I have always been the kind of person who sleeps with a window open, or a fan or air conditioner on. My dad also does this– he has an air conditioner in his window all year round. Simply because I would rather be cold in the middle of the night and be able to bundle up all cozy in my blankets than be sweating to death and not be able to do anything about it. However, I’ve noticed that I often wake up with a sore throat or stuffy nose after a night that was particularly cold. Is this due to my sleeping conditions?
From the lack of evidence I found, I would say no. It could absolutely by due to chance, or perhaps it isn’t too popular of a topic. However, I did find that there are other causes to sore throats when waking up in the morning. These include snoring and dehydration. When I read further into the snoring one, it led me to believe that my problem may simply be due to sleeping with my mouth open. Because of this, the cold air is coming into my body and causing a dry, scratchy throat.
Basically, the open windows and fans could be part of the problem but it is not the main one. If you have this problem also, the New York Times has tons of ways to help care for these annoying sore throats and try to prevent them.
My room mate likes to sleep in the cold too. I on the other hand have had a fear of pneumonia since childhood so I would rather notch up the heater to an afternoon on the island Tahiti in June. While being comfortable in your sleep would be the normal thing to do, other people have used chilly temperatures for seemingly unrelated goals like losing weight. The link below talks about how some guy experimented on losing weight in a cold swimming pool after learning that Michael Phelps took in 12,000 calories per day, during practice. http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/04/features/the-shiver-system
I always like sleeping in the cold too, I would way rather that than waking up in a sweat. I have the same problem with waking up with sore throats. I always sleep with a bottle of water next to me so in the middle of the night so I can make it go away. And according to the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/health/04real.html?_r=0), sleeping in the cold can actually improve your sleep.
I like to sleep with the air conditioner running and my window open because I like to breathe in fresh air while I’m asleep. I would rather be cold when I go to sleep and build up on covers than go to sleep hot and not be able to fall asleep. It’s interesting that you looked up this theory of a sore throat when you wake up because it has happened to me as well for years. When I was in high school I found that after I would eat breakfast my sore throat would go away and I would feel so much better. I agree that it might be due to dehydration because I do not drink anything before I go to sleep so when I wake up I am so thirsty and my throat during the night might get dry causing it to be sore in the morning!