Summer Heat Is Getting More Intense. Here’s What Experts Want You to Do Before the Next Heat Wave
A heat wave can send emergency room visits climbing, turn ordinary afternoons into serious health risks and quietly overwhelm even healthy adults who think they can tough it out. Knowing how to stay cool and hydrated is not just about comfort. It is what keeps your body out of danger when the temperature spikes and refuses to come down.
Staying cool and drinking water often are the two habits that matter most during extreme heat, and both make a bigger difference than most people realize.
Why a heat wave is more dangerous than it feels
Behind most extreme heat events sits a heat dome, a strong high-pressure system that parks itself over a region and refuses to budge. As Dr. Erik Nielsen of Texas A&M University told Campus Insights Media, these systems tend to stall over an area when no other storm comes along to nudge them out, which is how you end up with record-breaking temperatures that keep climbing day after day.
The pattern has been hard to miss. The continental United States logged its most abnormally hot March in 132 years of records, and Europe has seen unseasonable highs near 104 degrees. The National Weather Service tracks heat risk on a four-level scale, and emergency room visits for heat-related illness climb sharply on major and extreme risk days.
Know the warning signs of heat illness
Heat illness looks different from person to person. Certain medications and underlying health conditions can make it harder for the body to regulate temperature or even to notice something is wrong.
Early signs include heavy sweating, muscle cramps and a headache. If those show up, stop what you are doing, get to an air-conditioned space and drink cold water. Heat exhaustion pushes further, with a racing heart rate and dizziness. Heat stroke is a medical emergency and can bring on confusion, slurred speech or fainting. Call 911.
Ten ways to stay cool during a heat wave
Once you understand the risk, the practical part becomes easier. These are the moves that actually work.
1. Find air conditioning, even if you do not have it at home. Movie theaters, malls and public libraries all run their AC through the summer. Many communities also open designated cooling centers. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program can help cover a window unit, according to the National Council on Aging, and local nonprofits often assist too.
2. Use fans, but know their limits. Fans work up to about 100 degrees indoors. Beyond that, they can make things worse. “At least up until 38 degrees Celsius. What matters is the temperature of the room that we are in currently. So, inside our home, inside our work, wherever that might be,” Daniel Gagnon, a heat physiologist at the Montreal Heart Institute and Université de Montréal, told CBC. Gagnon’s research found fans lowered body temperature and eased the heart’s workload, especially in older adults. Above that threshold, Betsy Gideon, a postdoctoral research fellow at UT Southwestern Medical Center, warned CBC that “a fan will just create a convection oven and you’ll just heat up a lot faster, especially in older adults.”
3. Spritz your skin with water. Misting yourself with cool water creates evaporative cooling, mimicking the way sweat works. “Applying additional water to the skin kind of creates pseudo-sweat, if you will, and then allows them to have some evaporative cooling. A fan can aid in evaporation of that sweat because it just provides more airflow,” Gideon told CBC. A plant-misting spray bottle does the trick, and so does a quick cold shower.
4. Block out your windows during the day. Cover windows that catch afternoon sun with a blanket or a dark sheet to stop heat from building up indoors. At night, open the windows and run fans to pull in cooler air.
5. Skip strenuous outdoor activity. If you can avoid intense outdoor exercise during peak heat hours, do it.
6. Do not use the stove or oven. Cooking indoors dumps extra heat into your home. Save the roast for cooler days.
7. Eat cooling foods. Water-rich fruits like watermelon help your body fend off heat, Dr. Quinones-Camacho told the New York Times. If you are eating salty food, drink extra water to balance it. Steer clear of hot meals.
8. Sleep smarter. Use breathable cotton sheets, run a fan near the bed and spritz your sheets with cold water before you climb in. You can also stash pillowcases in a plastic bag in the freezer during the day. A cold bath or shower right before bed helps lower your core temperature.
9. Wear cold socks to bed. Cooling your feet helps bring down overall body temperature. Put a pair of socks in the fridge during the day and slip them on before getting under the covers.
10. Stay hydrated and skip alcohol and caffeine at night. Dehydration affects how your body handles heat after dark and can leave you overheating in your sleep. Drink a glass of cold water before bed and keep another close by. Alcohol makes sleep worse. Caffeine acts as a diuretic that pushes fluids out and raises body temperature.
Know your workplace heat protections
Not every state protects workers exposed to extreme heat. Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota and Maryland all have workplace heat protections on the books, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Enforcement varies, but knowing your state’s rules is a starting point for making sure you can stay cool on the job.
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
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