The Best Way to Cool the Body

Summer is in full effect here. And whether you are out on the lake, at the beach, or you are sitting next to a field or participating in a game or a practice, it has definitely been the tale of two extremes here. Either it's been raining us out or it's been really, really hot and humid. And so big topic of conversation as of late in the office is what are the most efficient ways to cool down the body when you do start to feel like you're getting overheated? Especially during sports and especially during performances where you can't necessarily take the type of break your body might need to actually cool down.

And so the most effective ways might sound a little bit interesting from what we're used to. Instead of thinking about putting something cold on the chest or on the back of the neck, our body has a really good layer of insulation in those areas. And so, we don't necessarily influence the core temperature of the body. So let's take advantage of areas where we have a lot of blood flow going on. And so in the hands and in the face and even the soles of our feet, we have a lot of blood flow going on. And so if we can cool that blood down, that blood is going to travel back to the center of our body here and then therefore cool down our body.

And so, a couple easy ways that we can do this. You can either make sure that we got a cooler packed with our ice pack here, and especially when this thing is ice cold, you want to pass that between your hands. Otherwise, if we cool down our hand too much, our body actually stops that blood from going anywhere because it's too cold. So if it's really, really cold or ice cold, we're going to pass that between our two hands here, or we can make sure that we got a bottle of cold water. Usually a plastic bottle is going to work the best for this, and we're going to hold that in our hands here, cooling down the blood in our hands, and then cooling down our body. You can also do that with one of those chamois towels on your face. Either way is going to work and is going to be the most effective way to cool down your body when you're feeling overheated this summer.

Be Well

-Dr. Daniel