how to survive the heatpocalypse
-drink plenty of water
like, you know you already drink more water than the average person, but now is the time to truly indulge — refill your water bottle before it’s completely empty, make sure you are never out, limit your caffeine intake (even though you’ve seen more and more headlines indicating that coffee does not dehydrate you, better to play it safe when you’re sweating out all of the liquids you’re ingesting), and speaking of sweating, make sure you get those salts and electrolytes! at least one pack of liquid iv per day, in cold cold water, sometime between noon and 8pm, so you can indulge in the nice, cooling feeling of fridge water, as well as the important extra things your body needs that you can’t just get from over a hundred fluid ounces of plain water alone. (in a pinch, and if you’re away from home, buying a gatorade or the like will also help). and though they are tempting, it’s probably best to avoid the sugary sodas left over from the end-of-semester pizza party. you can indulge when it’s not one hundred degrees outside.
-check each room’s a/c and sleep in the strongest one
really analyze — the window units are old and probably need either filter-changes or to be thrown away (but you hate throwing away things until they are fully broken down, and you cannot, for the life of you, find window a/c units that fit your 96-year-old house’s tiny windows, so you’ll probably use them until they fully die, but they also can’t really take this heat bubble, so just see how they’re doing), the bedroom one seems to be struggling more, so perhaps you don’t get to sleep in your bed tonight, but the downstairs one is doing alright in conjunction with the ceiling fan, but it’s also trying to cool the whole downstairs, which is rough on these units which are you-don’t-actually-know-how-old, plus your spouse suspects it is couch-sleeping that makes their shoulder hurt the worst, so the newest, non-window a/c in the guest room it is, which cools the room down almost immediately, and keeps the heat down, though has the downfall of being sucked in by whomever is closest, so you make sure your spouse sleeps next to it, because they cannot sleep overheated, and you know you’ll sleep, just restlessly, and that’s not much different from most nights, to be honest.
-train your body to sleep over the covers
so you have the things you need, as a former/current insomniac, to actually fall asleep (you haven’t yet trained your body to stay asleep, but hey, fixing half the problem is a huge gain!), but this is, unfortunately, not the time to use the bundling of blankets as your immediate-fall-asleep-spell. you have your other things: on your stomach, hands tucked just under your pillow, at least one animal next to or on you, your spouse next to you (though probably no cuddling, seeing as how hot it is, even with the a/c blowing), this is the time to use your training of your body in tricksy ways — you know you can’t fall asleep unless all of your body is coated in clothes, use your long sleeved shirt, long leggings, knee-high socks, and the hot air around you to trick your body into believing it’s under five blankets. let that lull you into a kind-of-comfort in order to kick-start sleep.
-trust the animals to know what they need
yes, you will need to provide more water throughout the day to them, or open the door to let them into/out of the rooms with closed-door a/c units blowing, but if you start trying to chase them down to give them water, or worry overnight that they are overheated and should really be elsewhere than where they are because they are all fur and no sweat glands, you will anxiety yourself into your high-school self. they are animals. they are used to having fur coats. neither of them enjoys the cold of the winter, so they’re probably doing alright. they will scratch at the door when they want in or out. they will pant to cool down. they will drink the water when they are thirsty. keep an eye on them, surely, but if you worry too hard about them, there will be no rest for anyone, and that’s probably the most useful thing to survive for everyone in this house — rest
-plan for that rest
though you are very good about surviving in the heat of the city, the hot train cars, clacking that fan to breeze away your sweat, bringing your own shade with you in the form of an umbrella everywhere, if you have the luxury of working from home or cancelling plans, do it. stay in the shade and the coolness of the parts of the house that stay cool. it is lucky that it’s a holiday weekend, so you can even indulge in some kip-time that includes chilling on the couch together, playing with the puppy, writing, stretching, nothing too strenuous, and definitely nothing taking you into the city with the heat increasing and increasing with every glass-sided building and concrete-finished ground. your area is tree-filled and therefore cooler than the average nyc neighborhood. use it. utilize it. stay here. stay as long as you can, as long as the electricity works.
-and speaking of electricity — don’t over-use it
delay laundry day, so you’re not trying to run a dryer on top of multiple a/c units. turn the fans on and the lights off. let the a/c units not run too strong during the day (it’s the nighttime when you actually need them anyway). don’t run big electronics. don’t be the cause of a brown-out. don’t get mad when the electricity doesn’t run as hard as other days because the electricity-provider is trying to prevent a brown-out. use showers as cooling, hand-fans, ice-packs, keep the fridge closed, eat leftovers cold. there are always ways that you can conserve the electricity and still get cool. do them now.
-know that it will be over in just a few days
while the trend, due to climate change, is increasing in amount and severity these heat bubbles and polar vortexes and once-in-a-lifetime storms (which we’ve seen at least two dozen of in our three decades of living so far), the nice thing about weather is that it changes and moves and the wind takes things away and we will get a respite in a few days. you never thought that seeing a high of “just” 90 would fill you with relief, but after multiple days of over 100 being estimated, the “feels-like” temperature crawling higher and higher, revel in the respite when it comes. and maybe, just maybe, run out into the thunderstorm when it brings even cooler fronts with it. forget about avoiding wetting your rainbow hair and just enjoy the natural coolness of the rain.
-and then potentially do this all over again…
