People need sleep. This isn’t an exaggeration; it’s a basic, biological necessity. Severe, negative side-effects both physical and mental occur to anyone that is deprived of sleep for too long. Even if you just sleep badly on a regular basis, this can negatively impact the way you deal with your day.

Unfortunately, even though summer is the season we all look forward to thanks to the warm weather and greater outdoor possibilities, heat waves are not so welcome. A persisting heat wave can, at night, make it incredibly difficult for people to fall asleep and get the recommended eight hours they need. But with a few tweaks to your air conditioning, you can ensure you stay comfortable and cool enough to sleep through the night.

Figure Out An Ideal Temperature

That sounds like a no-brainer, but there are actually quite a few factors that can play into this. The first, of course, is your own personal preference. But do you have to share that preference?

If you have many people in a residence, they might all have different tastes about what constants a cool, pleasant temperature. Another big factor, however, is your budgetary concerns. Air conditioning uses up electricity; quite a bit more than other appliances. That means the lower you set your temperature, the more your air conditioning has to work, and the higher your bills will get.

If you want to strike a good balance between a temperature that’s not drowning you in sweat and the ability to keep your bills reasonable, the industry average recommends a setting of 78°. If your monthly electrical bill is not that big a concern to you, then feel free to turn it down as low as you like, but there are other tricks that help keep things more efficient.

Reinforce Your AC With Fans

Just because you’ve got central air conditioning that doesn’t automatically make existing fans in your home pointless. In fact, those fans can actually enhance the efficiency of your HVAC system and get it work more effectively.

Ceiling fans, for example, do a better job of circulating air throughout a room than the single vent or vents of your air conditioner.

As long as they’re set to a counterclockwise rotation, they push air down, creating a pleasant breeze that cools the room further, and increases AC performance by up to 40%, which lets you enjoy a pleasant sleep without overworking your AC!

Lower Your Humidity

Use your air conditioning to keep humidity under control. Doing this eliminates one of the worst variables in interfering with your ability to sleep. Humidity is simply the phenomenon of moisture remaining in the air.

But high humidity is very uncomfortable for us, because it makes the air feel thick and muggy, as well as magnifying the sensation of heat. Humidity also neutralizes our ability to sweat correctly.

Under ordinary circumstances, if we sweat, the perspiration on our skin evaporates, and that evaporation process cools us. With high humidity, there’s so much moisture in the air that when we sweat, it does not evaporate but remains on our skin, which, if you’re lying in bed means you’re soaking your sheets and becoming even more uncomfortable.

Dundalk, MD has its share of hot, humid summer heat waves. But if you tweak your air conditioning system to prepare for the season, you’ll be able to live—and sleep—in relative comfort.