Your Bodies Inner Cooling System- How To Use It!

As this year's summer heat in England continues to break records I thought it best to look at some things that may help a few of you keep a little cooler and healthier through it, and hopefully therefore enjoy it a little more!

First off, we need to know the main things that occur when we get too hot. I want to concentrate on two things in particular that the body does. Sweating and vasodilation

Sweating is one that 99.9% of us have heard of before. Our body secretes fluid through our skin in order for it to evaporate off of the skin's surface thus cooling us down. The more skin on show and the more air flow around us, the more efficient sweating becomes. This gets a bit worse in more humid conditions, so make sure the air flow is fresh and not just a fan circulating old air round and round the room again. 

Eating spicy foods and drinking hot drinks will both increase the amount of sweat your  body produces in the short term. This therefore can, in the right conditions, help you even more to stay cool. Remember though, you MUST stay hydrated to allow the body to keep producing sweat throughout the day.

Vasodilation is the second thing we can make use of to cool down. Vasodilation is when the blood vessels expand and direct blood away from your warm core and toward the cooler surface of your skin. Combine this knowledge with the knowledge of your common pulse points (the points where you usually can feel a pulse on yourself) and you get the perfect place to put cold things. These places are your wrists, elbow folds, back of knees, front of ankles and front of neck. This one is my personal favorite and has come in handy many times in the past.

 

Remember, stay out of the sun where possible and allow the body to regulate its temperature the best it can. Keep hydrated and enjoy the sun while it lasts!