Cooling your body just a few degrees can completely transform your sleep, and you don’t need an air conditioner to do it. A damp towel draped on an open windowsill works like a tiny evaporative cooler: as the water evaporates, the incoming air feels fresher and cooler, making a stifling room more bearable. It’s not high tech, but on still, muggy nights, that light, cooled airflow can be the difference between hours of restless flipping and finally drifting off.

Pair that with a pillowcase chilled in the fridge or freezer, and you create an instant cool zone where your body loses heat fastest: your head and neck. That first contact with the cold fabric signals relief to your overheated body, helping your core temperature drop enough for real, deep sleep. Simple, free, and surprisingly effective, these tiny rituals can turn brutal summer nights into something quietly, blissfully tolerable.