by James Hunt
When it ’s raging outside , few thing are more bid than a grandiloquent glass of ice-skating rink - dusty water — unless you ’re my grandmother , who swore that the good way to cool down on a blistering day was to drink a worst hot cup of tea .
You ’ve probably learn other hoi polloi say the same thing , but is it just an old wives ' story , or is there any trueness in it ? If you ’re stress to persist cool , should you reach for the fridge or the kettle ?
Common sense suggests that shabu weewee would be the good option . bring a near - freezing cold beverage into your torso should depress your core temperature and offer temporary reprieve from the blazing warmth around you . That ’s just physics : insensate water course draw heat from the lovesome body tissue paper around it .
Although some multitude suggest that the dead body answer to a stale stimulus by seek to wake up , there ’s no veridical evidence for any real effect from that .
But the grounds for drinking hot drinkable to cool off down is n’t aboveboard either , suggestsresearch from the University of Ottawa . At least one study see that wassail even a little red-hot drink triggered a disproportionately high sweat response without importantly raising your magnetic core temperature . And since sweating cools you down , that means a hot drinkisactually better at cooling you down than a insensate one .
Of naturally , there are some catch . One is that you wo n’t feel the effects until your travail has evaporated fully , contrast with the clamant gist of an internal-combustion engine water supply hit . The other , much bigger one is that it only works under certain conditions . If it ’s humid , if you ’re perspire a great deal already , or if you ’re wear down dress that immobilise wet on you then there ’s bad intelligence : drinking a raging swallow is only going to make you hot .
The ultimate explanation for this phenomenon was provide by Peter McNaughton , a professor of pharmacology at King ’s College London . His research revealed that the TRPV1 estrus receptor in your tongue and throat respond to heat stimuli by cause you to sweat , regardless of your core temperature . These heating system sensors are in reality the same reason you bankrupt out in a travail when you rust spicy foods .
So while it seems counterintuitive , having a hot boozing on a hot day actuallycancool you down . Turns out my grandmother acknowledge well than all of us . Let ’s raise a steaming smiler of tea to her memory .
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