I am from Eastern Europe and this is the hottest summer on my memory. For at least 3 consecutive years the heat is breaking all records.
This stuff is unbearable, I can’t even play video games on my laptop, because it warms up very fast and the keyboard becomes uncomfortable for me to use.
So, could you please share any useful tips on how do you survive the summer?
Indian here, so experienced with hot climate.
- Wear loose cotton clothes (long-sleeved if stepping out in the hot sun)
- Keep yourself hydrated.
- Avoid soft/ aerated drinks/ soda & coffee as they’ll dehydrate you. Stick to cool water, ice chips, fresh lemonade made with water, fresh fruit juices, melons, spinach-cucumber-onion-tomato salads, yoghurt,
- Eat light.
- Stick to well-ventilated rooms with good air-circulation (fans help)
- Cold water showers to cool down
- Sweating is good. It’ll cool you down. This is also why Indians eat spicy food and drink hot tea even in hottest summer. Get sweaty then take a quick cold-water rinse.
- If you have to step outside in the hot sun, umbrella, hats, caps etc are your friends.
- Wet towel on the back of the neck for a quick cool down.
ETA: When it gets so hot that we lose our appetite, then our go-to meal is to mix up cooled cooked rice with unsweetened yoghurt and a pinch of salt. its variously called yoghurt rice/ curd rice/ thayir saadam / dahi bhaath / dahi chaawal . This is an easy to make & easy to diges meal that is guaranteed to cool a person down.
thayir = dahi = curd = yoghurt
saada = bhaath = chaawal = cooked riceGood luck.
I’d make one exception: cotton wants to hold water. Evaporative cooling needs water to evaporate. There are synthetic materials that will hold much less water, so they’ll weigh less from sweat and evaporate more quickly, providing a tiny bit more cooling. Plus many have protection from the sun reducing the amount of sunscreen that has to be worn.
There are a line of shirts known as “fishing shirts” that are made to be big, and they have vents to encourage air to circulate inside them. They work great.
its hot, water will evaporate no matter what the cotton wants. the longer the fabric stays wet, the longer the wearer will be cool.
Why cotton instead of linen? At least in Spain, linen is more popular as summer clothing, and definitively feels fresher.
Cost. Cotton is less expensive than linen, easier to maintain, and more widely available. Banana fiber is also quite cool but is not widely available.
When the weather hits 40⁰ around here I might head to the cinema. They’re usually really well temperature controlled, dark and allows you to get out of the sun when it’s at its height. Nights when it doesn’t cool down are harder.
You want to get some nice blackout thermal curtains for any windows facing south. You might actually need 2 sets of curtains to fully block the sun. I’ve noticed a big difference this year since I added a 2nd thermal curtain on top of the 1 I had. Unfortunately that only helps so much and as long as it’s unbearably hot outside you’re going to see the heat increase inside as the day goes on. At night open all of your windows and run fans to get as much airflow as possible while it’s cooler outside. In the morning close your windows the minute the outside temperature is the same as the inside temperature. As long as it’s cooler outside, the windows should be open.
Houses are built differently in hot areas. Very few windows facing south. Shutters on all windows. All windows deeply recessed. Channel the wind, ie have a deep through channel that spans across the house so any pressure differential causes air to exchange. Tiled floors. No/low insulation.
In Northern Europe, we live in sweat boxes designed for letting in maximum light and keeping heat inside the house.
I do construction work in Alabama. I basically bitch and complain all summer long and hate every second of it. There’s no relief unless you’re in the AC. I’ve been thinking of ordering a liquid cooled vest actually. They look weird but I’ll try anything. The humidity here is killer. Sweating doesn’t help like it does in dry climates. Every time I walk outside my body shuts down and I have literally no energy. I think i had a heat stroke last summer.
If someone above me tells me to go work outside all day and doesn’t offer me a substantial amount of money, I tell them to go fuck themselves. It isn’t worth it.
As a European, what is this AC you’re talking about.
Houses in Europe usually don’t have AC, but more and more people are getting one now.
In the American southeast, especially in a river Delta, you can’t live in a house long without AC or a dehumidifier. Mold will grow to toxic levels quickly in a house that’s left without electricity for very long in areas around me.
We have trouble opening our front door in the summer when the temp gets above 38 due to the humidity causing the wood door to swell. The heat index reached 47 last week due to the high humidity so there’s a ton of water in the air.
This is what killed around 700 people during one heat dome event in Canada a few years back. So much humidity in the air that sweating wasn’t helping cool people. You body can’t cool so you overheat and die. Not all people died from that but they were attributed to heat causes.
The one thing I don’t see mentioned enough for keeping your apartment cool is to close all windows and draw all curtains during the day and open them when the temperature outside is lower than that inside (normally ~an hour after sunset).
Heat reflects off all surface, so it’s not just about keeping light out.
Blinds on the outside of your windows help significantly too.
I wish the temperature outside dropped below my house temp. If I run AC at even a money saving 83 degrees inside, the exterior doesn’t drop below that until around 6am.
Totally. Blows my mind that people can’t seem to understand that if it’s hotter outside than inside, the inside won’t get any cooler by opening windows.
Last summer in London (42 C!!) we became a box of shadows during the day. Keep the cool inside.
If the dew point is favorable at least, then drinking Hot Coffee and let myself sweat in front of an Electric Fan. If it is very humid, Ice on neck or taking a cold shower.
If I had to go outside or Air conditioning at the office broke, then I’d wear light clothing where sweat is easier to evaporate
Otherwise, I’d just use air conditioning and eat up the electricity cost, fuck this weather.
Drinking hot liquids is the last thing you should be doing if you are trying to cool yourself down.
If you are looking to evaporation to cool you then splashing some water on you and sitting in front of the fan is a better idea.
The principle is to heat up the body in order to signal it to sweat.
My point is you can do that without heating up your body since the goal is to cool you down.
Get a desktop. Despite what people are going to tell you, laptops are not an optimal choice for gaming. It usually always comes down to the fact that those little tiny cases are not efficient at removing heat.
Over heating and under performing is the typical story for gaming laptops.
Bands making those gaming laptops are the only one telling you they are ideal.
Desktop is mostly largely superior in any aspects except size and weight.
The comment is kinda bold but I can’t blame you since you don’t know anything about me and stuff
I have a desktop it’s specs are on par with laptop’s ones. I don’t use desktop nowaday because it’s a less power efficient option whilst I can accomplish all tasks on my laptop. No, I didn’t buy a “gaming” laptop, lmao, they’re all a joke. I only mentioned videogames since I play them occasionally and it was a good example of how bad the heat was at the time
Close the windows, curtains and shades during the day, at around 8-9AM. When it’s very warm outside, open windows are your enemy.
Open windows, curtains and shades during the night when temperature is lowering.
This is good advice to follow even if you do have air conditioning. Keeping the heat out makes the AC work less. Maybe invest a nice set of thermal curtains.
This is not good advice for poorly insulated houses, which most are that live in temperate climates. The sun will heat up the house almost immediately, making it an oven.
Like all advice obtained on the internet, YMMV.
Honestly, I just love the heat. I strip down to as few layers as possible, put a fan on, and that’s pretty much it. Even when it gets really hot, I still find that easier than the cold. The question I really want to know is how do people deal with the cold!
how do people deal with the cold
The good old you can always add more layers. The coldest temperature I ever experienced in my region was -26°C, the hottest just over 40. Between the two, I much prefer the former.
But then again, it just boils down to what you’re used to. Our winters have always been on the harsher side, and I’m not even far up north.
Every new heatwave has me holding on for dear life. Judging by recent years, my body will have to adapt sooner than later, otherwise I’m going to have a really bad time going forward.
The good old you can always add more layers
This is the main reason I don’t like cold weather. I hate layers! :)
My issue with hot weather is that around 25°C i run out of layers to remove to stay comfortable, and I can’t even get to that point if I’m anywhere outside my own home because running around naked in public is sadly not socially acceptable. So when temps reach 35 outdoors I just feel like dying as even indoors tends to heat up to >30 if the temps stay for a few days.
I’m the opposite. I live in the midwestern US so when it’s hot, it’s also humid. If my room is above 72F I can’t even sleep, I just sweat right through the sheets. On the other hand, when it’s 40F out, I’ll open my windows and sleep in my boxers.
I’m the opposite. I live in the midwestern US so when it’s hot, it’s also humid
I live in sub tropical Australia. Humid days sit in the mid 80s for humidity, and the summer highs gets to around 33c (92f), though there are days that get hotter than that.
That’s when you’ll get me in as few layers as possible.
But the temperature drops to anything in single digits Celsius (below 50F) and I basically can’t operate. I stop riding my bike, I stop running, and I just hide inside.
fan and cooler during dry heat, onlyfans during humid heat after rain, get cotton vest for upper body and cotton bermuda shorts, get external keyboard and a laptop stand with fans for laptop.
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honestly i wouldn’t masturbate during humid heat after rain
Before it I would say, so you can wash all the cum away.
Lots of fans.
So many solutions and yours is Onlyfans?
I’m late to this party because I’m on the other side of the planet in a sub-tropical climate. I agree with the commenter from India and want to add:
• if you have a cotton cap / beanie / soft hat, get it out Wet it, wring it out, and put it in your freezer in roughly the right shape for your head. Use whatever is in the freezer to shape it, then let it freeze. Remove from freezer, put it in your head, and thank me for the brief but blessed relief.
• Wear a light cotton long sleeve top. Wet the sleeves and stand or sit in front of a fan or in a breezy spit in the shade. It’s like air conditioning for your skin.
• Wet your head for instant relief. Your wet hair will help keep you cool for longer.
• Plan your day around the heat. If you have to go out, do it as early in the day as you can to avoid the heat. Stay in the shade as much as possible, but somewhere with good air flow
I live in South Vietnam. I stay inside for the hours between 12 and generally 3-4. If I’m outside during those hours, I stay still as much as possible. Always have a drink: lite tea is common here. Avoid direct sun, cover exposed areas of skin when traveling. Evaporative cooling is your friend. You can keep a small spray bottle of water with you. Fans heat up a room if the room isn’t vented, so keep the fan on, but crack the door if you don’t have AC.
I’m originally from a city quite close to Canada, known for harsh winters, and now I live in a place where 40c is common. If the temperature gets too high, or you begin feeling sick/dizzy. Find a place to cool down and hydrate. Heat stroke is no joke.
wet your head
For some reason, I’ve never really thought about this. I splash my face, my neck, wet my arms and legs, but I always forget the top of my head.
Maybe I unconciously assume my hair provides good shade, but it’s definitely not long and thick enough for that.
plan your day around the heat
This is probably the most important part. It’s quite easy to do that on weekends, but many people have their set in stone hours at work that just aren’t compatible with that kind of weather.
We need to figure out how employers can be more flexible with allowing their employees to work around the heat when possible. It’s normal for construction workers to start earlier and pause during the hottest hours, why not do that in the office too?
Some middle-european countries are starting to consider the siesta model of their southern neighbours, and I think that’s not a bad idea at all.
Here in Australia a lit of road construction works are carried out overnight in the summer. This helps beat the heat, which improves safety, but also improves safety by ensuring work is being carried out when there’s the least amount of traffic next to the work zones.
Less traffic is something I didn’t even think about, but that’s absolutely a big added benefit. Especially when so many people don’t seem to care about speed limits in construction zones. Well, here at least, I don’t know about Australia.
I don’t envy the people who do roadside work, it must be incredibly stressful. Hearing protection, helmet and visor protect them, but also make it harder to notice approaching traffic.
I would probably be jumpscared every time a truck suddenly appears in my peripheral.
If you’re without an ac in Europe I highly suggest getting a simple window unit for your room. They are easy to install. Be sure to seal your door so the air doesn’t escape. Portable ac units are known to be very inefficient, be wary of those. Cold showers help in extreme circumstances. Block all sources of light. Blackout curtain or just some covers over the windows. Keep humidity below 60% if you can, dehumidifiers will help but larger ones will rack up your electric bill quick.
The problem is that the windows might not be suitable for window units. For instance in the Netherlands our windows typically tilt or turn (like a door) open, they don’t slide up. The walls and ceilings are usually solid brick or concrete, so you can’t hide ducts in there for central AC. That leaves a split unit in one room or a portable unit.
Blocking the light made a huge difference in my house. I have are 3 small skylights on the south side that now have sun shades on the outside. They still let in some light, but it’s at least 5c cooler on the top floor.
Oh well, that sucks. Guess a portable unit would work in this case. Could just jimmy the pipe and make a diy block for the window itself. It’s just a simple tube that sticks out the window. Good to know a bit about them before getting one.
Here’s a great video on the topic
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If AC isnt an option, the way Ive gotten through summers without is opening one window on one side of the building, then another one on the opposite side. Then point a box fan facing outward of one window, and do your best to seal the gaps with some cardboard or whatever you have. This will create negative pressure in the building, drawing in a bunch of air from the opposite window.
Actually it is better to put the fan a few feet away from the window pointing out.
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