This European heatwave has been going on for weeks and shows no signs of abating. It’s really wearing me down. Any tips for staying cool when you don’t have air conditioning? I’ve tried the whole shutting the windows and blinds thing they recommend but that just makes it worse. I already feel uncomfortably hot at the best of times as a side effect of my medication. So an actual heatwave on top is literal torture. It’s so bad in the UK that supermarket refrigerators have stopped working due to the heat, and the news says its going to be the longest heatwave in 50 years.
for sleeping, you can also wrap a bottle in a old t-shirts/blankie/towel, it will both reduce the coldness of it (so you can use frozen one), and make it last longer and make it softer. when i’ve had longer bed i also could put it behind the pillow, and then rotate the pillow several times to have a cold side when i tried falling asleep *don’t work so well when your head is on top of it though, so not useable with shorter beds, probably flat ice packs would kinda work, depending)
*as a note, the blankie will get wet from condensation, so do air it out in the day or it can get smelly/moldy over weeks