Triple-digit temperatures and high humidity are expected to threaten the health of hundreds of millions of Americans this week as a persistent heat dome bears down on the Midwest and Eastern Coast.
The dangerous and potentially record-breaking weather is expected to last through the Fourth of July weekend, the National Weather Service warned, with risks continuing after that for the Southeast, Plains, Mississippi Valley and Mid-Atlantic.
“These levels of heat mean health impacts become more likely in general, and may occur in ANYONE without adequate hydration or cooling,” the agency cautioned in a social media post.
Air conditioning and staying hydrated remain the best ways to help you beat the heat. But running units all day and night can be costly and electrical grids may struggle in extreme conditions and demand overload.
Several at-home hacks can help you stay cool without breaking the bank. Here are the best tricks:
A cold compress – a wet towel applied to the forehead and other areas of the body – is a good way for a quick cool down.
It works by using the evaporation of water in the soaked towel.
“Cool towels work through the process of evaporative cooling. When you soak the towel in water, it absorbs the moisture. As the water evaporates from the towel’s surface, it draws heat away from your skin, creating a cooling sensation,” Texas’ Sacred Heart Emergency explains.
“This process helps lower your body temperature and provides relief from the heat,” it says.
Keep those curtains drawn!
Using sun shades in windows that receive morning and afternoon sun can help limit a rise in heat in the home, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says.
Curtains and shades can block out the sun’s rays, especially those made to keep light out, and can help keep the temperature inside slightly cooler.
You may think that taking a cold shower or bath would help to lower your body’s core temperature, but you would be wrong. The blood vessels constrict in the cold, reducing blood flow and holding heat in around the organs.
And sudden exposure could even trigger a cold shock response, causing blood vessels to narrow and raising blood pressure.
So, how do you cool off?
A tepid or lukewarm bath is the way to go, according to the University of Reading. This will ensure there’s blood flow and not be cold enough to cause cold shock.
It may sound silly, but sleeping on the floor can actually help keep you cool – because heat rises.
Now, you don’t need to lay on exposed wood. You can put your mattress on it or use a lower platform bed, experts at SleepApnea.org advise. Stay low can help you stay near the colder air.
While fans still use electricity, they don’t use nearly as much as AC units. They can help you to stay cool by speeding up the evaporation of sweat from the skin and lowering the body temperature.
But they’re not a long-term fix and it doesn’t always work. That’s because in extreme temperatures over 90 degrees, the fans can actually raise body temperatures, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If the room is hotter than your skin, the moving air transfers that heat to your body, similar to a convection oven.
In wetter heat, you may also be producing sweat faster than it can evaporate, slowing it to a point where a fan stops helping.
“So it depends on the humidity in the air,” George Havenith, a professor at London’s Loughborough University, recently told New Scientist. “That’s why people often look at what kind of climate you have in different countries.”
