Lie under a damp towel with a fan on the towel for evaporative cooling.

A/C is great if you can get it.

I grew up without AC. Midwest U.S. Very hot. Very humid.

Sleep naked. Sleep on cotton sheets. Not synthetic.

Open all the windows at night. Close them up by 8 or 9 am.

And fans.

Don’t underestimate what a fan can do.

You can mimic the cooling effects of sweating by misting yourself with water or jumping in the shower for 5 min and then putting a fan on.

Wet hair always helped me cool down. especially with a fan on.

We used fans a lot growing up and I use them at home now with AC. I can be comfortable at 76-78 with a fan on.

No fan, and I need 71-72.

So it’s a way to save on electricity.

Also I wear less clothes. That always helps. Avoid socks. Tight underwear.

If you are a woman, I suggest switching to boxers when you are home.

Men’s boxers are better than “women’s” boxers. Which are just expensive boyshort underwear.

You need a loose crotch area.

Just buy mens in packs. Less expensive too.

Drinking super cold water often also helps.

What I do. I have 2 water bottles. I fill them half full and put them in the freezer. I take one out at a time. Fill with water. Have ice cold water for a long time since it’s not cubed. Then when it’s no longer icey cold. Switch it out for the other.

I would do this at work. Just write your name on the bottle and tell others not to throw them out, that you reuse the same one. Otherwise someone cleaning might think the same bottle has been in there for a month and decide to toss it out.

I grew up here in Florida without air conditioning until I was about 25.

Really just learned to be still, that helps. Keep the windows open at night if it cools off at night.

Stay in the shade, if there is a breeze it is not bad. Fans, fans, fans. Carry a parasol if possible . Shade helps so much.

And I wait for the rainy season, ours is at the same time of year yours is. Love that time, every day it gets hot but then in the afternoon the rain comes.

ETA I think India has this covered already but stay away from synthetic fabric and cotton. Linen or silk are best, and oddly, light merino wool in a loose fit is also so good in the hot weather.

I live in the American Southeast. We generally turn on the air conditioning.

This isn’t going to be an option very often, but when the conditions are just right I like to leave windows open overnight to cool down the house. If it’s going to be below 60°F and above 80°F the next day, it works best for me. Keep an eye on the dew point though because too much humidity isn’t great. I like to open windows on one side of the house then open another in the other side with a powerful pedestal fan sitting about 4 feet away. That seems to work best for moving air through the house and usually lets me get away without running the AC the next day. Also, Vornado makes a transom window fan that fits snuggly in the window case, that’s a great balance between blocking out a bit more noise because the window isn’t wide open, it’s a noise machine, and a huge benefit is it’s reversible.

Good luck!

My area isn’t the hottest, but it does usually get up to about 100F for a day or two most years, and in the summer temps are in the 80s or 90s during the day pretty consistently, and it can be humid.

I have a mostly finished basement, I’ll spend a lot of time down there over the summer, it stays pretty consistently cool.

I’m lucky that I work night shift, so it’s easier for me to do stuff in the evenings or early morning before it gets too hot.

There’s a saying that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate gear. I usually joke that in the summer that means air conditioning.

But if you don’t have a/c, opening your windows and getting some fans going can really go a long way to keeping your house cool.

Limit your time outside, find somewhere to sit down in the shade and take a break if you need to.

Dress appropriately for the weather, lightweight, light colored, breathable clothing, linen is great if you can find it. Maybe consider wearing a wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun off your face and neck when you go outside.

Drink lots of water, find some cool foods to eat, watermelon, cold soba, ice cream etc.

If you have a small basin or watertight bin, foot baths can pull a lot of heat out of your bloodstream pretty quickly.

You can dig a tunnel that is at least 6ft down and 100ft long that leads into your home at one end and up to a narrow opening on the surface on the otherside. Then add a fan that blows air from the tunnel into the home. This will function as a natural AC unit. It is a lot of work to accomplish but can cheaply cool a home as long as its maintained.

The science behind it is that the temperature under the earth past 6ft is around 55 - 65 degrees Fahrenheit depending on your region of the world. The fan will then draw the air through the tunnel where its cooled and pushed into the home. The tunnel doesn’t have to be that big just like 2ft in diameter. Though mold can grow here so you would want to use a material that is resistant like a smooth walled plastic pipe for your tunnel.

The Hongkongers answer, “Air con.”

I swear we abuse ACs way too much. Nobody cares enough about the energy consumption except Lam Chiu-Ying.

If you have access to a freezer.

Freeze icepacks and rotate them to your pockets, or sit them on your main leg artery.

Freeze a flat amount of ice and then place your feet on it to cool down.

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Also the cooling neck-wraps with gel-beads, actually work to cool you down. Goes well with a fan blowing on you too.

The temps in Houston are now firmly in the dangerous range during peak summer. When you reach a certain humidity and temperature, your body can’t regulate its internal temperature by sweating anymore, you essentially have to have some kind of external input to cool off, that can be cold(er) water, air conditioning, fans (where you can have lower humidity or temperature air blowing over you, or something similar.

If you can make changes to your structure, doing a radiant barrier or some kind of false roof (even a solar shade or something that doesn’t block all the sun) over your existing roof to limit the solar heat transfer to your structure can help.

If you can get some insulation for the windows, especially if you can get the foil lined version and direct the foil outside, that will also help.

Local air conditioning (mini splits or single room units) are often less efficient but if you are just focused on making it tolerable, you can do a single room as a cool down room for less money (upfront and in energy cost) vs a whole house or multi room unit. There are 12v units that can be run on a decent size solar setup like used in RV’s or campers.

In 105+ summers in texas we just crank the AC