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It's been noticeably hot in Malaysia lately, with temperatures soaring up to 31°C
This seemingly endless summer, while sunny and pleasant in some ways, can really wear you out, especially if you're spending time outdoors. When the heat cranks up, it's easy to get dehydrated or for your body temperature to spike.
Heat can lead to serious and even deadly health issues such as heat exhaustion and heatstroke. It can also trigger sudden medical emergencies like heart attacks or strokes, or make existing health problems, like kidney or lung disease, worse.
While extreme heat can affect anyone, some people are more vulnerable. This includes older adults (over 65), infants and young kids, pregnant individuals, or those with chronic or acute health problems.
Here are a few tips to help you cope with the high temperatures
1. If you're outdoors, consider adjusting your clothing options
Choose loose-fitting clothes made from natural fabrics like cotton or linen. The important thing is to let air flow easily between the fabric and your skin. This helps your sweat evaporate, which is how your body cools down naturally. Tight clothing just traps heat and moisture.
It might seem obvious, but wearing light colours like white or pastels really helps because they bounce sunlight and heat away. Dark colours soak up the heat, making you feel much hotter.
Think about wearing long sleeves and trousers too. It might seem strange when it's hot, but thin, loose, and light-coloured long sleeves and pants can actually keep you cooler if you're in direct sunlight. They stop the sun's rays from directly heating your skin, and if they're loose, you still get airflow so your sweat can evaporate.
2. A quick and proven way to expel heat from your body is to submerge your feet in cold water
Soaking your feet in cold water can be a surprisingly effective way to cool down.
Since your feet have a lot of sweat glands and blood vessels close to the surface, they're really good at releasing heat. Submerging them in cool water helps lower your overall body temperature quite quickly. It's a simple but neat trick!
3. If you're indoors and it's still hot, you could exploit the power of evaporative cooling
A simple way to cool down is to wet a light towel or sarong and place it around your neck or shoulders. As the water evaporates, it takes heat away from your skin, which can really help you feel cooler. Just wet it again when it dries out. It's an old trick, but it works well.
Another idea is to take several short, cool showers or rinses throughout the day instead of one long one. This helps to lower your body's core temperature. Make sure to focus on cooling down the spots where you can easily feel your pulse, like your wrists, neck, and ankles.
You can also use water features to cool the air around you. Even something as simple as a small pond, a fountain, or even just some big bowls of water placed in the right spots can help to cool down the area as the water evaporates.
4. Understand how air flow works to cool your home
To cool down your home, try opening windows on different sides to get a cross breeze. If you have fans, place them facing outwards in opposite windows to help push the hot air out of the room instead of just blowing it around inside.
Also, remember that hot air goes up. So, if you have a house with more than one floor or high ceilings with openings — like those little windows above doors or just open doors at the top of the stairs — try opening windows on the lower levels. This lets cooler air come in and push the hot air up and out through the higher openings, creating a natural flow of air.
5. Stop the heat before it ever reaches your home
While indoor curtains and blinds help a bit, the best way to keep the heat out is to stop the sun from shining directly on your windows and walls. Think about using things outside like awnings, pergolas — those shady garden structures — sun-blocking fins, or even growing vines or tall plants near windows that get a lot of sun.
Putting special reflective films or low-emissivity films on your windows can also really cut down on the amount of heat from the sun that gets into your house.
Your roof soaks up a lot of heat too. Making sure your roof has good insulation and that there's good airflow in the roof space — using vents or those spinning whirlybird things — can stop that heat from radiating down into the rooms where you live.
