The right temperature depends on what you’re doing: cooking, sleeping, storing food, bathing a baby, or checking for a fever. Each situation has a specific number backed by safety guidelines, and getting it wrong can mean anything from a bad night’s sleep to a trip to the emergency room. Here are the key temperatures worth knowing.
Cook Meat and Poultry To
Poultry is the strictest: all chicken and turkey, whether whole, ground, or in parts, needs to reach 165°F (74°C) internally. This is non-negotiable because poultry carries a higher risk of salmonella and other bacteria that survive at lower temperatures.
Ground beef and pork sausage require 160°F (71°C). Grinding meat spreads any surface bacteria throughout, so the center needs to get hot enough to kill it. Whole cuts of pork and beef steaks, roasts, and chops are safe at a lower 145°F (63°C), but you should let them rest for three minutes before cutting. That resting time allows the internal temperature to finish its work.
Fish like salmon, tuna, cod, and tilapia also need to hit 145°F (63°C), or you can check that the flesh is opaque and flakes apart easily with a fork. For shrimp, lobster, crab, and scallops, cook until the flesh turns white and opaque. Clams, oysters, and mussels are done when their shells open during cooking; discard any that stay shut.
A meat thermometer is the only reliable way to check. Color alone is not accurate, especially with ground meat, which can look brown before reaching a safe temperature.
Set Your Fridge and Freezer To
Your refrigerator should stay at or below 40°F (4°C), and your freezer at 0°F (-18°C). Above 40°F, bacteria multiply rapidly on perishable food. The FDA recommends placing an appliance thermometer inside both compartments, since the built-in dial on many older models is not precise enough to confirm you’re in the safe range.
Keep Your Bedroom For Sleep
The ideal sleeping temperature for adults is between 60 and 67°F (15.5 to 19.5°C). Your body’s core temperature naturally drops as you fall asleep, and a cool room supports that process. A bedroom that’s too warm disrupts sleep cycles and makes it harder to stay in deep sleep.
For babies and toddlers, aim slightly warmer: 65 to 70°F (18 to 21°C). Infants can’t regulate their body temperature as effectively, so a room that feels comfortable to a lightly dressed adult is often too cool for a baby. Dress them in one additional layer compared to what you’d wear, and skip loose blankets.
Bathe a Baby At
Bath water for infants should be no more than about 100°F (38°C), just slightly warmer than body temperature. A baby’s skin is thinner and far more sensitive to heat than adult skin, so water that feels lukewarm to your hand is plenty warm for them. Test it with the inside of your wrist or elbow, where your skin is more sensitive than your fingertips.
The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends setting your home water heater to no higher than 120°F (49°C). This prevents dangerously hot water from coming out of the tap if you accidentally turn the handle too far.
Set Your Water Heater To
Water heater temperature involves a tradeoff. The CDC recommends storing hot water above 140°F (60°C) to prevent Legionella bacteria from growing in your plumbing. Legionella thrives in warm, stagnant water and causes a serious form of pneumonia called Legionnaires’ disease. At the same time, 140°F water at the tap can scald skin in seconds.
The solution is to keep the heater itself at 140°F but install mixing valves or anti-scald devices at faucets and showerheads. These blend hot and cold water so what reaches you stays below 120°F. If you have young children or elderly family members and no mixing valve, setting the heater to 120°F is the safer compromise, though it does carry a slightly higher risk of bacterial growth in the tank.
Know Your Fever Thresholds
A fever is defined as a body temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher. This applies whether you measure orally, rectally, or with a forehead scanner, though the exact reading can vary slightly by method. A temperature between 98.6°F and 100.3°F is sometimes called a low-grade fever, but it doesn’t meet the clinical threshold.
Most fevers in adults are not dangerous on their own and signal that your immune system is fighting an infection. Call your doctor if your temperature exceeds 104°F (40°C). Seek immediate medical attention if a fever comes with confusion, a stiff neck, trouble breathing, seizures, or loss of consciousness.
Dangerous Body Temperatures
Your body works within a surprisingly narrow range. Normal core temperature hovers around 98.6°F (37°C), and problems start quickly in either direction.
On the hot side, heatstroke begins at a core temperature of 104°F (40°C). At that point the body’s cooling system has failed, and symptoms include confusion, hot and dry skin, rapid pulse, and sometimes loss of consciousness. Heatstroke is a medical emergency that can cause organ damage within minutes.
On the cold side, hypothermia sets in when core temperature drops below 95°F (35°C). Mild hypothermia, between 95°F and 89.6°F (35 to 32°C), causes shivering, pale skin, numbness in the hands and feet, and sluggish thinking. Moderate hypothermia, roughly 89.6°F to 82.4°F (32 to 28°C), is more dangerous: shivering stops, heart rate slows, and the person becomes increasingly confused or drowsy. Severe hypothermia below 82.4°F (28°C) can cause unconsciousness, an irregular heartbeat, and eventually cardiac arrest. The fact that shivering stops as hypothermia worsens is counterintuitive, which is why it catches people off guard. If someone has been in cold conditions and stops shivering but still seems confused, that’s a sign things are getting worse, not better.