If you try to beat summer heat, you will expend more energy making yourself even hotter. Instead try to get along with it! Think cool, be cool, slow down, live easier and lighter. Get your mind and body involved in a unified effort to lower your body temperature and reduce inflammation. Human beings are designed to adapt. While in winter you can keep layering, in summer it is hard to get out of your skin. However, you can learn to reduce your body temperature like Buddhist monks – with enlightenment.
Here are some tips to get into summer rhythm:
* Visualize cool waterfalls and cold mountain streams. Stop talking about how hot it is.
* Music is a great persuader. Listen to cool music like mellow jazz.
* Hang out in natural settings: grass, trees, or the shore – even dirt roads. All are cooler than concrete or asphalt. Trees and vines have provided cool shade throughout the ages.
* Drink plenty of water and include some sports drinks to replenish electrolytes. If you are not sweating, you are dehydrated. If you don’t like water very much, create your own “spa water.” Get a pitcher, fill it with water, cut in a few slices of fruit like strawberries or peaches and place the floating mixture in the fridge. Sip the delicate flavor with a straw.
* Eat fruits and vegetables with volume: tomatoes, lettuce, watermelon, grapes, oranges etc.
* Eat spicy foods, like hot peppers, to bring out a sweat and flush to your face, the way people do in hot climates down South. You will feel cooler after the heat dissipates.
* Chew some peppermint gum and then drink cool water – you will experience an alpine blast.
* Cool off your neck, forehead, hands and feet with cold water.
* Protect your head in the sun with a hat the way gardeners do. Pour icy water on the inside of your hat and then put it on your head if you want real relief like an athlete during a heated competition.
* If you don’t have air-conditioning, visit air conditioned locations for a bit of a break, especially during the heat of the day.
* If you are an avid outdoor-exerciser, exercise smart – early morning or evening and drink before, during and after.
PHOTO (cc): Flickr / SpecialKolin
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