The most surprising ways to survive the current heat wave
Freezer air conditioner?
Cold showers?
It's time to forget everything you knew and start doing the exact opposite.
The body's temperature regulation mechanism is fascinating, complex and above all surprising.
This is how you will use it to cool yourself in a more natural way
Maor Muigar
07/28/2022
Thursday, July 28, 2022, 06:16
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It's hot out there.
A woman eating ice cream (Photo: ShutterStock)
The time has come again when a simple walk to the grocery store is an unbearably difficult action, deodorant and a change of shirt are mandatory items in the bag, and it is impossible to plan activities that will take place outside of air-conditioned spaces.
And this year it seems to be even more unbearable than ever.
This is the time when each of us chooses to stay under the air conditioner almost at all hours of the day and in most cases at night as well, but is this really the most effective way to protect ourselves from the frightening heat wave outside?
To answer this question, let's first understand how our temperature regulation mechanism works: the human body is actually a fairly effective machine in terms of maintaining a constant temperature.
When the temperature outside ranges from 12 to 48 degrees, the body manages to maintain more or less the same temperature, with fluctuations of only half a degree here or there.
To do this, the body uses several strategies: when it is cold, it rarely transfers blood to the skin and thus stores the heat inside.
That's why when it's cold outside, we tend to suffer from annoying frostbite on the skin.
In addition, it increases the rate of calorie burning to keep warm.
Next to this, as you know, there are the vibrations that help keep the body warm and the sweating that helps to cool it at high temperatures.
When it's hot outside, the blood also flows a little faster to add to the cooling efforts.
A hot shower will help you more than a cold shower.
A man in the shower (Photo: Giphy)
When the temperatures rise, many of us would naturally prefer to splash cold water on ourselves or hug the air conditioner tightly and not let go.
Although these actions offer immediate relief from the feeling of heat, they do not contribute to us in the long term.
When we do this, the heat receptors in the body signal the sharp drop in temperature and the body begins to slow down its cooling efforts.
Therefore, blood flow to the skin becomes slower, which causes the body to store more heat within it.
So a cold shower or air conditioner will make you feel great - but that feeling will disappear when you get away from them and you'll end up feeling much hotter in the moments after.
In fact, your core will remain much warmer than it was before the sudden cooling.
In this context, a hot shower will encourage the activation of the mechanisms that will cool the body after you get out of it - the acceleration of blood flow and increased sweating.
Hot tea will also help
By the same logic, drinking hot drinks does seem like a rather frightening action in the heat of the Israeli summer, but it may well help you, quite ironically, to break the heat.
A study conducted in 2012 at the University of Ottawa in Canada found that drinking tea is indeed effective for overcoming the heat - but only if you are in a non-humid environment.
The tea, as well as other hot drinks, stimulates the temperature receptors on the tongue and signals to the body that it is time for intensive cooling of the systems.
Therefore, sweat secretion will increase after drinking, which in a dry environment will allow the body to cool down quickly.
The sweat leads to cooling the body only when it evaporates.
Therefore, in a humid environment the tea will not cool you down, but will only make you suffer much more from the annoying stickiness.
Eating spicy foods, by the way, will also create a similar reaction of increased sweating which will encourage the body to cool itself with all its might.
Give up the air conditioner.
Fan (Photo: Giphy)
Even if these conclusions seem rather puzzling to you and you really do not intend to sip boiling tea and take hot baths throughout the coming summer, it is important to understand the main moral of these data.
To make it easier for our body, it is important to maintain a balance - not to freeze the room with the air conditioning or dip in ice water to cool down.
It is important to understand that our body knows how to cool itself on its own and it is important to let it do this in a more natural way - which will both preserve its health and not disrupt its temperature regulation mechanism in the long run.
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summer
Heat
health