No sleep

I can tolerate the hot sun in Europe because it’s dry not humid like it gets here. It drains me of energy and everything is hard work.
I bought a gel mat last year you put in the fridge and place under the bottom sheet at bedtime. It stays cold just long enough for me to have a read and drop off. Best investment ever.

My tips for cooler help . some of which you might have already had. So loose cotton or if you have it silk - great help. Women ditch the bras! They just keep the sweat close to your body hot and sticky. Go early as you can for shopping and take with you bottle of cold water with one of those little freezer blue oblongs that you put in picnic or lunch boxes . Put blue box in plastic bag so it doesnt wet shopping bags but take them in with the shopping bag, so that you have a cold drink whenever you need to stop and can cool your hands and feet with the blue box. While walking outside for shopping or whatever, look and make the effort to walk in the shade - cross the road and keep to the shady side is worth it I think. Keep windows and doors open, with curtains or blinds across so cool air moving but keeping sun out - only when you are home obviously! But I try to stay inside in the cool from as soon after 10 am to about 3 or 4pm. Bare feet again on either freezer blue box or if you have old hot water bottle put very cold water and a couple of ice cubes and again either feet on it or put across wrists and hands. In the evening if you have somewhere to sit out in the shade sit there and stay out until you are almost cold if it cools down so that when you go to bed the bedroom is cooled down by open windows etc and then cool wash or shower and lie on top of sheet - do use cotton or linen sheets . worth the ironing to give you cool surface to sleep on. If you wake up very early , rather than stay in hot room feeling fed up, loose clothes and take fold up chair or whatever outside and sit in the cool and dark. Much better to be sat out enjoying the dark or the dawn and sometimes you might fall asleep. Hope they are helpful ideas and good luck. Oh also have lots of cold water and tonic is quite good cold but a little treat at the moment is to buy some good cherries, wash them and leave them in the fridge overnight. So not to let them be so cold you dont taste them, but it is bliss to eat very cold cherries and if you cant sleep sitting out in the dark and cool and eating cherries is a pleasure and calming and you are less annoyed that you are not sleeping.Best of luck

Well. This hot weather isn’t going to last, so make the most of it.

Every year it’s the same. Moaning that it’s too hot.
I could understand if this weather was all year round.
Although I can’t tolerate too much sun for too long, I really do appreciate the warmth and vitamin D it gives me.
I think the older we are, the less we can tolerate when it comes to heat as obviously not acclimatised.

Lap it up ladies. It’s lovely!! Pretend you are on holiday but without the luxury of air conditioning.

An acquaintance had apparently been sleeping in the garden, which sounds wonderful! Unfortunately our recliner outdoor chairs are down at our caravan in Devon so inaccessible last night. Instead we slept in our reclining armchairs downstairs last night with the patio doors left open, and that was So Much Better!
We are off to the caravan at the weekend, so may possibly do the same on the awning (with the curtains firmly closed). Or, as another poster has said, the caravan is very well insulated so sleeping indoors there will probably be OK.

Lots of people have recommended using a hot water bottle, but filled with cold water and chilled in the freezer. My ankle is sore; bursa problem, so as well as cooling my foot down in the daytime, it has proved very useful when trying to sleep. I would thoroughly recommend one, if you haven't tried it yet!

I slept so well last night I slept through alarm this morning. I had bow and stern doors open and a small fan in my cabin. Keep your bedroom cool all day with fan going not just when you go to bed. This really makes a difference at night.

I’ve got a meaco fan, which as a sleep mode on it so it blows cool air. I also have a chilled shower just before climbing into bed and don’t forget your hot water bottle can be filled with cold water and put in freezer. But I also have windows open. My problem is ppl somewhere near talking and laughing loud and drinking. I don’t have a problem normal hours etc but this is going on after midnight. Someone shouted last night for them to shut up but it was 2.35 this morning ?

bikergran

Would love to sleep with the windows wide open, but with only me being in the house and maybe someone able to climb on the conservatory roof to steal me I'm
afraid its windows on first lock (about half an inch) tut.

Hoping to get to screwfix tomorrow they have some kind of catch that allows the windows to remain open a little wider but doesn't allow it to be opened from the outside any wider (if I'm right)

Bikergran I had 2 insect screens made by a local handyman for one window at the front and one at the back. They attach to the window frame with velcro on the inside, so I can open these 2 windows wide to create a cross draught, and also my cat can't jump out. Then I put on my burglar alarm .....

You could always have insect screens that actually screw into the window frame.

I stopped feeling comfortable sleeping with bedroom windows wide open after one June I woke up to a bat swooping round my bed, and nearly had a heart attack. I then became very jumpy that it would happen again as apparently there's a bat roost not far away (although the local bat society wouldn't divulge where).

Juicylucy

Sorry. Sun lover here. Yes I get it’s hard to sleep but I find it funny so many people desperately trying to fly to the sun but they complain about our heat. I’m not saying your ones of those people. After weeks of rain I find it a welcome release, it adds another space to the house being able to sit outside either in the sun or the shade. Typical English weather tho it’s due to rain again next week. ☀️☀️

The difference is that, apart from the Far East, the heat abroad is quite dry. I love that, but I can't take the humid heat we get in this country. And I've just ordered my 2 poor spaniels gel-filled cooling mats from Amazon-they're lying around in panting heaps, bless the,.

Ooh thank you Soroptimum, you reminded me that I have one of those tucked away somewhere. If only I had the energy to search… ?

Move to the north of Scotland. It rarely gets too hot here.!!!

Alizarin you and me both. It's a grim day when I get up, shower and hairwash, and by the time I've dried my hair I feel that I need another shower - at just gone seven in the morning. The summer months are a real trial for me, but the rest of the year I love our climate; when it's cold you can add layers and wrap up. When the heat is as stifling as today I just want to cry!

Search eBay or Amazon for ' instant cooling cloths'. They are £3 or £4 each. I have several which I wet and squeeze out as per instructions, then lay them over Mt head and body to cool down for sleep ( our house was built in the 60s with large picture windows and the amount of heat gain us utterly unbearable, even with solar film, blinds and blackout curtains). They do work, even though made of polyester. You just flick them to cool them down again. They certainly help me.

I fill 2 litre lemonade bottles with water, kept in fridge or freezer all day. Pop them into the bed an hour before I pop myself in. The read for a while with one of the bottles under my knees. It also helps to have a flannel in a bowl of iced water next to the bed for use in the night.

Sending sympathy to all those who can't sleep, it must be a nightmare, thankfully a rare occurrence for me. I'm struggling with the heat too but seem to sleep really deeply at the moment, read till about midnight, went to the loo 2 or 3 times but straight back to sleep and didn't wake up until 10.30 - even though my DH and DS are working downstairs!

I do sympathise travels, I hope you have a better night tonight. I always feel like a wrung out dish-rag the following day if my sleep is disturbed.

Surprisingly I slept like a log last night. Every window wide open with bug nets on; and three sets of patio doors open - to hell with security, any intruder would have to deal with our dog. If I had found it difficult to sleep I'd go and sleep in the garden on a sun lounger. I did it last year, I slept well and it was lovely being woken by birdsong and the sun coming up.

But during the day I avoid being in the sun, it's cooler indoors or in our summerhouse which is where I am now. The thermometer tells me it's 16C. On the patio it's 24C and in the greenhouse it's a sweltering 43C!!

Alarm set for 6am to get the dog a walk before the heat begins. My fan was on & off all night long, noisy and useless, I feel drained. I live in a bungalow so scared to leave the windows open at night. I keep the blinds and windows closed until the evening to keep the heat out. I know I shouldn't complain, but honestly I've had enough.
Records of heat are being broken here in N.Ireland, 32 degrees and we are not used to it at all and I'm a redhead and sitting in the house just in case I fry. It's no longer the Emerald Isle if my lawn is anything to go by, it's crispy beige.

I currently have 2 huge fans in the bedroom and I take a frozen hot water bottle up with me. This usually does the trick but it appears not in these temperatures. I can however highly recommend a tepid shower and then before you dry yourself, stand in front of a fan. For a few minutes it feels arctic and absolute bliss. The first time O did it, it actually took my breath away lol

I do two things -
1. I freeze a hot water bottle and have that to cool down;
2. I have a damp flat double sheet across the open window {curtains closed] and that helps to cool the room - our bedroom faces west so receives the full blast of the sun in the summer.

Anyone else tried putting a full size bath towel on top of the bottom sheet? Absorbs stickiness and does away with tossing and turning. Works for me, with nothing on top of me, not even a sheet.

There is no way i would open the loft hatch as it is in my bedroom, especially after watching the episode of Luther where an intruder hid in the loft all day and crept out a night!!!! lol.

Travels I sympathise and pass on a few tips that I’ve picked up over the years.
If you have a loft batch open it during the day so the hot air can rise up into it. Close at bedtime

Fill a hit water bottle and freeze, wrap in a pillowcase and have it in bed.

You can buy a cooling sheet from Amazon which is about the size of two tea towels. Wring out in cold water and drape over yourself in bed. It stays cold for hours.

Buy a cool pad, head size or whole body size. Haven’t tried these myself but a friend swears by them.

Have a tepid, not cold, shower before bed.

Hope this helps a bit, but the weather is supposed to be cooling down tomorrow anyway.
Good luck and sleep well.

I’d heard of the opening the loft hatch tip earlier in the year trying it for the first time this week and really does seem to help.

This is the only thing that works for us: Whoever wakes up first, makes sure that all the curtains & blinds on the south side of the house are closed (and they stay closed until late in the evening when it's cooled down); all the windows on the North side are flung open, together with the garden doors (we have a north facing back garden) to let in as much cool air as possible into the house for the day ahead - they stay open all day. Lots of cold drinks (including iced coffee - yum); light meals (yesterday I had an ice cream for lunch - that's all I wanted) mainly salads - very cooling; wear as few clothes as you can get away with; regularly splash faces with water and let dry naturally. If I start feeling uncomfortable, I run a cold tap over my wrists (palm of the hand upwards) which helps. One day, I put my feet in a bowl of cool water - bliss. Cool shower before bed. And, sadly, hubby is in the spare room at the moment as we are too hot to share a bed! (A friend puts a pair of cotton socks in her freezer a few hours before bed and then puts them on when she's ready to try to sleep - she swears by it).

Sorry. Sun lover here. Yes I get it’s hard to sleep but I find it funny so many people desperately trying to fly to the sun but they complain about our heat. I’m not saying your ones of those people. After weeks of rain I find it a welcome release, it adds another space to the house being able to sit outside either in the sun or the shade. Typical English weather tho it’s due to rain again next week. ☀️☀️