It’s been quite a scorcher this summer thanks to a record heat wave that’s sent the mercury soaring in states from New Mexico to New York. Heat indexes in cities including Washington, D.C., New York City, and even Billings, Montana, have reached triple digits, making time outdoors all but unbearable.

Extreme heat like we’ve been seeing is dangerous because it can cause dehydration, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke. Intense high temperatures can also increase the likelihood you’ll get hurt on the job or have a heart attack, according to an article on the medical news site STAT. Heat can aggravate other health problems, too, including migraines, rheumatoid arthritis, and asthma.

So, if you have to be outdoors on hot days, you need a way to beat the heat fast. The British Red Cross has just the trick to help you cool off quickly — and all it requires is some cold H₂O.

Cool Your Pulse Points

First, find your pulse points. There are nine primary pulse points on your body, and they include the areas where you might dab on perfume — the wrists and neck — as well as your temples, the insides of your elbows and knees, and the tops of your feet.

Pulse points have arteries close to the surface of your skin; the arteries take warm blood from your core to tissues throughout your body.

When it’s hot, you want to cool these pulse points. First, dip your hands and wrists in cold water or hold them under a running faucet for several minutes. Or you can try the U.S. Army version of this trick: They have soldiers submerge their forearms in ice water for a few minutes to cool down. 

If you need to be on the move, you can drape a damp cloth or wrapped ice pack over the back of your neck. This is one of the best spots for quick cooling because it has lots of blood vessels close to your skin’s surface. Finally, you can hold a wrapped ice pack under your armpits, where there are also large blood vessels, if you feel overheated.

Your Inner AC

Cooling these areas chills your skin as well as the blood in the vessels below them, which continues circulating through your body — so essentially, you’re cooling your body from the inside.

You won’t see a dramatic drop in your core body temperature, but you should feel more comfortable. That’s because your core temperature is controlled by the hypothalamus, the part of your brain that acts sort of like an internal thermostat. When your body gets too hot, your hypothalamus triggers several cooling responses, including sweating. As your sweat evaporates, it takes heat away from your body. (This is also why drinking hot beverages on scorching days with low humidity will help you cool down.) 

Chilling your pulse points is a quick way to feel more comfortable with the temperatures outside are soaring. But to prevent overheating and heat stroke, it’s important to stay hydrated, avoid alcohol, take breaks in air conditioning or shade when you must be outdoors, and always wear loose-fitting clothes, a hat, and sunscreen.

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Sweating might feel annoying or embarrassing, but it’s one of your body’s smartest survival tools: Whether you’re dripping through a workout or suddenly sweating during a stressful meeting, perspiration is the main way our bodies regulate their temperature. To do so, millions of sweat glands expel mostly water, which is mixed with small amounts of other substances, such as sodium and chloride. Exactly how much you sweat varies based on genetics, fitness level, climate, and age.

But sweat can also offer clues about hydration, stress, hormones, medication side effects, and overall health. Here’s what your sweat could be trying to tell you.

If You Sweat A Lot

Sweating helps prevent overheating during exercise or time spent in hot weather. Most of the time, excess sweat is normal, but sometimes it can signal physical or emotional changes in the body.

A few medical conditions are associated with oversweating. If you’re extra sweaty without being overheated, working out, feeling stressed, or experiencing another obvious trigger, it may be hyperhidrosis. This skin condition, which is caused by a genetic variation, results in extra sweat, typically on the face, armpits, feet, and hands.

A sudden onset of excessive sweat can also be linked to hormonal fluctuations during pregnancy, perimenopause, and menopause. These changes may trigger hot flashes, characterized by a sudden surge of heat. While hormones are the most likely culprit, general overheating, stress, or consumption of alcohol, caffeine, or spicy food may also contribute.

Night sweats that soak clothing or bedding are also usually hormonal, but they may point to infections, sleep disorders, anxiety, medication side effects, or other medical conditions. You should see a doctor if your night sweats occur regularly, wake you up, are accompanied by symptoms such as a fever or unexplained weight loss, or start long after symptoms of menopause have ended.

If Your Sweat Has a Strong Odor

Stress not only increases sweat production but also makes it stinkier. This happens because there are two types of sweat glands. 

Sweat from overheating is produced by eccrine glands, which are found all over the body. This type of sweat usually doesn’t have much of an odor because it’s mostly water and salt. Stress-related sweating, on the other hand, is produced by apocrine glands, which are mostly found in the armpits and groin area. This sweat contains proteins and lipids that skin bacteria feed on, causing odor.

If persistent body odor doesn’t improve with hygiene, lifestyle, or stress improvements, it can occasionally be linked to conditions such as diabetes, liver disease, or kidney disease. It’s important to notify your doctor of any significant changes in the odor of your sweat.

If Your Sweat Is Salty

We naturally lose salt through sweat, especially during intense exercise. White streaks on clothing or sweat that burns your eyes may indicate higher sodium loss. This is common among endurance athletes or people training in hot conditions. In these cases, replacing electrolytes along with fluids may help maintain hydration. However, certain medications and medical conditions, including cystic fibrosis, can also cause unusually salty sweat.

While salty sweat typically isn’t cause for concern, contact your health care provider if it is accompanied by other symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, confusion, headache, muscle weakness, or cramping. These are signs of hyponatremia, a condition in which blood sodium levels are very low.

If You Barely Sweat

Everyone sweats differently, but if you feel you’re not sweating when you normally would, such as during exercise or in the heat, it could be a sign of a medical condition called anhidrosis. This condition prevents you from sweating normally in at least one area of the body, and it may be caused by genetics, nerve or skin damage, medications, autoimmune conditions, or chronic illnesses.

A major decrease in sweating can also indicate severe dehydration or heat stroke, both of which can be very dangerous. Heat stroke doesn’t always come on suddenly. Nonexertional heatstroke can develop over several days and is more common in those ages 65 and older or those with underlying health conditions. Seek medical attention if you’re not sweating and are experiencing a fever, dizziness, fast pulse, and confusion.

How To Support Healthy Sweating

Because sweating is so important for regulating our bodies, you may be wondering how you can support healthy sweating. Maintaining good hygiene, wearing breathable clothing, managing stress, staying hydrated, and replenishing electrolytes after intense workouts are great ways to support your body’s natural functions. Remember, sweat merely provides clues — professional medical advice matters most for persistent concerns.

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On a blazing summer day, the last thing most people want to do is sip a steaming cup of tea or take a swig of piping-hot coffee. Instead, we usually crave an icy glass of water, seltzer, or lemonade. Drinking a cold beverage feels like we’re both hydrating our bodies and efficiently lowering our core temperature, but science is here to ruin that illusion. If you really want to cool off on a warm day, consider downing that hot drink instead.

The Science of Sweat

It seems counterintuitive, but drinking a hot beverage will actually make you cooler, thanks to blood and sweat.

Sweating is your body’s chief way of regulating body temperature and preventing overheating. When you consume hot food or drinks, the added heat causes your blood vessels to expand (known as vasodilation) and allow more blood to pass through them, distributing the heat from your core to your extremities. Glands in your skin begin producing sweat, which is mostly water combined with some salts and other compounds. The fluid then evaporates from the surface of your skin and transfers the heat from your body to the air around you, cooling you off.

How Hot Drinks Cool You Down

Scientists have even tested the cooling power of hot versus cold drinks in a controlled environment. For a 2012 study, nine male participants rode stationary bikes for an hour and 15 minutes in a lab where the room was kept at 23.6 degrees Celsius (roughly 75 degrees Fahrenheit) with low relative humidity. 

During the ride, participants drank samples of cool, warm, and hot water while wearable sensors measured their skin temperature and the amount of carbon dioxide they produced by breathing, indicating their level of baseline heat resulting from metabolism. 

After the riders drank the cool water, their core body temp decreased, but so did their tendency to sweat. The hot water raised participants’ core temp slightly and, importantly, revved up sweating, which cooled their bodies more efficiently. Ultimately, the hot drinks resulted in lower body temperatures because more sweating eliminated more heat.

For this to work in the real world, though, the surrounding environment must have low relative humidity, the measurement of how much moisture is in the atmosphere. The lower the humidity, the easier it is for sweat to evaporate, whereas higher humidity inhibits sweat evaporation and makes it more difficult for your body to cool off. At about 90% relative humidity, sweat can no longer evaporate from skin.

In a hot, humid environment, drinking cool water — not hot beverages — and remaining hydrated is crucial for avoiding heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

Cold Beverages on Cold Days?

Do the thermoregulatory benefits of a hot drink on a hot day mean you should, inversely, consume cold beverages in cold weather? 

The answer seems to be “no.” A hot drink — ideally between 98.6 degrees and 115 degrees Fahrenheit — will dilate your blood vessels to distribute heat from your core in cold weather just as it does in hot weather. The difference in cold environments is that you’re less likely to lose that heat through sweating. A hot drink will help maintain your core at a toasty temp and make you feel warmer, too. 

A cold drink, conversely, can induce shivering, which does generate body heat. But shivering wouldn’t feel nearly as nice as sipping a mug of hot cocoa on a chilly morning. 

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