6 Best Fans for Sleeping To Keep You From Running Too Hot

Having a 'night mode', sometimes called 'sleep mode' located on your fan is a distinct advantage. It tends to be designed to have a star icon on the button on your remote control, and it gradually fine-tunes your fan so that it adapts to suit the best sleeping conditions possible. There will be a subtle shift in temperature, by about a few degrees, with each passing hour that you're asleep; this is due to the natural fall in temperature throughout the night, ie. you want to be cooled during the first part of the night but not overly chilled when temperatures sink. The goal is maintain an equilibrium. In many models, for every time you press the night mode button it adds an extra hour, so if you only want it to be activate for half the night, simply press the button four times, to get four hours of cooling.

You firstly might be scratching your head, wondering what on earth 'white noise' is. In a nutshell, it's an amalgamation of all the hearable frequencies of sound together, a bit like white light being the sum total of all the colors of the light spectrum combined. When it comes to sleeping, white noise can help to filter and block out various loud and unexpected bangs and clangs. Altenatively, unless you've grown up in an extremely silent environment it's likely that you will always have some sort of background or 'white noise' around you, so by strategically increasing it whilst struggling to get to sleep you can lull your brain into slumber.

An electric fan, therefore, isn't just a powerful tool to help your skin evaporate moisture and so cool you down; it also has the power to double up as a white noise machine, especially when on a low rather than high setting. The lowest setting will tend to give you just that right amount of hum in order to soothe you into sleep. Therefore, while a powerful fan can be useful in terms of shifting the amount of air around you, on its least powerful setting it can help your brain to glide into a stasis whereby isolated sounds can no longer stop you from getting a good night's sleep.

Obviously, with 'night mode' on, you can enjoy the benefits of a fan all night long; however, there are some disadvantages to this, such as:

• Allergies

Fans happen to circulate not only air but microscopic particles of pollen, spores, and dust mites. These and other allergens can increase unwanted things such as runny nose, watery eyes, sneezing, and an itchy throat. The symptoms of asthma are another thing that could be exacerbated if your fan is whirring around throughout your time asleep.

• Congestion

Your throat and nose area is very sensitive to being dried out; a dry sleeping atmosphere can cause mucus to be produced excessively, resulting in a blocked up nose, headaches and even sinusitis. Yes, drinking more water is one option; however, this can interrupt your sleep, leaving you feeling more tired the next day.

• Skin

Constant air being stirred up all around you may lead to you having drier skin, possibly irritated and blotchy. Moisturizer creams can help, to some extent, although you could also consider setting the fan on a timer so that it doesn't go on all night; just an hour or two.

• Muscle Aches

Having cold air moving over you in the night can exacerbate muscle contractions; muscles tend to become more tense and cramped. Actually, this is something that air conditioning can cause, to, so you should ensure that your room does not sink below the 60º F mark, in order to prevent this.

• Minimizing Negative Effects

There are ways, however, in which your fan can become less hazardous to your health during the night. You can consider altering its speed setting, and also the distance from it to your bed. You could also put a strict timer on, so that the above maladies won't have time to develop, but will cease after just a few hours' use.

• Air Filters

To reduce the likelihood of succumbing to allergies, purchasing a fan that has a decent filter embedded in it can make a big difference when it comes to the spread of allergens, spores and dust mites.

• Rotating

Fans that have the capability of rotating or oscillating help to spread out the airflow and avoid just one area of your body from being unduly target; this could lessen the chance of suffering from a sore neck, dry nose, or aching muscles. Oscillation could be the key.

• Timer

Your fan can be used in conjunction with a timer, so as to prevent the coldest part of the night from becoming really cold. The temperature generally plummets in the early hours, so there is less need for your fan to be active between the hours of 2 to 6 am.

• Benefits

With all of the caveats, having at your disposal the cooling power of a quiet fan throughout the night is a distinct benefit. In summer months, when humidity is high, you really need to circulate air as a matter of priority. Fan speeds, whether fast or moderate, will allow airflow to be maintained and will help your sweat to evaporate instantaneously, as your oscillating fan uses its fan blades effectively and at a moderate to minimal noise level.

• Comfort

Hot sleepers tend to wake up sweating. Disturbed sleep leads to daytime drowsiness, affecting productivity. Sleeping with the fan on prevents overheating. Even if you sweat at night, the breeze dries away excess moisture, keeping you cool and comfortable while you sleep.

• Circulation

Airflow is crucial, regardless of whether your windows are open or shut. Just one vornado or easy to control cooling device can make all the difference. It will help whatever air is in your home to be dynamic and lively, rather than static and stuffy. This also reduces the extent to which dust may build up in your home; if the air is more alive then, when windows are opened at various points in the day, dust particles will fly out and fresh air will fly in. In dust gets embedded onto furniture and carpets it is very hard to remove, other than serious deep cleaning.

• Electricity

Even the best fans for sleeping, which use a variety of speed settings and are easy to clean still use up valuable electricity, thus adding to your monthly spend on this. You can consider an old-school trick, such as freezing some bottles of water throughout the day, then placing them tactically in front of your fan during the night. The air circulation will become tangibly colder, at least for a few hours, and those are the hours you need in order to drift off into a comfortable sleep. Thus, you don't need to be cranking up your fan to the higher of the three speed settings; nor do you need to engage the services of your trusty air conditioner.

• SIDS

Certain studies have concluded that keeping a fan on all night can actually lower the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), due to the dispersal of dangerous levels of carbon dioxide which occur, and the lower air temperatures. SIDS is actually number three in terms of causes of infant mortality, so this really is a big deal.