A fan can help with night sweats. Fans will move air over your body, which will help evaporate the sweat your body produces before it can soak your nightclothes or bedding. Using a bedside fan is a common recommendation by experts to people who frequently get night sweats.
Night sweats are uncomfortable. Some people get them because of an underlying health condition, but most get them when the temperature of the room they are sleeping in exceeds a certain level. But no matter what the reason, you’ll want to do all you can to get rid of them.
In this article, we will explore in detail how you can use a fan to help you deal with your night sweats. We will also share some other tips that can help curb night sweats.
How to stop night sweats with a fan.
A fan is an excellent tool to use in your battle against night sweats. But as with all tools, you need to make sure you’re using it properly. Here are a few tips to help you reduce your night sweats using your bedside fan.
Tip #1: Position the Fan Correctly
The first thing you need to consider is where you place the fan. A bed fan can effectively help you with your night sweats, but only if it’s positioned correctly.
Remember, fans don’t actually cool the room (in fact, their motors actually add heat to the room). A fan works by directing air in your direction. This artificial breeze goes on to interact with the sweat your body produces naturally, evaporating it and cooling your body in the process.
So, if you leave a ceiling fan running at the other end of the room, this probably won’t help you with your night sweats.
However, you don’t want to point the fan right at you either, since that can actually do more harm than good. If you leave a fan open all night pointed towards you, you might dry out your mouth and nostrils and potentially aggravate any dust allergies you might have.
So what do you do?
Finding the sweet spot requires you to understand how air actually flows around in your room.
You probably know that hot air always tends to rise up, so as you move up the room, the air gets gradually warmer. What you want to do is to move the cool air that’s accumulated at the bottom of the room around.
You can do this by placing the fan on the floor just below your bed.
After you’ve moved the air around, you can leave the fan open right beside you, but pointed in towards the wall and away from you. This will ensure that cool air will blow around you, but not in a way that it dries you out. For most people who get night sweats, this might be the sweet spot solution when it comes to using a fan.
There are plenty of reasons to opt for a fan. Not only do they get the work done, but they’re also a lot cheaper than air conditioning. Knowing how to position and use a fan in the right way can help you deal with your night sweats.
Tip #2: Cool the Room with a Fan and Some Ice
Sometimes, especially during the hotter seasons, there is very little cool air in the room, to begin with, and in these scenarios, the solution we discussed in the previous section might not be very effective. But, there’s a clever little hack you can do to cool up the air in your room. It involves the use of ice.
- Collect a couple of trays of ice from the freezer.
- Put them in a bowl, and add a little bit of water.
- Place the bowl of ice out in the open for a few minutes till they start melting, and you get a nice mix of ice and water.
- Take this bowl to your room and place it on a table, a good distance away from any electric terminals or cords.
- Place a fan adjacent to the bowl of ice and water and leave it on for a while until the air in the room is nice and cool.
It is always a good idea to leave the window open during the warmer months. So, before you know it, the cool icy air could be replaced by the warm air outside. If necessary, repeat the process mentioned above.
Tip #3: Wear the Right Clothes
A fan in itself won’t do any good if your night clothes are suffocating your body.
As such, you need to make sure you wear light clothes that are neither very tight nor too insulating. This will allow the cool air from the fan to pass through them and reach your skin.
Choosing the sort of clothes that will allow air to pass through them and allow your skin to breathe is the key. But besides that, it doesn’t hurt to choose clothes that will wick away sweat. This will prevent the potential soaking of bedding.
Also, you should probably cut down on your blankets. If you’re the kind of person who absolutely needs something to be covering you while you go to sleep, try something lighter that will allow the air to pass through.
Natural remedies for night sweats.
There are a few things you can do to naturally curb your night sweats.
Exercise Regularly
It has been shown that exercising regularly can help reduce the number of night sweat episodes you have.
Don’t worry: you don’t need to exercise vigorously. Just something as simple as a 30-minute jog per day could greatly help curb your night sweats.
Drink Less Before Bed
Another proven method to reduce the possibility of getting night sweats is to cut down on your nightcaps.
If you’re in the habit of drinking some sort of beverage (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) before you go to bed, this could be one of the triggers for your night sweats. Nightcaps tend to increase the overall temperature of your body, and it ends up releasing a lot more sweat than usual to try to keep things cool.
Try Breathing Exercises
You can also try some breathing exercises.
Some studies have shown that taking deep breaths for a few minutes before you go to bed can greatly help reduce the overall temperature of your body, and this will, in turn, help prevent the night sweats.
You don’t have to do anything too fancy here. Just sit upright, inhale while counting to four, hold your breath for four more counts and then exhale for five counts.
Should you see a doctor?
If the aforementioned solutions don’t help you, you should probably go see a doctor.
A lot of times, night sweats are a symptom of some more serious underlying change or problem. If your night sweats persist, an appointment with the doctor can clarify the issue.
Night sweats will also come about if you’re under certain medication. It is not uncommon for people undergoing hormone therapy or people on antidepressants or certain hypoglycemic agents to experience night sweats.
In any case, if your night sweats are persistent even after using the fan-related and natural remedies listed above, it’s probably a good idea to go see your doctor and get things sorted out.
Final Thoughts
Night sweats will appear either as a result of sleeping in a hot bedroom or as some underlying health issue.
In either case, a fan will do some good.
Positioning the fan in the right way is key. You could even couple it with a bowl of ice and water to make the air in your room cool and pleasant. You should also start wearing more summer-friendly nightclothes.
If your night sweats persist despite these steps, you should go see a doctor and see what is up. Or, if you are already under some medication, this could be a known side effect.
Nicole Sutton is an enthusiastic writer and knowledgeable contributor to TemperatureMaster.com. She offers a plethora of knowledge to the platform, with a background in environmental science and a profound curiosity with all things connected to temperature regulation. Nicole’s interesting and informative writings assist readers in making informed decisions about home heating, cooling, and climate control.