how do you keep cool?

Yet again we in the Uk are suffering a heatwave! how do you peeps in the US manage to keep cool?

suggestions please!

Wear cotton clothes, go outside and get real sweaty and then come in to the a/c, or sit under a fan. If you go outside early in the morning, before it gets really hot, you adjust better as it heats up. But stay out of direct sun, and be sure to drink plenty of water, preferably not iced. It helps to keep you cool.

POOL-here in michigan its been a mild summer! ;( i want a HEATWAVE!!!!

Keeping cool takes a little work sometimes. In addition to what Aimee suggested for clothing, cotton yes, but loose cotton, t-shirts and tank tops are warmer than a light button up style, you want lots of air circulation so the heat can leave your body. If you keep your house closed up during the day and open it up in the evening when the outside temperature is cooler than the inside and then push the hot air out with a fan or two that will cool the house for the next day. In the morning close everything when the outside temp and inside are about the same again. Keep shades or curtains closed on the sunny side of the house. When you have to go outside try not to stay out too long, take lots of cool off breaks, sponge your face, head, neck, arms with cool water and just let it evaporate. Avoid coffee and tea, also alcohol, they tend to dehydrate you, instead drink lots and lots of water, and fruit juice. We don't have air conditioning so this is how we manage the heat of summer.

I presume you mean when working outside.

I like to wear a tank top, or muscle shirt with a button up over it, unbuttoned. All cotton, of course. I wear a headband - just a strip from an old cotton t-shirt, and a kneck band thing (like Coco's cooler things) cool and wet. I take frequent breaks, but don't go into the house (AC) too often. I collapse on my swing in the shade and guzzle cold water. I wash my hands in cool water often (your wrists are like your kneck, keep them cool, they help keep the rest of you cool) And I follow the shade.

I have worst tan lines ...

Cheri'

I meant keeping cool in general Cheri. I was listening to the radio and people were coming up with some wonderful suggestions. I wondered what you folks would also come up with. If I am not working on the allotment I always wear a cotton dress and let the breeze blow through!;) I also leave all the doors in the house open and let the draft blow through.

Talking of bad tan lines I have the worst one on my back. When working on my allotment my tops always ride up as I am bent over. I have a very brown strip about 4 inches wide all the way across and looks very peculiar! :)

you should see my tan lines... Southern Georgia tans you up pretty well and I've worn boots for 12+ years, never really being barefoot outside.

I literally have white feet that look like I have socks on.

do I need to take a picture of this? *laugh*
Drew

I keep cool a lot in the fashion MaryE described, except I turn on an attic fan about mid-day. (No AC here either.) I also keep a damp cotton dish-drying cloth around my neck if I'm working outside in the heat. When the cloth gets warm, just take it off, and sling it around by one corner several times. Chills it right down again.

When I lived in Kansas, we had a window fan that had a wall of recirculating water that the fan blew over and into the house.

hey DR, my DH has those same socks! LOL!!

DeepRoots, to answer your question....yes!

the weathermen lastnight were predicting that we may break our UK record this week by hitting 100 degrees on Wednesday!! :((

the national news also showed how heatwaves in europe and Canada have triggered huge fires that are out of control. Who says there is no global warming!! :)

Is it any wonder those old swimming holes were so popular years ago when people didn't have electricity? I have often wondered how the women survived wearing all those petticoats and sitting up properly, and why more of them didn't "swoon". My grandparents never cooked after mid-morning, it was just too hot. They started the cooking before dawn, and shut it down when breakfast dishes were finished. But the poor things still had to do field work through the summer. Of course, they came in during the hottest hours and sat around under shade trees or on the porch, drinking gallons of tea and well water. Everyone had a supply of cardboard fans and would sit there lazily fanning them back and forth. Ah, the lazy, hazy days of summer.

Be sure to put a few ice cubes in your pets' water bowls.

"sitting around under shade trees" pretty much describes my favorite way to cool down! Besides being out of the sun, the air under a big mature tree is at least 10F cooler than being in the shade of a building. So much evaporation going on that it naturally cools the air :) My favorite shade tree also shades most of the house roof; it is on the SE side. About 60' tall and almost that much wide.

We usually turn on the basement fan before the AC. The basement is always 55F, and a whole-house fan puts that nice cool air through the house. A big attic fan removes the hot stuff. Works great until it is above 90.

Ditto all the advice from to tell you to avoid strenuous activity in mid-day. Just keep drinking water and keep your salt intake high enough. Perspiring is the best way to keep cool.

That is my problem I never drink enough water!
but I certainly know how to perspire!! :S since I had my medication altered I sweat like a pig!!! :(( :D

Psilo, one thing you have to be careful of in high heat is that you can perspire too much and lose too much potassium as well as throw off your electrolyte balance. If you find your muscles starting to cramp up, eat a banana for the potassium and drink Gator-ade (do you have that there?) for the electrolytes.

gater ade!!:O thats not made from Alligators is it?? no we dont have that here.

Actually I already eat bananas up at the plot because I find them the easiest thing to eat up there. I dont have a problem with cramp but I do have a problem with my hips seizing up after I have worked non stop for the last 7 hours!! :S :D

Lupinelover, I would love it if I had a tree like you describe. I only have pines, and with the storms we've been having the green pine cones are coming down in droves. Been wacked in the head a couple of times. Aha - maybe that's what's wrong with me. We're supposed to have rain all week, it's so hot and humid.

I like to put witch hazel in the refrigerator and wet a face cloth and put it on my neck.

And I love to dip my toes into a nice cool bucket of water along with my wrists, when I really overdo. I keep small bottles of water in the freezer and let them slowly thaw while I work, the bottle also works great on the neck and wrists!

My grandparents always had dinner at lunch, it was the big meal of the day and supper was dinner and was leftovers. Too hot to cook again.
As far as the heat and humidity goes, I just tell myself this is Florida, it is hot, that is why you are here and go on with whatever I have to do.

psilo, there was a blurb on the news last evening about your heat wave. They said even the underground 'tubes' are over 90 degrees.

Gatorade is a beverage that the Univ. of Florida football coaches ('Gators) developed for their team to replenish electrolytes lost playing in the heat. It became a commercial hit, first with the sports crowd, and now everywhere. Comes in several flavors.

The UK travel network is pathetic in extremes of weather. In winter it is the wrong type of snow on the tracks that delays them. This week the trains have a 60mph speed restriction on them because they are afraid the tracks will warp. A bit extra sun and this country falls apart. Other countries manage it why cant we???

garotade sounds like lucozade. Do you get that in the US?

not any here, psilo. Of course, I live in a small town hundreds of miles away from a big city...

Any of those sports drinks that athletes use would probably have the right stuff in them. Here is a home made sports drink recipie that came off healthcentral.com Dissolve a tablespoon of sugar and a pinch of salt in a tablespoon of orange juice, add 7 1/2 oz of water. Sorry I don't have the metric equivalents but maybe somebody else can help.

When I have to work outside, I wear a loose cotton T-shirt, loose jeans, a straw hat over a damp towel, or CoCo's Cool Tie (thank's CoCo). Drink lots of cool water, not iced. I work early in the morning until about 10:30, then come into the air-conditioning. Here everything is air-conditioned. When you see a car with the windows rolled down, you know they are tourists. Temperature yesterday and today, over 100 with a heat/humidity index of 105-110. But that's not unusual for summer in Texas.
Bill

Why doesnt anyone drink water with ice in it?

I am in the business of selling heating and air conditioning, so I would welcome any heatwave that comes our way. Some rain could be included as well to create humidy. I go out in the garden during the day for short periods, but mostly I do it in the evening after the sun sets.

Psilo, I love iced water. I don't really care for room temperature water.

And my bottle of frozen water is VERY iced!

Violabird, I do the same thing with freezing water in bottles. I take them everywhere I go. The ice lasts for hours and you can keep adding water to it to get cold. It's great for walking around fairs and zoos and places like that. I'm trying to rig up some kind of belt for it so my hands can be free...it's hard mowing the lawn one-handed!

PSILO - In Europe ice water is hard to come by. In restaurants you can buy bottled water which I guess is cold. In one place I asked for water out of the tap and was served without charge. I do not understand this, but it was good to get back home where ice water is commonly served in restaurants and readily available in homes.

I also found ice rather scarce in the UK when I was there in 1984. Warm soda, warm beer, and warm water.

I love to drink ice water.

This message was edited Wednesday, Aug 6th 10:24 PM

Got that one! I use a plain old plastic bag (grocery) and tie it to the backside of the steering wheel--tie it right and the bottle slips right in an out!

In the garden, (when I remember,) I take my waitress-like apron and put it on backwards, Gotta balance it tho ;0)

Ice water gives me a headache if it HOT outside. Hurts to drink it so I drink only uniced water when working.

Psilo: In answer to your question "why doesn't anyone drink water with ice in it?" In my case, when it is very hot outside, ice water hurts my throat and gives me a headache. And it is very hot! At 10:20 PM Central Time, it is 91 degrees. Forecast for the next five days is 100-105.

You can get your own personal "mister" to spray a cool mist on you http://www.pimall.com/nais/articmist.html or the "cool band scarf" or vest http://www.horseboots.com/srx2.html
I'm too cheap for either of these so I just turn the hose on myself.

psilo,
in answer to your question how do keep cool....I think you've already discovered one way ....commisserate with folks in hotter climes like Aimee, etexbill and myself. Today it was 108 with 37% humidity. The thought of turning on the attic fan to blow all that pent up boiling air around isn't an option for us. We had an extra layer of insulation blown in and have installed a couple of turbines to help the heat excape, but the new a/c unit is still outpaced by outside temps. I do believe if you acclimate yourself to it earlier in the day it helps. There were many other good suggestions about remaining hydrated, etc. I have to be careful about crouching for long periods of time and then suddenly standing up...I've almost passed out a few times from the sudden change in blood pressure combined with heat. Ironic that I'm looking forward to leaving for Page, Az...the desert..on vacation and will enjoy cooler temps. Good luck keeping your cool.

Iced water is not available in the UK. Sometimes you can buy icecubes in bags in the supermarkets and ice is used in pubs but other than that forget it. We are just not used to having hot summers so we are not clued up enough.

109 here yesterday. I doubt many can stay cool in those temps...we do outside chores early in the morning, stay in the rest of the day if at all possible.

I'm with Vi. I put bottles of water in the freezer. Then it takes a while to melt. The bottle also feels great when I put it next to my forehead too. Do you have Pedialyte in GB? It's usually comes in quarts here, and it is given to babies who have had diarrhea and they have an electrolyte imbalance. We were told in our nursing class that it is better than Gatorade for imbalances and you're never too old to drink it. Linda

no Merkat - we have immodium for that. It comes in sachets (flavoured orange or blackcurrant) and you mix it with water before putting it in the bottle/cup.

Ill bet yours tastes nicer though! :S