Summer, sun, sweat and heat – this summer again means high temperatures. Utopia shows you what you can do if you are too hot: the best tips for heat.
In many areas of Germany, temperatures above 30 degrees prevail. What to do in heat? We have put together a number of tips for you with which you better survive heat waves.
1. What to do in the heat? Drink more!
The most important thing in heat and hot temperatures: drink a lot. And calmly up to three liters, depending on the thirst (if no health reasons expressly speak against it)! Also read: Drinking water – that much is healthy.
The ideal thirst quencher is tap water. Since the body also loses minerals by sweating on the hot days, you should also drink mineral -containing drinks such as juice spritzer, teas or soups or brewing. As a rule, you don’t have to drink more than 2 liters a day, as a study confirms.
Important: avoidable drinks, mix juice spritzer (with a lot of water content) or drink homemade lemonade. Avoid bottle water, which is more ecological and healthier.
2. Avoid alcohol and caffeine in the heat
Even if it is nice to sit on the balcony or terrace with drinks: Leave it at an after -work beer or a glass of wine. Alcohol deprives our body liquid and minerals – and thus reinforces the effect of the high temperatures.
Especially do without alcohol in the heat at noon and don’t drink that much in the evening. Also avoid caffeinated drinks such as coffee, black or green tea, because the caffeine puts a strain on the cycle in the summer heat.
If it is supposed to be a coffee, here is an alternative to the hot drink: try our homemade cold brew (recipe).
3. Tips against heat: Eat easily
You should also adapt the nutrition to the hot days. Optimal in the heat are several small and light meals that are taken over the day. For example, vegetable pans, salads or just a little fruit are suitable for this – good for the sustainable, healthy lunch break.
Water -rich fruits are particularly recommended. For example, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, peaches or strawberries are ideal – these are not only water -rich, but also seasonal. It is better to avoid difficult digestible and less sustainable dishes such as sausage plates. You can find seasonal fruit and vegetables in the Utopia season calendar.
4. See cool places in the heat
Adjust your daily routine of the heat if that is possible. For example: get up and work earlier when it is still cool. If you can, stay in cool rooms at noon and limit your outdoor activities to the morning and evening hours.
Refreshment offer short, lukewarm showers – they are also better for the climate than hot. If you have no way to do this, it can help to let cool water run over the wrists or put on a wet cool compress on the forehead or neck. Water sprays also have a cooling effect, but also produce a lot of garbage. A refillable spray bottle is much more environmentally friendly.
Also exciting: “Summer used to be hot too!” – Why our memory deceives us
5. Protect against heat
If you are not able to stay in a cool room during the heat, at least stay in the shade and avoid direct sunlight – see also: avoid sunburn. Wear light and not fusing cotton clothing in bright colors.
Pay attention to adequate UV protection: Use (sustainable) sunglasses and sunscreen for all non-covered skin areas and a wide-brimmed sun hat (neck protection!). Also read our contributions to sunscreen test and organic sunscreen.
6. Against the heat: keep the apartment cool
Nothing is more unpleasant in summer than an heated apartment, because then you can’t sleep at night. A common recommendation is therefore: Dark during the day your rooms with curtains or roller shutters and keep windows closed as possible. Other experts: In the inside, warn against closing the windows. On the contrary, ventilation is important to transport air humidity and carbon dioxide from the apartment. Whether the windows should remain open or to stay depends on several factors – such as the positions of the windows and the sunlight. At night and in the morning you should definitely ventilate extensively.
If you can’t sleep at night: it helps to eat less in the evening and don’t drink alcohol that warms you internally. Also read: cool apartment without air conditioning
Switch off all electrical devices (and not just to stand-by). Experiments to avoid artificial lighting: everything that consumes electricity warms up the room. The absence of electrical appliances – or at least the economical handling of it – does not only help against the heat: you do something good for the environment and wallet. Our tips for saving electricity also help here.
Create free space, because these should also cool. Space, for example, carpets away and tire unnecessary things into the basement. Our tips for mucking out this help. A bad tip for heat: use the fan. It not only swallows a lot of electricity, but makes you sweat more easily and can even lead to the muscles.
7. Tips against heat: Avoid movement in the midday heat
Attempts to do without severe physical exertion – this applies especially to the hot lunch hours. However, you don’t need to do without sport. A little yoga in the shade or jogging is also possible if you do it in the morning or if necessary. It is best if it is still cool or already a little cooler again.
If you cannot take this into account or have to work physically during the heat, you should drink all the more: In this case, ½ to 1 liter per hour is ideal.
8. keep fit against the heat
If you are physically fit and healthy, you are more resilient and can adapt more easily to temperature fluctuations and heat waves. So pay attention to a healthy and balanced diet – ideally organic, regional and seasonal. Move a lot, do without smoking, drink little alcohol.
9. Pay attention to your fellow human beings in the heat
Older people, children and the sick are particularly endangered groups of people and often cannot help themselves. Infants and small children must never be exposed to direct sunlight. Old people often no longer have a pronounced feeling of thirst and forget to drink sufficiently in the heat. If they appear confused, this is often a warning sign that they lack liquid.
Never leave small children or health -weakened people in a parked car – not even for a short leap into the supermarket. This also applies to animals and dogs, because: animals also suffer when heated.
Read more: Heat waves: How hot is too hot for humans?
10. Take climate policy seriously
When the temperatures rise towards 40 ° C, once again, politics is responsible for preparing us for a hotter future – with heat protection plans, better urban planning, more green spaces, reliable infrastructure. And above all: through consistent climate policy that really drives the exit from coal, oil and gas.
But we all also take responsibility. Those who protect themselves protect others. If you choose, decide. And if you act consciously in everyday life, you help to move the bigger whole. Climate protection is not a private matter – but he often starts personally. Nobody could round off this tip better than climate activists Luisa Neubauer:
Read more on utopia.de:
- Avoid sunburn: 10 tips that you should know
- What makes heat with our body?
- The optimal refrigerator temperature
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