With temperatures expected to reach mid 30 degrees centigrade in the UK this week, and forecasts of temperatures to reach 40 degrees over the next few weeks, means that heat will become a major source of stress .
Heat stress, like other sources of stress can have a detrimental impact upon our health especially children, the elderly and pets. The common mistake of drink cold fluids to cool our selves is in fact will have precisely the opposite impact. When we drink something cold, our body reacts as though we are exposed to a cold winter day, and as expected the body will try and heat itself up through a process known as Vasoconstriction, where our blood vessels constrict in order to conserve the heat as opposed to release the heat. The second mistake we often make is to minimise our clothing, yet again, this simply exposes our bodies to more heat and more sun.
Drinking something cold makes your body react as though it is cold and thus retain heat, drinking something hot will cool the body down because as the warm liquid enters our body, the body reacts by dilating our blood vessels and thus releasing heat.
Like any other forms of stress, we can all take precautions to ensure we minimise its impact on our physical, mental and emotional health. Meditation offers a simple yet highly effective method of managing stress, improving our mental, emotional and physical health.
EXERCISES
Mindfulness (by Dav Panesar)
Symran (by Dav Panesar)
The worlds first stress self-diagnosis, monitoring and management system www.stresskey.com
