My 3 Unusual Tricks to Keep You Cool During a Heatwave – a Cup of Tea Can Help
SOME handy tips and techniques will help you stay cool – literally.
According to a home professional, a hot drink can cause your body temperature to drop.
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Nancy Emery, Bathroom Expert at a UK-based luxury bathroom retailer Soakedhas shared some unconventional tips to help combat the extreme summer heat.
To stay as cool as possible, she suggests drinking a warm drink.
“You may think that hot drinks can’t cool you down, but drinking tea or hot water increases your body temperature, which makes you sweat more,” she says.
“As sweat evaporates, it cools your body,” she continued.
“More sweating means more cooling, which compensates for the small amount of heat a hot drink contains relative to the entire body.”
Also, make sure you stay safe while drinking.
Make sure you stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water in addition to your hot drink. This will replenish the fluid loss.
Emery explained how the extra sweat you produce from drinking hot tea or coffee needs to ‘evaporate’ in order to benefit from the cooling effects.
And the more evaporation, the more effective the method becomes.
Another great tip to combat a heat wave is to take a warm bath.
Forget everything you thought you knew about battling higher temperatures.
“There’s a common misconception that taking a cold bath will cool you down,” she said.
“This is actually counterproductive because when our bodies are immersed in extremely cold conditions, they try to regulate our core temperature. This means you can end up feeling warmer than you did before.”
She explained how a warm bath lowers our body temperature by ‘stimulating our body’s thermoregulatory system’.
“This increases blood circulation in our body, which removes body heat and lowers body temperature,” she said.
How a Hot Drink Cools You Down
The nerves in our tongue and mouth have molecules called receptors that receive signals from the outer nerve, Peter McNaughton, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, told NPR.
The TRPV1 receptor responds primarily to heat.
When we eat something hot, the receptors receive a heat signal that is sent to the brain. This causes us to sweat and activates our ‘cooling mechanism’.
A hot drink may add heat to the body, but the amount you sweat more than offsets the extra heat from the warm liquid, said Ollie Jay, a researcher at the University of Ottawa’s School of Human Kinetics. Smithsonian Magazine.
More sweating provides more cooling.
According to a study conducted by Dr. Jay, drinking a hot beverage reduces the amount of heat stored in your body. This is beneficial because your sweat can evaporate properly.
She gave another unconventional tip: cool your pressure points regularly.
“Pressure points have a lot to do with the way your body regulates temperature,” she says.
Her technique works at any time of the day or night.
“If you feel hot while you’re at work or trying to sleep at night, cool your wrists under running water,” she says.
For faster results, hold your wrists under cold water for about a minute while rubbing water into your neck.
