Health Management
Health Management – Staying Comfortable During Summer
By Haruko Yanagita
What type of things are you doing to stay comfortable while you are in Japan? Japan has a different climate than that of your homeland. One major characteristic of Japan’s climate is the fact that there are four distinct seasons. In this month’s issue, we will give you some useful advice on how to stay comfortable during the hot summer that is almost upon us. We want to recommend that you all take care of your physical state, and try to manage your health more effectively.
● Why do you lack energy in summer?
A lack of energy can be caused by taking in too much fluid when it is very hot, which causes the functioning of your stomach to decline, resulting in loss of appetite and poor nutrition. You can also feel lacking in energy when you aren’t getting enough sleep and you wake up still feeling tired. Also, if you have your air conditioner set too low, the overcooling of your body, as well as the difference in temperature between your cool room and outside can cause your autonomic nervous system to become imbalanced. When you feel listless and your body feels heavy, your mental and physical stamina declines, and you are unable to focus on your training or technical internship. To ensure that this doesn’t happen, you should take care in the following areas:
1.Drink enough fluids when you’re sweating
When you are sweating, try to drink fluids at normal temperatures. Drinking fluids that are too cold will weaken
your stomach. Sweet juices and carbonated drinks are easy to drink, and so you might drink too much of them, but this can actually cause your stomach function to decline.
2.Take a good soak in a lukewarm bath to prevent or recover from summer lethargy During the heat of summer, it’s probably the case that many people make do with just showering, but there are a number of merits to having a good soak in a bath.
Taking a bath can remove fatigue products from your body, reducing feelings of listlessness and fatigue. Baths can also effectively combat summer fatigue in other ways – it promotes the circulation of the blood, it eases any chill you may have gotten from spending too much time in front of the air conditioner, and it relaxes you, helping you to get a good night’s sleep.
3.Health management during summer begins with regulating your body temperature
Although we know that it is bad for us, when it’s very hot we tend to leave the air conditioner on all night. When you wake up in the morning, you find that your body is listless, your head is heavy, and your hands and feet are chilled. Have you ever had this experience? If you spend a lot of time in air-conditioned rooms every day, it’s only natural that it will have a negative effect on your body. For example, if you continually cool yourself down with an air-conditioner, your autonomic nervous system can become accustomed to such temperatures, and even though it tries to raise your body temperature, your body doesn’t warm up.
There are probably many among you who have lived until now in countries where it is hot the year round, and you sweat naturally from your whole body, which enables you to cool your body down. It is probably also the case that some people have found that their physical condition has declined after coming to Japan and spending long periods in workplaces with air-conditioners switched on to the maximum. At least when you’re away from your workplace, why not try switching the air-conditioner off for a couple of hours a day, and let yourself sweat in the natural breeze. If you continue this for about two weeks, you will find that you become able to quickly sweat from your whole body when it becomes hot. But don’t forget to drink fluids when you start to sweat.
4.Heat exhaustion can be frightening, but is preventable
We tend to think of heat exhaustion as something that occurs when people play sport or work outside under a blazing hot sun. However, there are cases in which people have developed heat exhaustion and even died from it when the temperature hasn’t been extremely hot. But if you know how, heat exhaustion can definitely be prevented. When you go outside on a hot day, you should try to wear light clothes to spread the heat, and it is also a good idea to wear a hat if possible. Also, you should ensure that you drink fluids before you get thirsty. When you feel thirsty, your body is already a little dehydrated.
If you aren’t feeling well, then you shouldn’t go out or perform strenuous activities on hot days. The same applies to times when you haven’t slept well or you are hung-over.
- To prevent heat exhaustion, you must ensure that you do not become dehydrated
The key to preventing heat exhaustion is to make efforts to prevent yourself from becoming dehydrated by taking in as much fluid as you sweat out. Normally, a person will sweat about 350 ml a day. In summer, though, just sitting in your room at 29°C can make you sweat 125 ml in an hour. If you walk around outside you can sweat 500 ml in an hour, and the amount can be as much as 2 liters an hour if you are performing vigorous activities outdoors.
- Humidity can also result in dehydration
The level of moisture in the air is also a factor in causing dehydration. When the moisture level exceeds 75%, sweat does not evaporate, but forms droplets and just runs down the surface of your skin, without performing its role of lowering your body temperature. If your body temperature does not get lower, your body will produce more sweat, and this is a situation that can easily lead to dehydration.
In Japan’s summer, the level of moisture in the air can exceed 80%, resulting in a very high risk of dehydration.
Because of this, you need to take measures to resist the humidity, such as wiping your body with a cold towel to help the sweat evaporate, changing your underwear frequently, etc.