Summer is officially here, and – after a cool spring – the heat is on. Once again we face the problem of overheating in the scorching weather.
Keeping cool under mounds of safety gear isn’t easy – especially when you’re forty feet closer to the sun in places where all the natural shade has long since been removed.
Here are a few tips you may not have thought of. And we know you’ve thought a lot about this!
1. Be sure your clothes are 100% natural fibers like cotton or linen. These fabrics breathe well, allowing airflow to cool your skin underneath all your equipment.
2. Cool your pulse points. Do you remember your mama wiping your face with a cool wet cloth? That cooled you down quick back then and the same principle applies to your wrists.
Believe it or not, running some cool water over your wrists for a minute every hour or so keeps your cool. Splash some on the temples and across your forehead helps too.
3. Have some salsa. Okay, this one seems backwards, but eating spicy foods can bring your temperature down as well. Foods like peppers cause you to sweat, and sweat is your body’s air conditioning system. As the sweat cools your skin, your core temperature lowers.
4. Eat a little at a time. The quickest way to heat up your core is to fill up your plate and scarf it down fast. This triggers your metabolism to heat things up for digesting all that.
So eating small portions several times a day helps to keep that from happening, while keeping you energized for the task at hand.
5. HYDRATE. You know this. We know you know this. Sometimes, when we’re focused on getting the job done, we forget how important getting enough fluids really is when working in the heat.
So drink up! Just don’t indulge in alcohol of any kind. It will undo all your efforts to keep cool on the line.