Investigation of the air conditioning regulation behaviours and sleep characteristics during sleeping in summer for Chinese

The sleep environment has an impact on the quality of one's sleep, which is an important stage in the body's recovery of physical and mental energy. Since the body temperature changes during sleep, whether a constant temperature and humid environment can ensure thermal comfort during night sleep has become a major research issue. At the same time, during the summer night sleeping, the bedding microclimate can be adjusted to a lower degree, and the demand for room temperature is higher. Therefore, in this paper, a questionnaire survey was conducted in China to address the ways of regulating nighttime sleeping in summer and the subjective sleep quality of the occupants. The results showed that 75% of the respondents used air conditioning to regulate the thermal environment while sleeping at night during the summer months. There were differences in subjective sleep quality among respondents in different climate regions, but more than 50% of respondents in all regions woke up during the night due to thermal discomfort. Additionally, 68% of respondents had a need for dynamic temperature change while sleeping at night during the summer months. These results suggested that air conditioning played a very important role in the summer nighttime sleeping process. Therefore, we can avoid the discomfort of constant temperature by considering dynamic adjustment within the desired temperature range of the respondents.