Part I - The Problem
A) My situation - need to cool down
I live in New Jersey. It's summer. Yesterday was 80 F, it felt like 90, today is 80 it feels like 90. Just too much! It's hot, humid, I don't have AC - I have a fan. And we have the potential for ants so we can't open all the windows, just some of them. And I live on the second floor of an old building, so probably crappy insulation thus leading to more heat? I don't know. All in all, a recipe for disaster.
So I have become keenly interested in cheap, easy ways I can lower my body temperature if I feel my skin start to reach the boiling point as I'm trying to just relax and watch a nice episode "The Mighty B" voiced by Amy Poehler on Netflix which is a really great show.
B) My common sense ideas for cooling down
Ways that are kind of common sense that I've discovered so far:
-Take a cool or cold shower.
-Keep a damp washcloth by your bed/desk/hangout area and towel your skin every now and then to feel a little cooler. Also to this purpose, have as few clothes on as possible. Go au natural if you want.
-Keep the air circulating with a fan.
(these fans are mad at each other)-If it's super hot you can ventilate with the windows open at night, then close them during the day.
-Keep lights off, shade the windows so the light doesn't add more heat. Especially electric light bulbs I think add heat.
-Eat cool foods, drink cool water. Don't overeat - I think that makes you feel warmer.
-Try to spend time in cool places if your room is hot, like AC'd places like the library, a cafe, outside if it's cooler than your room... You could get a gym membership and spend all day in the pool, with a nice book, practicing your paddling techniques and making bubbles with various orifices...
-If you want to completely hari kari your PSE&G bill you could just open your freezer and stick your face in there for a little while - I did this and it was amaaaaazing. But again, you know, bills. On that note, you could take out some frozen food and apply it to your body.
As you can tell the methods above are common sense and really only have a limited ability to succeed. So how can science and Senor Googly Eyes help me, I wonder???
-Side question - If there have a heated electric blanket, could they have a blanket for cooling?
...apparently they do! This is a Heat Relief Cooling Blanket by Cool Medics. Of course another option for this dude would be just to get out of the durned sun! Side note - I wonder what he's looking at so trepidaciously?
Part II - Research: Ideas on how to reduce body heat
(Dismissed this source because bad citation)
D) NY Times article - best ways to medically cool down
(Source 2)
Tips from this article:
-When someone has heat stroke, they put them in an ice water bath.
-You get relief by (two ways): cooling the skin (apply cool water) and cooling the air (AC, fan)
-Good place to put cool water: on the scalp, because there are lots of blood vessels.
-Your body cools itself naturally by sweating and sweat evaporation.
-This is kind of a kooky article - talkin about chilling the skin by putting vodka on it because it evaporates quickly, haha... For instance, in a tropical humid environment. Actually NYC is considered a sub-tropical climate:
"Under the Köppen climate classification New York City has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), and using the 0 °C (32 °F) threshold it is the northernmost major city on the continent with such categorization." (Source 3)
-So basically there are only two ways to make yourself feel cooler, but i've added a third...and now also a fourth:
1 - cool your skin (many ways to do this)
2 - cool the air around you (or at least make it feel cooler)
3 - cool your body by losing weight
4 - use your miiiiiiind
(I) - How to cool your skin
mmm so colorful1. bathtub - sit in it. cool water is a plus.
2. cool shower - take one
3. bucket of water - put your feet in one, keep beside your bed to wet washcloth with
4. washcloth - soak it, run it all over your body to wet that skin
5. spray bottle - spray yourself. with water
6. bed linens - make sure they're cool, like cotton not warming such as wool, fuzzy flannel. You can lie on towels if you're sweaty or you keep taking cool showers.
7. ice - ice cubes, ice packs, if you're hard core you could be like the rugby team back at my alma mater and strap them all over your body like a badass using only the power of cling-wrap/seran-wrap.
8. wear little or no clothes. If you must be in the sun, light flowy white clothes are better to reflect the light and heat instead of absorb it. like these guys:
(II) How to cool the air (or make it feel cooler)
1. air conditioner.
2. fan and ventilation, air circulation. the breeze blowing on you will cool you, especially if you put some cool water on your skin so it can evaporate.
3. dehumidifier. Humidity makes the temperature feel warmer than it is, so if you dehumidify it it will feel cooler.
4. seek out a cooler location. Basements are cooler because they are dark and low to the ground. Move to Alaska or Russia. Didn't you always want to run with the caribou herds as they migrate for thousands of miles in search of decent grasses, testing your strength and will and simultaneously enjoying a profound closeness to nature. Plus if you get to the point where you're ever really really starving, you could always take old granny caribou to the side and have a quick bite of venison chops over a fire before all the other quadrupeds wake up from their greener grass dreams. She was holding everyone else up anyway.
5. make your room darker. Block out as much light as you can.
6. consider becoming amphibian by getting to a gym or public pool and soaking for hours, like a clarinet reed that needs to be broken in.
(III) How to cool your body
-basically this is a theory of mine, but it makes sense...
1. Completely theoretical but I think if you have less body fat then there is less to make you feel warm, so in the summer that is an advantage because you can get cooler quicker.
2. Get a haircut. If you have long, sticky, frizzy, suffocatingly voluminous hair like I do, and yes long hair is very pretty and hippy dippy but on the other hand let's face it - it makes you hot. Either cut it or put it up in a tight bun and soak with cold water
(IV) Cool yourself down using the power of psychology
You can do anything if you put your mind to it, right? So why not cool yourself and calm thyself and feel better?
1. think cool thoughts.
ice. penguins. penguins in icy. waterfalls. snowstorms. black ice oh no watch out for that telephone pole! popsicles. cool watermelon. you're a fish swimming in a shadowy mossy cool creek. Crayfish 10 o'clock! Ice cream...
you're shackleton, lost in the antarctic, befriended by a kindly family of nomadic penguins who take you in and teach you the ways of the penguin. You become one of them and wander the barren penguinny landscape, becoming a Tarzan of the deep, deep, deep South, if you will. Life goes on and you develop a strong love for fresh mackerel and an even stronger love for your penguin betrothed, Lucia Almorzando Marquez de Sud, who has already born you two lovely penguin-homo sapiens baby-chick mutated monstrosities, which you love with all your heart and are sending to a private penguin boarding school for penguin chick with high levels of achievement in Diving and Piscine Statistics.
On your fourth aniversary Lucia tells you she has started seeing another penguin, and that she really has never gotten over the fact that you can't properly beak-kiss, as you have a humanoid mouth, and so, desperate and alone, you wander out into the icy wilderness and keep thinking chilling cool thoughts such as these as you survive on fish, kelp and melted snow, and try to remember who you were before your life with Lucia and you child-chicks, Devin and Ferdinanda, contemplating the vast tundra, regretting that neither you nor Lucia can fly to a better place where you both can beak-kiss, singing the mournful penguin-ballads you learned during the first few years of your initiation as a penguin.........
sweet, sweet penguin love
Devin
Ferdinanda
2. use imagery (similar to number 1)
- Icy waterfalls. Winter snowstorm. The walk-in freezer at that place you used to work, where you could never find the butter.
-also look at cool colors, like blues and greens. For example, color psychology says that looking at blue or green makes you feel cooler.
3. listen to cool music
Cool music - Cool jazz, slow, calming, mellow, low drama. No up-tempo latin salsa! Just slow, cool, cool, cool jazz. And no Vanilla Ice does not count.
You could listen to songs that talk about coolness, coldness, etc...
Examples:
x
"Frozen" by Madonna - video doesn't feature ice persay, but talking about being frozen!
4. Watch movies about cool things
-like cryoregeneration.
-nature shows about things that live under the ice - there are a lot of things living there! Even in freezing temperatures - amazing
-Like this clip about penguins stealing eachother's nest-rocks:
x
5. Pick your battles
-Don't get all bent out of shape over the little things. It's too hot to argue or get offended or start any other kind of unnecessary drama. Just chill out and let it go. You'll cause less stress for yourself and can just focus on getting all zen until you are mentally a cool cucumber, instead of using up your energy and getting all hot and bothered with someone that rubs you the wrong way. Just walk away and say, You know what, mom, it's just too darn hot today. I'll call you in a week. Just take a chill pill and peace be with you my sister!
-I think there is something to being emotionally cool and calm that makes you feel cooler. If you are in control of your emotions and just trying to treat yourself the best way you can despite the heat, then you have won the first mental battle. Heat can make you feel: frustrated, angry at the weather, angry and poor for having no AC - you start pitying yourself and thinking that you got it the worst of all the people anywhere and you wish you could just black out and wake up when it's finally after sundown.
But on the road to cool the first duffel bag of baggage you gotta toss out the window into the dumpster at a Taco Bell drive through is that angry, frustrated, self-pitying attitude. Hey, remember, it's summer! That's awesome! There's no snow making you think you're gonna have a car accident on black ice, freezing your fingers off, wishing it were warm and sunny. It's just that today it's a little too hot, so you gotta turn up the brainpower to deal with the situation you happen to be in.
The next duffle bag you gotta toss is your denial that is really is as hot as it really is. Yes, you are sweating all over your bed covers. No there is no wind right now. Yes, you feel a little dizzy. You need to get past the disbelief so you can take care of your health when you need to, before you get worse symptoms of excessive heat, high body temperature and dehydration like heat stroke.
First hydrate! Break out your swirly straw and just sip sip sip - good old healthy water is your friend. You may think, hey I just drank three tall glasses in one hour, that's not normal. But actually it's ok in the heat because you're loosing a lot to sweat. Just make sure to also eat other healthy things, like a nice crispy apple or some cool black cherry kefir yogurt or some homemade pea soup (See Appendix A), so that you are replenishing nutrients throughout the day.
Next jump in the shower. You may feel like you will never be cool again, but a cool-cold shower might do the trick. Who knows you may even shiver! And if you need a longer-term solution, cool porcelain bathtubs are a great place to hang out and read a book as the sweltering sun passes across the blistering sky like an angel of death, just waiting to touch you with its far-reaching, deadly blazing finger. Best avoided, n'est pas?
And then once you are feeling a little less heat-queasy and more back to your healthy cool self, maybe come up with a plan to do something that will distract you for a while, something enjoyable until it's night and maybe you can even start to consider entering the great unknown that is the outdoors, like read a novel, play some online games or computer games, watch tv or a movie. Lose yourself in emails you've been meaning to write, blog posts you're behind on, facebook. If the internet is good for anything, it's great for distracting yourself from reality!
6. Find something to look forward to
-For instance, check out the weather, and if tomorrow is supposed to rain you can look forward to that and spend lot so time fantasizing about jumping in puddles all day.
-a vacation you'll take soon.
-seeing a friend and hanging out soon.
-rewarding yourself for good behavior under the fire of a hot day by treating yourself to something delicious the next day.
-umm.....well there's always autumn to look forward to!
So I hope these tips help you battle a blazing day in a tiny rooftop apartment with no AC like I have to do now and then. Peace and gesundheit!
Bibliography
1. "How to Reduce Excessive Body Heat" (sounds legit enough at first...da da da duuuuummmm - yes ladies and gentlemen, this article is an example of internet journalism at its least credible!) article for Yahoo! Voices by Abhishek Nirvana. Yahoo! Inc., 2012. URL: http://voices.yahoo.com/how-reduce-excessive-body-heat-3917408.html?cat=5. (Just take everything with a grain of salt, OK people?)
2. "How to Lower Body Temperature" by Malcolm W. Browne. Published 8-21-1987. New York Times Company, 2012. URL: http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/21/arts/how-to-lower-body-temperature.html
3. "New York City" Wikipedia article. Wikipedia.org, 2012. URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City.
Appendix A
Easy Recipe for Homemade Pea Soup by Sarah
Ingredients:
2 cups frozen peas
2 cups water
2 dashes of chopped basil, fresh or dried
2 pinches of salt, to taste
pepper to taste
2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (how can you be extra virgin? you're either virgin, or you're not.)
Directions:
Boil the frozen peas in your 2 cups of water until just cooked through. Taste to make sure cooked. Pour peas and cooking water into a blender or food processor. If you don't have this or hate cleaning those things like I do, you could try mashing the peas alone until they're little bits, then add the water back and stir, although I haven't tried this yet.
Add basil, salt, pepper, and olive oil to taste. The color is going to be much brighter than when it's canned, which is pretty cool. And it tastes loads fresher, even though you just used frozen peas. Who knew frozen peas could be eaten like this, instead of just boring old plain boiling them? I loved my soup so much I ate two bowls right away. I plan to try this method with other frozen foods as well, such as making a butternut squash soup, and maybe a cream of spinash soup...
(that's it!)
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