FIGHTING HEAT AND HUMIDITY From: canoeist@netcom.com (Mark Zen) Subject: Re: ISO suggestions for fighting heat & humidity Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 14:09:53 GMT Sender: canoeist@netcom14.netcom.com Previously MMedi13720 [mmedi13720@aol.com] wrote this: In article <4qf0gb$p17@anarchy.io.com , tempcrow@io.com (John L. Freiler) writes: I hate to say this, but: Turn your AC off. Become accustomed to the heat. BAM! Wisdom right there! One of the best ways to deal with _ANY_ environmental condition, be it heat/cold, humidity/dryness, or altitude, is through getting used to it. I would recommend taking it just a bit more gradually, though. For example-exercise outdoors, but start the first workout at dawn and move to later parts of the day gradually. Or, start at noon every day, but start easy and work into it. I would do this here in SW MI (88 and humid today) but I already work outdoors, and it's already physical work. When I get home for work, though, I really start wishing for more than an anemic box fan. Mike S. Medintz When i was stationed in the tidewater area, i was miserable at first, colorado is a low humidity state :-) ... but i grew accustomed to it, and that is really what it takes, building up slowly but surely. i worked on a supply ship for a while, hauling all sorts of heavy stuff, from storeroom to storeroom, and it was hell for a while, and i did get used to it. Same when I rode my bicycle around the US & canada. i suffered in florida, with 98oF and 95% humidity. luckily i went gradually south, and acclimated to it ... which i did. mark From: Dunross@dkeep.com (A. T. Hagan) Newsgroups: misc.survivalism Subject: Re: ISO suggestions for fighting heat & humidity Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 15:45:04 GMT Well, it's one thing to get your body accustomed to local heat and humidity conditions, but what about your stuff? Heat and humidity directly equates to rot. The more heat and moisture the faster things will rot. That's what finally brought me around to running the house a/c as much as we do in the summer. I realized that I was fighting a battle of attrition with decay in my books and I was losing! A man can only take just so much Lysol & bleach. If and when the Crash should occur and a/c no longer is practical then a lot of critical books and equipment are going to go into airtight storage. This is going to make everything much more inconvenient to get to, but it beats hell of having my eighty year old encyclopedias rot away in a few years. For as long as we can keep, then we're going to use the a/c. It's our first line in book / equipment/supply defense. I find that the very best way is to eercise out doors on one of the hottest days of the early summer, working up a good sweat and doing so for at least half an hour. _Don ot immeaditly then go running for AC!_ Let your body cool it self down. Yes, you will get stick and uncomfortable. Yes you may even be a bit miserable. But I have found that your body's cooling mechanisms are basicly kind of lazy. You have to force them to realize that it's really summer. Otherwise, you body thinks that it's actually cool out but that you occasionally go to some hot places (as you rush from you AC job to your AC car to your AC home. Ditch it: it makes you weak when it comes to summer heat. Use your AC only when the ouside temperture exceeds 100. (95 with very high hmidity) If you have elderly folks, then some AC is a must, but keep it to a minimum. This is all true enough. Also, wear good protection against the sun. I don't mean sun screen necessarily, but things like broad brimmed hats and long sleeves. There's a reason why most of the long time Florida farmers and ranchers wear thin, cotton long sleeved button up shirts and broad brimmed straw hats. Sure it's not as comfortable as a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, but if you're going to be spending years working in the sun who do you think will have the healthier skin? I'm a shorts and short sleeved shirt man when I'm riding my bike, but when I'm out in the yards for hours cutting the property I wear long sleeves and a hat. My granfather had far too may skin cancers cut off for me to ignore the obvious. We've been in this state for over a century, but most of our genes are still Northern European...