Fitness Tips: Summer Safety

How to Avoid Heat Exhaustion

Don’t let the sun get the best of you! Follow these doctor-recommended tips for a safe summer of exercise
By Jordan D. Metzl, M.D. menshealth
 

Chill Out!

How to Avoid Heat Exhaustion // heat exhaustion © Corbis Images

Image: Corbis Images
A lot of athletes exercise in hot weather and sometimes in extreme heat. Signs of heat exhaustion often begin suddenly. The combination of heat, heavy perspiration, and inadequate fluid intake takes away your body’s ability to cool itself and your internal temperature starts to rise, sometimes as high as 104˚F. (Search: What is a safe body temperature?) The symptoms resemble the onset of shock: You feel dizzy, nauseated, or worried. You could have a headache and/or a fast heartbeat.

Don’t confuse heat exhaustion and heatstroke. The latter is the potentially dangerous condition, and you get it by ignoring the signs of the former. No one goes directly from feeling fine to the brink of death, no matter how hot it is, so give yourself 30 minutes to respond positively to the following self-care measures. If your symptoms don’t improve by then, go to the ER immediately. (For more ways to stay pain-free for life, use the 1,0001 Doctor-Approved Health Fixes.) When you go from having weakness and confusion to having difficulty walking or loss of consciousness, you’ve crossed over from heat exhaustion to heatstroke.

Here’s what to do for heat exhaustion and how to prevent it.

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