Drink water at room temperature, avoid cold showers, dry very damp laundry indoors… Here are some tips to avoid heatstroke, when the east and south-east of the country are concerned , Tuesday, by a new heatwave episode.
The hot weather is back in France. Nine departments located in the south-east of the country, from the Côte-d’Or to the Var, are placed on orange vigilance in the heat wave by Météo France, Tuesday July 11. SO that many French people live in accommodation that is not, if at all, adapted to heat waves, franceinfo offers you some practical solutions to cool you down without buying an air conditioner.
Drink water at room temperature, avoid cold showers, dry very damp laundry indoors, eat fruits and vegetables… Here are five tips to avoid suffocating without using the air conditioning, which is responsible for almost 5% of CO2 equivalent emissions from the building sector in France, according to Ademe.
Drink water, but not too cold
If it is obviously necessary to drink water regularly when it is hot, doctors advise against drinking it too cold. “Drinking very cold is counterproductive, explained doctor Jimmy Mohamed on franceinfo in 2022. When you drink very cold, you have thermoreceptors in the human body that will say ‘Body temperature is dropping, you need to warm up’. So, paradoxically, you’re not going to quench your thirst.”
It is therefore necessary to favor water at room temperature. What about hot drinks? “A hot tea makes you sweat all of a sudden. You have a heat stroke, which makes you evacuate heat since you are going to sweat”advises the general practitioner.
Refresh your hands and avoid cold showers
Taking a cold shower is highly inadvisable. This would also risk having a counter-productive effect: the body that will receive cold water will fight against this feeling of cold by… producing heat. “Man is a homeothermic animal [sa température moyenne est constante et indépendante du milieu ambiant]. When it is cold, it produces heat internally and externally”, explains to HuffPost Brigitte Trégoüet, general practitioner, who advises to favor a shower at temperature “normal”.
Another trick is to immerse your hands or feet, which act as regulators of the human body, in a tub of cold water for about ten minutes. “If your core temperature is high, your body will send blood to the extremities in order to lose heat,” explains Mike Tipton, professor of applied human physiology at the University of Portsmouth, to the BBC Science Focus site. The specialist considers this technique much more effective than spraying your face with cold water.
Keep a temperate interior
To avoid heat stroke, it is essential to maintain a suitable temperature in the accommodation. “The easiest way to keep your home cool this summer is to keep the heat out”, warns the Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe), which lists a few tips: close windows and shutters during the day, but also ventilate and make drafts in the morning, in the evening and during the night so that the walls and floors cool down. It is also advisable to turn off household appliances as much as possible.
Create natural cooling
Other more ingenious tricks exist. Julien Dossier, director of the consulting firm Quattrolibri, advises in The world to dry very damp laundry inside the rooms, but also to moisten a terracotta pot and place it in a sunny place. As they dry, linen and terracotta will release water through evaporation, which will cool the room. “In India, the method of beehivecoolingwhich consists of stacking terracotta pots in front of houses, creates a temperature differential of more than 10°C between the outside and the inside”he explains.
Eat raw fruits and vegetables
The fight against dehydration also requires a suitable diet. The Ministry of Health advises giving priority to “raw fruits and vegetables and cold dishes”, for example cucumber, lettuce, radish, tomato, melon or watermelon. IDairy products, which contain a lot of water, such as fruits and vegetables, are also recommended. Sugar-based products should be consumed in moderation, as should alcohol.