© 2021 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM. World Rights Reserved.
Photo © Kebba Buckley Button. World Rights Reserved.
Today, in Phoenix, it was 100 degrees. Longtime residents of Phoenix and other desert cities may shrug off temperatures around 100. After all, it easily gets to 115. However, if you are new to the Desert, you’ll do better with some hot tips to keep you cool! Here are 4 top tips to help you to thrive and actually enjoy your life all during the hottest weeks.
1. Limit your heat exposure.
Know that heat exhaustion and heat stroke are serious medical conditions. Heat illness is a major cause of death worldwide. Symptoms include dehydration, electrolyte loss, and failure of the body’s ability to regulate its temperature. Key organs can be damaged, and people can die. Just read those daily newspaper articles on passport-free border-crossers. To completely avoid heat illness, drink water, carry water with you at all times, recharge your electrolytes (minerals) frequently, and never stop to think or chat in the full sun. Park your car in the shade and/or use portable sunshades in the windshields when it’s parked. Call for medical help if any faintness/weakness/head pain/red face doesn’t subside in 15 minutes or so.
2. Limit your sun exposure.
The solar radiation index in Arizona is very high, and Phoenix is the number 2 city for skin cancer in the world. Stay in the shade when possible. Wear a high-SPF wide-brimmed hat, good sunglasses, and sunscreen of SPF15 or higher. There are nonsticky SPF 110 products available now. When you’re tubing, re-apply to your ankles after hooking them under the tube. Water doesn’t prevent sunburn. When you’re out walking and see a friend, step together into the shade to have your conversation.
3. Keep your energy up.
Too much heat is just tiring. In Chinese medicine, too much yang becomes yin. In desert areas, the summer is the most important time of year to practice personal energy management. In your diet, emphasize fresh fruits and salads, which contain many enzymes, vitamins and minerals not present in processed foods. Carefully choose where you put your energy each week, in projects and people.
4. Keep your mind and heart fresh.
The most hidden danger of the hot months here is that the brain and creativity go flat, and with them, the emotions. Relationships may suffer from blahs, boredom, and crankiness. If you don’t keep yourself healthy, energized, and clear-minded, you may damage some relationships and bore yourself sick. So get out your cool clothes, your sense of humor, and the events announcements. Try some new places, festivals, groups, and events. Check the e-calendars from your city, nearby cities, your arts center, church or social groups. Try a moonlight hike with such groups as the Sierra Club. Tour the Botanical Garden at 7 am. Watch a friend audition for a theater troupe. Call old friends and meet in the evening for cool drinks and hot bands, at trendy rooftop clubs. Try a night at a resort where they show movies over the pool and give you your own inflated rafts to watch from. There are many options!
These strategies can help you this summer, so you’re not just surviving, you’re thriving! Make this your best summer ever, so far. And that’s you, being more and more Healthy Happy and Loving Lifesm!
Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM, is a stress solutions expert, holistic guide, and award-winning author who celebrates life. She has a longtime energy healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within: Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine. The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office. To email us, kebba@kebba.com .
Books by Kebba Buckley Button
Healthy Happy Loving Life! 
Hi Kebba, I can’t imagine living in desert heat. Great tips for those who do have to bear the desert climate. I like all your fun suggestions early in the morning or late at night. Do you have any suggestions for fun, cool places to visit during the daytime? Thank you for sharing!
Sending lots of love and gratitude,
Jaime
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Jaime, thank you! I always have suggestions. 😎 Daytime cool places: museums (Getty), lunch cafe’s, tea rooms, climbing gyms, karate studios, paint-your-own-ceramics studios, any classes at arts centers. Volunteering indoors at food banks. Matinee plays. Gourmet shop cooking classes. Have fun and keep it fresh!
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Great suggestions for dealing with such hot weather. Here in Western New York, it rarely gets that hot and, when it does, it’s very humid. There are certainly lots of places to go to get away from the heat. Plus it doesn’t really sound like gardening risks.
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Alice, thank you! Your area’s summers sound great. Still, I hope you wear sunscreen and drink lots of water. 😃👍🏻
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Great tips for surviving in high heat, We live in SC and have many tourists come to the beach, stay there all day and don’t think another of using sunscreen or drinking water when outside. So many end up with severe sunburn and dehydrated. I like to carry grapes with me when we are hiking, it’s a great snack and helps with quenchng thirst. Plus Lia loves them!
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Great suggestions! We live at a high altitude so that ‘carry water with you at all times’ is crucial! Fortunately, we have a dry heat that typically does not get nearly as hot as Phoenix! 🙂
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