I am hot. Three words you will have heard on repeat this week. Granted, not in every area of the UK. Talking as one about anything is a dangerous game in radio presenting. Invitations from Woman’s Hour listeners quickly came in for me this week to relocate to parts of Scotland and Cumbria, where I was reliably informed it was pleasantly “warm”, not the kind of hot most of us are experiencing in this heatwave. You know, the kind of hot that has you reaching for the chub rub barrier cream.
I am also not alone it seems, especially as a woman, in having to dress differently for the office versus the rest of the day. While I am extremely grateful for an office with air conditioning this week, it is very chilly indeed. I’ve taken to wearing a cotton vest beneath my dress while inside and then once I am done for the day, removing said vest in the loo before venturing out into the thigh-chafing hot air.
But worry not, I am not here to debate who controls the thermostat in offices and how women end up shivering at all times of the year. Others have made the case before me and will do so long after I am gone.
No, I am here to talk sleep, or lack thereof, for many during these sweaty nights, and how we can find ways to cope.
But first, a question. If you have a partner, and you share a bed, as many of us do, do you ever stop and think how absolutely, fantastically odd it is that you share such a small space for such an important act? Night after night.
Sometimes it hits me in the face. And while I do personally love it most of the time, I still can’t quite believe it. For the rest of your life! (Well, that’s still at least the premise of most of our partnerships and marriages.) I had the most perfect technique when I slept solo. As someone who cannot be warm enough, outside of heatwave days, I would pull on my PJs, and proceed to wrap myself fully in the duvet, like a snug sausage roll, with only my head peeping out of the top, and then I wouldn’t move on my side for the rest of the night. Bliss.
It is but a distant memory. I have slept with the same man in the same bed for the past 17 years. And we have found our own rhythms which work beautifully. Most of the time. However, there are fissures. For instance, he likes the window to be open most of the year, while I loathe fresh air. I prefer a heavy tog every night (yes, including the heatwave – I like the weight) and he dreams of an Italian-style sheet. And so it goes on.
Around the world, in countries where double beds are the norm, compromises are being thrashed out or wearily accepted every night. (Like the man I met the other day who told me he has learned to accept his wife’s insistence of having a fan on every night of the year next to her side of the bed. Never mind the temperature, it’s the sound that does his head in.) On the continent, one bed, two duvets is also a norm. I wonder whether it will take off in the UK.
It is well worth remembering that, certainly in this country, sharing the same bed is a relatively recent phenomenon. Twin beds were all the rage from the 1850s, with the Yorkshire Herald claiming that the new sleeping solution for couples “seems to have come to stay” in 1892. And they did last.
Lancaster University professor Hilary Hinds, in her fascinating 2019 book, A Cultural History of Twin Beds, discovered that for almost 100 years, between the 1850s to the 1950s, separate beds were seen as the healthier option for modern couples over the double. Fancy that!
In 1861, meanwhile, doctor and minister William Whitty Hall wrote a book called Sleep: Or the Hygiene of the Night. He said that everyone, while they sleep, “should have a single bed in a large, clean, light room, so as to pass all the hours of sleep in a pure fresh air, and that those who fail in this, will in the end fail in health and strength of limb and brain, and will die while yet their days are not all told”.
Does that sound like your sleep last night? Perhaps. Or perhaps not.
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Professor Hinds also found this gem: “Separate beds for every sleeper are as necessary as are separate dishes for every eater,” from Dr Edwin Bowers in his 1919 text, Sleeping for Health. “They promote comfort, cleanliness, and the natural delicacy that exists among human beings.”
This line of thought was debunked on health grounds and fell out of fashion in the 1950s, as high-profile figures argued convincingly that separate beds were seen as signs of a failing marriage. But those sharing beds at the moment might be feeling the words of the Victorian doctors who warned that sharing a bed would allow the weaker sleeper to drain the vitality of the stronger.
With that in mind, I did seek the wisdom of the warmer-than-usual crowd listening to Woman’s Hour this week and… wow! What a range of solutions sleep seekers have come up with. And let’s not forget those sleeping alone, by design or necessity, who still can’t sleep. And don’t have any outside space. Or the spare cash to pay for a nightly fan during a cost of living crisis.
Quite a few are simply sleeping outside, on the patio, on a mat. In a bag or beneath a sheet. (Foxes anyone?) Some have taken to the garage but fear spiders. Others are by the back door, throwing stranger danger to the wind.
Then there’s the damp crew. Those hanging damp towels or sheets over doors and window frames. Or putting bowls of ice in front of fans. Or filling the usual hot water bottles with ice-cold water and placing it on their feet or tummies in bed. Of this category, my absolute favourite is the woman who advises filling an atomiser spray bottle with cold water and spritzing it over a single sheet that you use as a duvet, and keeping said bottle on your bedside table to “top up” during the night. I am catching a cold at the thought of it.
The reality is, on sweaty nights like these, whether you are in a bed-sharing relationship or not, you are on your own. Get through it, barrier cream or not; damp sheet or wild naked sleeping. You can do it. Just try not to let anyone drain your vitality.
Emma Barnett presents BBC Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’ and BBC Two’s ‘Newsnight’
