Staying cool in the heat comes down to managing how your body gains and loses heat. That means controlling your environment, choosing the right clothing, eating and drinking strategically, and targeting the spots on your body where cooling is most efficient. Here’s how to do all of it well.
Start With Your Environment
The simplest cooling tool is an electric fan, but fans have limits. They work by speeding up sweat evaporation, which pulls heat away from your skin. Once air temperature climbs past about 95°F (35°C), though, fans start blowing hot air over you faster than your sweat can compensate. At that point, a fan can actually make heat stress worse rather than better. Older adults hit that ceiling even sooner, around 99°F for healthy seniors and 98.5°F for those on certain medications that reduce sweating.
Below that threshold, fans are effective and cheap. Position one near a window at night to pull cooler air inside, or place a shallow pan of ice in front of it during the day for a DIY air conditioner effect. If you have access to air conditioning, keep your living space around 72 to 78°F during the day. For sleeping, the Cleveland Clinic recommends a bedroom temperature of 60 to 67°F (15 to 19°C), a range that helps stabilize REM sleep and keeps you from waking up sweaty.
Close blinds and curtains on sun-facing windows during peak afternoon hours. A south- or west-facing window with no shade can raise a room’s temperature by several degrees on its own.
Choose Fabrics That Breathe
Linen is the best natural fabric for staying cool. Its fibers are thicker than cotton, which creates natural air channels in the weave, and it absorbs moisture quickly while drying fast. Cotton is breathable too and can absorb up to 27 times its weight in water, but it holds onto that moisture. In humid conditions or during heavy sweating, a cotton shirt can feel soggy and heavy.
For exercise or high-energy activities, synthetic blends like polyester outperform both. They’re engineered to wick sweat from your skin to the fabric’s outer surface, where it evaporates quickly. The tradeoff is that synthetics trap more heat than natural fibers if they aren’t designed with ventilation panels, so look for athletic wear with mesh zones under the arms and along the back.
Color matters too. Light colors reflect sunlight, while dark colors absorb it. A loose-fitting white linen shirt is about as good as clothing gets for outdoor heat.
Target Your Pulse Points
Your wrists, neck, temples, inner elbows, and groin all have blood vessels running close to the skin’s surface. Applying something cold to these spots cools the blood passing through them, and that cooler blood then circulates throughout your body, lowering your overall temperature faster than pressing an ice pack against, say, your back or stomach.
A damp towel on the back of your neck, a cold water bottle held against your wrist, or a wet bandana across your forehead all work well. If you’re outdoors without any gear, simply running cold water over your wrists and forearms at a faucet or fountain for 30 seconds provides noticeable relief.
Drink Cold, Eat Light
Cold water and ice slurries are more effective at lowering core body temperature than room-temperature water. Research from the Gatorade Sports Science Institute confirms that drinking water below 50°F (10°C) or eating crushed ice improves performance and comfort during exercise in the heat. Keep a water bottle in the freezer (filled only two-thirds full so it can expand) and let it partially thaw before heading out.
What you eat also affects how much internal heat your body generates. Digesting protein-heavy foods like red meat produces more metabolic heat than lighter meals. Foods with natural cooling properties include cucumbers, watermelon, berries, celery, spinach, and lettuce. Mint and cilantro can add a cooling sensation. On the other hand, alcohol, caffeine, chocolate, ginger, cinnamon, and hot peppers all tend to raise your body’s heat production. Save the spicy curry for cooler days.
Eating smaller meals more frequently also helps. A large meal demands more digestive energy and generates more heat than several lighter ones spread across the day.
Cooling Gear That Actually Works
Cooling vests made with phase change materials (PCMs) are a step up from simply draping a wet towel over your shoulders. These vests contain packs filled with salt hydrates or similar materials that absorb heat from your body as they slowly melt. Unlike ice packs, which can be uncomfortably cold and cause skin irritation, PCM packs are designed to hold a temperature closer to skin comfort, around 86 to 91°F (30 to 33°C). They maintain a stable, comfortable surface temperature for up to three hours, even in extreme ambient heat of 104 to 122°F.
For a budget option, soak a cotton T-shirt in cold water, wring it out, and wear it. The evaporation keeps you cool for 30 to 60 minutes. Reusable neck wraps filled with water-absorbing polymer crystals work on the same principle and are easy to toss in a bag.
Cold Water Immersion
A cold shower, cold bath, or cold plunge is one of the fastest ways to drop your body temperature. For a cold plunge, aim for water between 50 and 60°F (10 to 15°C). If you’re new to it, start with just 30 seconds to one minute and gradually work up to 5 to 10 minutes over multiple sessions. Never stay in water that cold for longer than 30 minutes, as hypothermia becomes a real risk past that point.
You don’t need a dedicated plunge tub. A bathtub with cold tap water and a bag of ice works fine. Even just soaking your feet in a bucket of cold water cools you meaningfully, since your feet have a large surface area relative to their volume and plenty of blood flow near the skin.
Know When Heat Becomes Dangerous
All of these strategies are about comfort, but staying cool is also a safety issue. Heat exhaustion causes heavy sweating, nausea, dizziness, and an elevated body temperature. If untreated, it can progress to heat stroke, where core body temperature can spike to 106°F or higher within just 10 to 15 minutes. Heat stroke is a medical emergency that can cause organ damage and death.
The people most vulnerable are older adults (whose bodies are slower to regulate temperature), young children, anyone on medications that reduce sweating or increase urination, and people working or exercising outdoors. If you or someone near you stops sweating in extreme heat, has confusion, or has hot, red skin, that’s heat stroke. Cool them aggressively with whatever you have (cold water, ice, shade, fanning) while getting emergency help.