Tips for Staying Cool – Drink Hot Liquids
How about some counter intuitive tips for staying cool? Here’s one; drink hot liquids like coffee and tea when it’s hot outside.
The idea is the hot beverage inside you will make you feel cooler on the outside. It’s a simple matter of your mind making a comparison to the heat inside, and arriving at the conclusion that your outside temperature isn’t that bad after all. It’s purely a psychological thing, since adding heat to your body can’t possibly make it cooler.
You might give it a try and see if you don’t find yourself at least believing that you’re a bit more comfortable. Except in cases of extreme heat and dehydration, we’re really only as comfortable as we imagine ourselves to be.
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One might think that Clair Schwan is a regular contributor of irregular ideas here at Self Reliance Works. Perhaps it’s true, but if one of his ideas works well for you, then the minor risk to his reputation is well worth it.
4 Responses to “Tips for Staying Cool – Drink Hot Liquids”
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That’s interesting, as I was just telling a friend that I don’t like cold drinks, regardless of the weather. I really dislike our Northern California heat – to me, it seems like 6 months of summer – but I would rather drink hot coffee or hot tea than anything else, as long as I am in air-conditioned comfort. I am currently forcing myself to drink one cold drink a day, because I don’t think I drink enough water. I got liter bottles of carbonated lemon water and lime water, and I have a glass over ice when I get in from the heat. Trouble is, it takes me a couple of hours to drink it! I don’t think I could drink a hot drink while in a hot environment, though. I am also never thirsty unless I have drunk alcohol or eaten highly salted food. I drink a lot of coffee.
Yana, I used to live in Northern California, and friends there would drink hot tea in the summer and live without air conditioning. That’s where the idea for the post comes from.
Had a medical person tell me years ago that drinking warm/hot drinks in the the summer heats up our body core which causes the body to to attempt to cool itself down internally. Kinda like a self preservation mode.
I was just thinking this the other day. It is absolutely true!
In the surrealist comedy “Drowning By Numbers,” there’s even a line to this effect: “My mother always says that hot tea on a hot day makes a body very cool, indeed!” Same idea with eating very spicy foods in hot climates.
Perhaps those mad dogs and Englishmen were onto something!