As wonderful as summer can be, it’s frustrating when you can’t sleep peacefully at night. A little cooling off feels especially good then. A hot water bottle can be a brilliant solution here.
At night, when the heat in the bedroom seems to be literally standing still in the summer, any kind of cooling is more than welcome. A hot water bottle offers truly effective refreshment—in the summer, of course, used for a different purpose as a cooling bottle.
- The truly ingenious thing about the hot water bottle is that the cooling effect it provides isn’t just short-lived. With the hot water bottle, you have a pleasant bed cooler by your side for several hours.
- There are various ways to repurpose the hot water bottle as a cooling bottle. One of them is to fill the bottle with water and place it in the refrigerator a few hours before you go to bed.
Warning: If the temperature in the freezer is too low and the water in the hot water bottle freezes, caution is advised when later filling it with hot water. Freezing causes the liquid to expand, which can lead to cracks in the rubber lining. In the worst case, this can result in burns.
- Another option is to fill the hot water bottle with ice cubes. For this, it’s best to use an ice cube tray that makes relatively small ice cubes. In this case, you should choose a hot water bottle model with the largest possible opening. Be sure to leave some space in the hot water bottle.
- An alternative to the hot water bottle are blue cooling compresses.
- By the way: Cold showers have some benefits. However, they’re not a good idea for cooling off before you go to bed. This usually achieves the opposite of the intended goal. The body reacts to the extreme cold by trying to restore its temperature as quickly as possible—which means it produces additional heat. If you want to take a shower, a lukewarm one makes much more sense in this case.
No matter which cooling method you ultimately choose, you should always wrap a towel or similar material around the hot water bottle and avoid direct skin contact; otherwise, you risk getting a cold burn. A good place for the cooled hot water bottle is, for example, at the foot of the bed.
In fact, the perfect temperature for restful sleep is between 15 and 19 degrees. Regardless of whether the bedroom becomes too cold or too warm, this can trigger periods of wakefulness. Heat in the bedroom, in particular, can reduce the REM phase and thus the quality of rest.
That is why cooling the room in summer is particularly important. However, air conditioners and fans are often loud and energy-intensive, making them less than ideal for nighttime use.
In addition to a hot water bottle, there are several other tricks you can use to effectively cool a room without air conditioning. Your pillow and duvet can also play a particularly important role in this regard.
