23 Ways to Beat the Heat

Take Some Dry Measures

Give the clothes dryer a break, too. Hang a clothesline and let your towels and sheets flap in the breeze. "They smell wonderful," says Paul Hooker, whose company, Sferra, sells sheets made in Italy, where, he adds, almost everyone hangs them out to dry.
 
 Make a "cold compress." Fill a cotton sock with rice, tie the sock with twine, and freeze it for two hours before bedtime. Then slide it between the sheets. Rice retains cold for a long period because it's dense and starchy, says Jim Hill, Ph.D., an associate dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California at Davis.