepBetter article.

Sources: Lifehacker and Critical Cactus