Summer stress

It’s hot. That’s something we all can agree on. Of course, it is July. It’s been just a little warmer than average, but the humidity has also remained higher than typical. Those ingredients conspire to make you perspire. With a handful of days like that, back to back, it creates stress on your body.

Heat indexes have been over 105 degrees for quite a few days. The heat index is a gauge for how your body feels, given the combination of temperature and humidity. As the heat index rises, we all become more vulnerable to heat-related illnesses like heat exhaustion, heat cramps or heat stroke. Stay hydrated. Limit your time outside between late morning and late afternoon. Find shade if you must be outside. Don’t overexert yourself. You’ve heard all this before, but excessive heat is a contributing factor to other negative health conditions, especially as we age. You’re already older than you were when you started reading this. 

Start with perspiration. Not exactly dinner table conversation, but sweat is your body’s way of regulating temperature. When sweat or any liquid evaporates from your skin, it cools you. The liquid takes the heat from the air to be converted to vapor. This is why after you tiptoe out of a hot shower in your birthday suit, you feel cool before you dry off.

 When you exit the shower into a bathroom that you thoroughly fogged up with water vapor, you don’t cool off much. That’s our outdoor summertime scenario. There is so much moisture hanging in the air that your perspiration does not evaporate as readily, so your body can’t rid excess heat. Hot, humid air stresses your body and can become dangerous. This is where the expression, “It ain’t the heat, it’s the humidity,” shows truth. It’s actually the dew point temperature, not the relative humidity that directly helps you figure out your comfort. Dew point is analogous to absolute humidity.

 Our dew point temperatures have held in the mid-70s, with usual fluctuations. That gives the environment a constant tropical feel. When you venture outside from your climate-controlled cocoon, where the temperature was 70 degrees, condensation immediately happens on your glasses or cellphone because those objects cooled the air touching them, to the dew point. Get the point? The dew point in a hotter place like Phoenix is often in the 50s this time of year. That supports the expression, “It’s a dry heat,” because your sweat quickly evaporates there to give a little relief.

 Don’t underestimate the cumulative stress of multiple days of high temperatures and humidity. Check up on family and friends who might not be able to find a cool spot. Don’t you dare leave a person or animal in a locked car in the heat, even if it’s cloudy. While your cat and dog don’t perspire as we do, dogs pant to cool down, and cats lick their fur to allow evaporation. I guess cats are smarter.