Tips for keeping cool

We are in the middle of a heatwave and it can make it difficult to cope during the day and sleep at night. The advice from New Scientist to cool your body is to immerse your hands or feet in cold water. Both contain many nerves and blood vessels so it can cool a large volume of blood relatively quickly. If you exercise regularly you are able to to pump blood around the body more effectively. Also you can take trips to the sauna in advance of heatwaves to build up a tolerance to heat.

Cooling Foods

In Chinese Medicine there are different categories of food. Some are heating, others cooling, some salty or sweet etc. In the Summer especially during a heatwave it helps if we eat cooling foods. The manner of food preparation also matters. Uncooked foods are obviously the most cooling with fried foods being the most heating and boiling and steaming foods being somewhere in between. Fruits are cooling.

Some examples of cooling foods are as follows: mint and chamomile teas. Apples, cucumber, watermelon, limes and lemons are all cooling fruits.

Heavy foods on hot days will cause sluggishness. These include eggs, meat and excesses of seeds nut and grains. Eating less in summer can be a good practice.