People from the "hotter" regions, how do you deal with the heat?
I am from Eastern Europe and this is the hottest summer on my memory. For at least 3 consecutive years the heat is breaking all records.
This stuff is unbearable, I can’t even play video games on my laptop, because it warms up very fast and the keyboard becomes uncomfortable for me to use.
So, could you please share any useful tips on how do you survive the summer?
Avoiding cold water is just bad advice and it’s perpetuated by people who do not live in hot climates. It violates thermodynamics to say adding cold stuff makes you hot.
If you’re already to the point of sweating, your body is trying to cool you down. Adding cool liquid will make you colder, not hotter. Go read medical recommendations for how to treat heat stress, they will never tell you to drink hot tea and eat some chillies
Yeah I’m confused about that too. I drink ice water all the time when it’s hot… But I live in an area with a mild climate, where 27C (80F) is considered hot.
The reason I’ve heard is that your body has to work really hard to warm up the cold water, which in turn means you feel warm more quickly once the effect of the cold water wears off. That’s why people in the desert drink warm tea.
It’s important to remember that humidity plays a huge role when it comes to managing thermal comfort, and the desert is a very dry place. Advice that is applicable to the desert might not apply in other places with high temperature/high humidity.
I don’t know whether drinking hot tea actually helps to beat the heat, but speculating a bit on it, we might guess that hot tea would promote sweating, which is highly effective for reducing body temperature in dry contexts, but less so in humid ones. The tea is also warmer than your body temperature if it is to be considered warm, and as such you will get hotter without getting any relief from the sweating, making drinking hot tea in a hot/humid scenario counterproductive if these assumptions are correct.
Also one of the reason why people in hot climates love eating spicy foods, especially during the day. When you eat something spicy, your mouth feels hot, but your body temperature is not actually increased. You’ll start sweating, but as your body temperature is not actually increased, you’ll ended up cooling your body instead.
I don’t buy the don’t drink ice water. I live in a place where summer temperatures are normally over 100° F (37.7° C). And nothing feels better after doing a lot of yard work like chugging ice water. The worst that’s ever happened to me was a brain freeze.
There is a reason people in the south US drink iced tea. A cold drink on a hot day, just feels good. It might be psychosomatic, but I’ve never heard anything outside of old wives’ tales about cold drinks being bad.
In fact, I’ve participated in the Hotter than Hell, a 100 mile cycling event, in Texas in August. At the halfway point they have snow cones made with sports drinks for the people participating. With over 10,000+ people a year participating and over 40 years you would think someone would have had a bad reaction if drinking cold water was actually an issue.
Honestly, I just love the heat. I strip down to as few layers as possible, put a fan on, and that’s pretty much it. Even when it gets really hot, I still find that easier than the cold. The question I really want to know is how do people deal with the cold!
The good old you can always add more layers. The coldest temperature I ever experienced in my region was -26°C, the hottest just over 40. Between the two, I much prefer the former.
But then again, it just boils down to what you’re used to. Our winters have always been on the harsher side, and I’m not even far up north.
Every new heatwave has me holding on for dear life. Judging by recent years, my body will have to adapt sooner than later, otherwise I’m going to have a really bad time going forward.
My issue with hot weather is that around 25°C i run out of layers to remove to stay comfortable, and I can’t even get to that point if I’m anywhere outside my own home because running around naked in public is sadly not socially acceptable. So when temps reach 35 outdoors I just feel like dying as even indoors tends to heat up to >30 if the temps stay for a few days.
Yeah unfortunately as cultures get air conditioners, they can take more heat as a society, but individually most people don’t ever truly be hot adapted. Then you get a place where people run from their ACd job to their ACd carto their ACd grocery store and finally get to heir ACd house.
Drink lots of cold water. Back in May I almost got a heat stroke because I was drinking room temperature water and hot tea @ 4pm when it is the hottest. Stop drinking anything hot. If tap water is warm fill up buckets of water previous night for bathing. Leave those buckets open in the bathroom with windows open to allow water to cool overnight. Of course you also need air-conditioning and ceiling fans. Additionally, use blackout curtains on windows, keep doors and windows closed so that rooms don’t become as hot as outside. FYI where I live summer temperatures are 45 deg C, and this is all part of what I do to deal with the heat.
I’m late to this party because I’m on the other side of the planet in a sub-tropical climate. I agree with the commenter from India and want to add:
• if you have a cotton cap / beanie / soft hat, get it out Wet it, wring it out, and put it in your freezer in roughly the right shape for your head. Use whatever is in the freezer to shape it, then let it freeze. Remove from freezer, put it in your head, and thank me for the brief but blessed relief.
• Wear a light cotton long sleeve top. Wet the sleeves and stand or sit in front of a fan or in a breezy spit in the shade. It’s like air conditioning for your skin.
• Wet your head for instant relief. Your wet hair will help keep you cool for longer.
• Plan your day around the heat. If you have to go out, do it as early in the day as you can to avoid the heat. Stay in the shade as much as possible, but somewhere with good air flow
I live in South Vietnam. I stay inside for the hours between 12 and generally 3-4. If I’m outside during those hours, I stay still as much as possible. Always have a drink: lite tea is common here. Avoid direct sun, cover exposed areas of skin when traveling. Evaporative cooling is your friend. You can keep a small spray bottle of water with you. Fans heat up a room if the room isn’t vented, so keep the fan on, but crack the door if you don’t have AC.
I’m originally from a city quite close to Canada, known for harsh winters, and now I live in a place where 40c is common. If the temperature gets too high, or you begin feeling sick/dizzy. Find a place to cool down and hydrate. Heat stroke is no joke.
For some reason, I’ve never really thought about this. I splash my face, my neck, wet my arms and legs, but I always forget the top of my head.
Maybe I unconciously assume my hair provides good shade, but it’s definitely not long and thick enough for that.
plan your day around the heat
This is probably the most important part. It’s quite easy to do that on weekends, but many people have their set in stone hours at work that just aren’t compatible with that kind of weather.
We need to figure out how employers can be more flexible with allowing their employees to work around the heat when possible. It’s normal for construction workers to start earlier and pause during the hottest hours, why not do that in the office too?
Some middle-european countries are starting to consider the siesta model of their southern neighbours, and I think that’s not a bad idea at all.
I’m in Phoenix. It was 112°f here today. It’s hot as balls.
However, I’m immensely more comfortable in this heat than I was when visiting Germany last summer when it was in the high 70’s. The difference is the humidity. I was constantly sweating, soaking everything while I was over there. Here? I get a little sweaty at 100°, sometimes. Our power infrastructure is pretty solid, so lots of air conditioner.
If the dew point is favorable at least, then drinking Hot Coffee and let myself sweat in front of an Electric Fan. If it is very humid, Ice on neck or taking a cold shower.
If I had to go outside or Air conditioning at the office broke, then I’d wear light clothing where sweat is easier to evaporate
Otherwise, I’d just use air conditioning and eat up the electricity cost, fuck this weather.
I live in the desert so its usually a dry heat so I get to use a evaporative/swamp cooler. It uses way less electricity than the AC. I just have to crack open a few windows across the house and turn on a fan in the hallway and it gets quite cool and doesn’t get too humid inside. It hit 110ºF (43ºC) today and it never got above 72ºF (22ºC) inside.
Here’s what I do, dampen a towel and put it in the freezer. Once the towel is good and cold wear it like a cape. Looks kinda stupid but you’ll stay cool.
We got one on sale 3 years ago and I have zero regrets. Every heat wave I sleep like a baby. We’ve maybe used it 20 nights total, but so freaking worth it. We do keep it to one room though, not trying to decimate the electric bill.
No mention of wet headcloths and neckerchiefs here! Get some water on that neckerchief and it’ll drip down the hotter parts of your body. A wet headcloth loosely draped under a hat or headband catches the wind and sends evaporative cooling down your back, and gives you cooler air to breathe.
There’s a reason why deserts around the world are filled with garments like the keffiyeh, pashmina, shemagh, pañuelo, and cowboy scarf. I’ve spent a lot of time in the outdoors with a kufiya from the Hirbawi factory in Palestine, they’re well-made and amazingly handy. Their story is worth reading at www.hirbawi.ps .
This will work until there is a wet bulb heat dome event and evaporative cooling no longer occurs because there is more humidity in the air than can evaporate off your body.
Ever since I started riding (motorcycles) I don’t even really notice it anymore. Anything less hot than “armored jacket and helmet under the sun” just doesn’t register as hot anymore
I do construction work in Alabama. I basically bitch and complain all summer long and hate every second of it. There’s no relief unless you’re in the AC. I’ve been thinking of ordering a liquid cooled vest actually. They look weird but I’ll try anything. The humidity here is killer. Sweating doesn’t help like it does in dry climates. Every time I walk outside my body shuts down and I have literally no energy. I think i had a heat stroke last summer.
If someone above me tells me to go work outside all day and doesn’t offer me a substantial amount of money, I tell them to go fuck themselves. It isn’t worth it.
In the American southeast, especially in a river Delta, you can’t live in a house long without AC or a dehumidifier. Mold will grow to toxic levels quickly in a house that’s left without electricity for very long in areas around me.
We have trouble opening our front door in the summer when the temp gets above 38 due to the humidity causing the wood door to swell. The heat index reached 47 last week due to the high humidity so there’s a ton of water in the air.
This is what killed around 700 people during one heat dome event in Canada a few years back. So much humidity in the air that sweating wasn’t helping cool people. You body can’t cool so you overheat and die. Not all people died from that but they were attributed to heat causes.
Those vests can be very effective. I use a coolshirt system in my track car, and I can be in the car indefinitely on a 100F day with no a/c, as long as the pump is recirculating ice water through my suit.
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