Summer is well and truly here in Australia and no doubt you are making the most of the sunshine, beach days and balmy evenings! But, maybe also feeling, at times, hot and bothered. When the heat gets overwhelming, here are some effective ways to cool down that make the most of our body's natural mechanisms and nature's most healing oils.
Cool down your hands and feet first
When our core body temperature is hot, our body will pump blood out to the extremities, our feet and hands, in order to drop heat. This means our hands and feet have lots of blood flowing to them when we are hot, so dunking them in cold water is the fastest way to cool down. Make a nice foot bath with some cold water, add some ice blocks and a few drops of ETTO 100% Tea Tree oil. Allow yourself a meditative moment for 10-15 minutes. Keep a small spray bottle in the fridge with a few drops of Tea Tree Oil and use as a facial, hand and body spritz – this is very refreshing!
This is a better way of cooling our whole body down, as opposed to jumping into a cold shower and immersing our whole body. This is because covering too much of our body in cold will tell our body to constrict blood flow to the skin. It is better to have a lukewarm shower and gently take away the heat.
Drink warm herbal tea
To activate our body’s innate systems to cool the body down we should drink warm beverages as opposed to a glass filled with ice. Drinking a hot or warm beverage, the heat will go into your core body and alerts our systems, telling them we are hotter than we really are. Sweat is one mechanism our body uses to cool down by transferring heat from the tissues to the skin. Why herbal tea? Caffeine free is best as caffeine and alcohol are diuretics, causing us to lose fluids faster. They also can raise our metabolic rate, causing more heat so an herbal tea is ideal.
We've been enjoying ETTO Forest Lungs Tea daily.
Eat yourself cool
In Ayurveda, a traditional medicine practice, they recommend certain food types to help pacify heat in the body. Suggestions include favouring sweet, astringent and bitter foods as opposed to spicy, salty and sour foods. Nature often has already given us the solution so eating what is in season locally can be a helpful starting guide.
Some ideas:
Water rich and sweet fruits: Melons, Grapes, Berries, Peaches
Cooling spices and herbs: coriander, mint, dill, fennel
Lighter oils: coconut, avocado oil
Summer vegetables: leafy lettuce greens, cucumber, cauliflower, summer beets
Make the most of your sweat
When the temperature exceeds 35°C, the only way we can truly cool down our body is by sweating. The heat energy is taken from our body and allows a cooling effect. Our skin is saturated with water vapour from the sweat, but a unit of air can only hold so much water, so with too much sweat on the skin it starts to negate the cooling effects.
Fanning our body (not just our face) helps sweat evaporate and refreshes the air next to our skin because we are not sweating into air that is already saturated. We want to fan our whole body to enhance evaporation to as many parts of the body as possible. So turn on your fans and open the doors when the breeze arrives. We also find that having a diffuser going in the house with Tea Tree and Blue Mallee Eucalyptus oil helps to keep the air fresh and clear, especially if closed up against the heat and both oils have a refreshing and cooling fragrance.
ETTO Tea Tree & Blue Mallee Eucalyptus Oils are 100% pure, unadulterated, grown & steam distilled in Australia.
Nature’s cooling medicinal oil
Tea Tree oil has a cooling and soothing effect on skin. This can be helpful for calming redness, heat rash and mild sunburn. We like to add drops of ETTO 100% Tea Tree to a tepid bath or foot bath (as above).
It also makes a great scalp treatment, not only cooling the head where a lot of heat comes out, but doubling as an anti-fungal treatment for dandruff.
Tea Tree Scalp Treatment:
Add a few drops to some coconut oil and massage into your scalp and hair. Leave in for 20 minutes or so before going to the beach or having a shower and washing your hair. The coconut oil acts as an intense moisturiser, re-hydrating dry and salty locks.
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