Cooling yourself down - tried and tested

[Zak33]

Lo people

I know.. I know... it's damnably hot. If this was Good Morning Vietnam you'd be giving it the full Robin Willams

So... how to cool yourself down in a hot hot environment.

A) Air flow - dont just have a fan aimed at your head. Yes it works but not for the whole room or building. Think about a PC case.. air in.. air out... and adjust the fans near windows accordingly. Get the air in from the side of the building that is in shade and blow it out the other end.
Do NOT have two fans both sucking into a room with nowhere for the air to go.. you cant inflate a room. One in.. one out.. create a breeze. If yuou need to close a room door to direct air, do it. That pair pressure nee to go soemwhere. In my house I have a fan downstairs blowing OUT of the window becaue two upstairs are pulling in. It works.
B) Personal temp control. When it gets very very hot, mid afternoon like now.. 32C in my office, you need to cool your blood directly. If you have a freezer or fridge at work, keep an ie pack of a bottle of water in there, and hold it on your wrists. That main artery will cool you after a minute or so. If you're in the toilets and the taps are cool, run water over your wrists while you wash your hands for a minute. Bring that body temp down.
C) Hydration - lets not pretend, it's sticky and you're sweating. Now, at work or in company you can't get smelly, so it's time to drink lots of water. But if you're outdoors and working, you don't need to strip down. I wear a cheap cottom long sleeve tshirt from tesco when I work in the heat. You need to sweat and NOT loose the moisture. It's not a good smell, but if you're gonna work for hours, the sweat will build up and a little micro climate of moist air will stay near your skin and you will feel it. Drink lots, but you will stay cooler and not dehdrate so fast. Sounds mad? Check out any photo's of people crossing desserts and look at the robes.
D) Food. Some food heats you up fast. I'm persnally finding oatmeal biscuits are a nightmare.. hobnobs. Body temp SHOOTS up. Stick with salads if you can people. Lower carbs, so your interanal furnace doesn't kick in.
E) Emergeny cooling IF you're in dire emergency heat, and you literally don't care what people think, pour a little water in each ear. trust me... elephants know what they're doing.

Remember- evaporation of liquid from your body is what cools you. It's how we work as humans. If you evaporate a lot, you lose a MAMMOTH amount of water. When you pee, it should NOT look like you could refill a highlighter pen with it.

Drink waaaay more water than you think you need, and pee clear people.

[Saracen]

Agree with all that, but I tend to dunk myself in a tepid bath for half an hour or so. Water temp wants to be about neutral to body temp (not hot, not cold) when you get in. Then, as the water cools over 30 mins or so .... do do you.

Plus .... built-in 30 min cat-nap.



Wait, what? You don't work from home? Life's a bitch, innit?

[Saracen]

Drink waaaay more water than you think you need, and pee clear people.

If you're peeing people, clear or otherwise, I suggest a urgent doctor's appointment. That's .... unusual.

Bet it brings tears to your eyes.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I went on holiday somewhere warm,and then had lots of warm weather here when I got back,LOL.

[Zak33]

have wandered round with my laser beam thermometer, zapping everything. Main office is 32C floor and 34C ceiling, window frames are at 40C

we have, as you can well imagine a few computers running.

the outside of the building is between 35C and 38C brickwork.

But what was most telling was that this morning, before the sun hit the roads around the building, the road was still 30C. There is no reprieve! Even after a full night, the land and buildings are over 30C

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Its not helped by the fact houses here are insulated and not made for loosing heat so once a house heats up it stays warm,plus the fans here are small pedestal mounted things,so you can't cool a room either.

The local Tesco was lovely and cool though!!

[Millennium]

I think it's important to rethink what you eat in this heat we're currently experiencing. A lot of hot places prefer spicy food personally I'm not sold. I think eating less could be the answer (if you're not underweight already) but honestly staying hydrated (something I've been seriously bad at for a couple of months now) is p'rap s more important.

I sweat a lot. I'm quite happy about this activity

[peterb]

I've got windows open front and back of the house so I tend to get a through breeze.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

In a lot of places in Asia,etc the people don't find the spicy food hot since its their normal food,and removing the spice makes it taste flat to people. However,what I find a bit more perplexing is the fact people can eat rice several times a day and still be active.

[Saracen]

@ Millenium (and everybody else, come to think of it) ....

Staying hydrated is, IMHO, the most important thing, bar none. Not doing so can have serious effects. Like, in extremis, dying. Which is quite serious.


I saw a doctor on TV giving some advice. He said, drinks loads of water. If you think you've drunk enough, you almost certainly haven't, so drink more.

Admittedly, the last few days I've been doing some quite physical work in the garden, including digging, and it's HOT work. So I've kept it to an hour or so in the early-ish AM, and another hour or so about 3pm. I've drunk gallons. At least a couple of half-pint glasses per hour, and loads more once I go indoors. And I'm still peeing less than normal. I assume it's 'cos I'm sweating so much. If I drank this much water in normal weather, I'd be living in the loo.

[watercooled]

An unusual one I've found works for me when I struggle to get cool, stick my feet in a bowl of cool water. Probably not ideal if you have poor circulation but seems to work for me - you can feel your legs getting progressively cooler from calves to thighs and onwards.

WRT hydration - also try to take on some electrolytes if you're drinking mostly plain water, particularly if you're doing physical work in the heat.

[Output]

An unusual one I've found works for me when I struggle to get cool, stick my feet in a bowl of cool water.

Username checks out.

[Saracen]

....

WRT hydration - also try to take on some electrolytes if you're drinking mostly plain water, particularly if you're doing physical work in the heat.

Agreed. What works for me is eating lightly at lunch, but a banana mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

It's a long story I won't bore everyone with,, but what I really have to watch is potassium levels, and I feel in in muscles especially. Bananas are a good way of getting a quick potassium top-up.

Tasty, too.

[Millennium]

Thanks for sharing Saracen. So some people put a little salt and maybe sugar in their water, in some countries and places it is common to add lime and maybe lemon to water for perhaps this reason, as I understand it in pharmacies in the UK you can get some kind of package to add to drinking water to make it better for you. What's annoying to me is I read many years ago that pure water without electrolytes is not particularly a good way of recovering from any form of dehydration.

I'm waffling here. Anyone have tips for getting a good value amount of perfect electrolytes to add to my filtered or perhaps bottled water? Shady question but here we R.

ps: yes it is coconut water but that's so expensive here!

[peterb]

There is a risk of low sodium levels if you drink lots of plain water while exercising, which can lead to coma and death. It’s rare, but can happen. A consultant friend of mine said it nearly happened to her on a cycling holiday in France. ApparNtly if you overhydraye and pee a lot, you lose sodium and that upsets the bodiy’s electrolyte balance.

Apparently if you can’t taste salt, you are sodium deficient, so adding a little salt to drinking water may be a good idea under some circumstances.

(Disclaimer - I am not a medic)

[Smudger]

Agreed. What works for me is eating lightly at lunch, but a banana mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

It's a long story I won't bore everyone with,, but what I really have to watch is potassium levels, and I feel in in muscles especially. Bananas are a good way of getting a quick potassium top-up.

Tasty, too.

There's a rumour doing the rounds that Kitkats have as much potassium as bananas, but I can't find anything to back this up, so it's probably an urban myth. Watermelon is also high in potassium, if you don't like bananas. Lots of pips though.

Edit - apparently, white potatoes also have lots of potassium in too. So chippy chips with lashings of salt sounds good for lunch...