After a few weeks of cold, cold and rainy, and an occasional warmer day it seems to be warming up. Only problem is it is like someone flipped a switch. Suddenly it is hot and humid!
Meaning lots of sweating. It is interesting how our bodies can be slow to change and adjust to seasonal changes in the conditions outside. It is perhaps not surprising. So many people are not outside very much and live in controlled environments. I have worked outside for full summers in places that were either very hot and humid (Florida) or very hot and dry (Colorado Plateau). It seemed it was easier to acclimate to the dry heat. At least once you figure out you need to be drinking plenty of liquids. Although, this can cause its own issues.
My second summer working in the Colorado Plateau I found out from a doctors visit that I was loosing electrolytes at such a high rate that I needed to replenish them daily. I was drinking lots of water all day long but was loosing most of what I took in through my skin and my breath. I wasn’t sweating much but hardly needed to pee. Apparently your bladder will sequester things like electrolytes but there is not much chance for that to happen if you are shedding liquids through other means. A gatorade or eating banana a day solved the problem. I did seem to feel a bit better too.
The hot and humid was another story. The first few weeks of being outside was brutal. I felt hot, my clothes and skin were wet from sweat, and I would feel wore out after a few hours outside. After a few weeks I was able to be out as much as I wanted without the getting worn out part. Some of this was in how I seemed to unconsciously slow down as part of my acclimation. I had to walk a lot and often carry things from place to place. I would occasionally noticed I moved about like I was walking through molasses. Nothing was rushed.
As I had grown up in a temperate area, I also noticed some other things about the humidity in hot and humid locales. I had heard phrases like “it is raining buckets” or “its raining cats and dogs” before. Being out in a good rainstorm in Florida or Central America it was at first hard to believe how hard it could rain. And be sustained for more than a minute or two. The second thing I really noticed was about how humid it could really be. Being outside and sweating like crazy, it seemed impossible that air could be any thicker with moisture and yet…I would sometimes get drenched when I got caught out in the rain. Nothing much to notice about the humidity then, other than I was soaking wet. Occasionally I could manage to dodge a heavy rain and get under cover. When it stopped and I went back to my work, the humidity would seem to be impossibly more humid than before. Instead of molasses, it was like walking through crude oil.
My last anecdote about hot and humid. I found it funny that when I was working outside in the summer in Florida, a few times I told someone I worked outside all day and they were aghast. You are outside in this all day! A horror worst then death. Of course the few times this happened the horrified person lived in air-conditioning all summer long. At home and work. Their biggest environmental challenges don’t last long. Just those few minutes between first getting in your hot car and the air-conditioner working well enough to feel comfortably cool.