Author Archives: MandyLienhop

7 Old-School Hacks to Help You Stay Cool all Summer

by MandyLienhop Posted on July 10, 2018

Whether it’s Chinese medicine or your great grandmother, those who came before us (and before A/C) had some powerful techniques to help them stay cool when the temps started to rise.

‘So what, we all have air conditioning now?!’ you may be saying.

Well, hold on. Not everyone has regular access to A/C or even loves using it. For some, it can worsen dryness and allergies, plus most units are incredibly noisy. And?it’s not so great for the environment.

Sometimes, it’s preferable?to cool off the old-school ways. So whether you have an air conditioner?or not, here are some tried-and-true traditional techniques to help you make it through the hottest, stickiest part of the summer.

1. Eat watermelon and aloe vera.

In Ayurvedic tradition, watermelon and aloe are cooling foods, which means they help to release heat from the body. Munch on watermelon and mint salads when you’re looking for a refreshing, hydrating snack or try this?refreshing Aloe Vera Detox Drink recipe.

2. Close and open windows strategically.

Whatever you do, do not open your windows in hot weather. In fact, you should even close your blinds during really hot days to keep your house cool and shaded.

If the outdoor temperature?cools down at night, open up all the windows to allow for some refreshing?airflow. Batten the hatches again in the morning.

Repeat daily.

3. Try this analog fan hack. ???

Long before air conditioning, people used to place bowls filled with ice in front of fans. As the fan blows, it picks up the cool air surrounding the ice and circulates it around the room.

Not only is this an environmentally friendly way to mimic A/C, but it is really effective. Enjoy this?blissfully cool breeze on the most muggy, sticky, stagnant summer days.

4. Sleep with damp cotton sheets.

This may sound weird and pretty uncomfortable, but in a sweltering evening, it can be a sleep-saver.

Use a spray bottle to spritz your cotton sheet with water so that it is slightly damp. The idea is, as you sleep, the damp sheet actively draws heat away from your body, keeping you cool and snoozing soundly.

If you’re not into damp bedding, you could try?popping your dry cotton sheets and pajamas into the freezer to give them a deep chill before you snuggle in at bedtime.

5. Take a cold shower.

Sometimes the issue isn’t your room. Sometimes the issue is you. Releasing?the excess heat in your body can make your time spent in a room sans air conditioning much more tolerable.

Spend five minutes under some cool water, and you’ll come out the other side feeling enlightened and relaxed!

6. Stop using your stove during the day.

If you can use a grill, go for it. Otherwise, either do all your cooking in the morning, well before the heat of the day, or opt for a slow cooker or Instant Pot, which don’t put off much heat.

And whatever you do, don’t even think about turning on your oven!

7. Put a cold pack on your pulse points. ?

Your wrists, ankles, groin, and neck are all prime areas for temperature biohacking. These are locations where the skin is thin, and large blood vessels are relatively close to the skin.

By putting an ice pack on these points, you’re effectively cooling down your blood and letting that coolness flow through your entire body. It’s like internal air conditioning!

Air conditioning isn’t the be-all end-all of summer. People have survived for millennia in the heat without A/C. With a few tried and true techniques, you can, too.

Related on Care2

8 Vegan Foods that Support a Frisky Sex Life
5 Essential Tips for Turning a Bad Mood Around in a Jiffy
IKEA is Upping its Sustainability Game

Images via Thinkstock.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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7 Old-School Hacks to Help You Stay Cool all Summer

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What a New Poll About Mass Shootings in America Gets Dangerously Wrong

by MandyLienhop Posted on October 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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A Washington Post-ABC News poll on gun violence published Monday included a stark finding: “By a more than 2-to-1 margin, more people say mass shootings reflect problems identifying and treating people with mental health problems rather than inadequate gun control laws.” Sixty-three percent of respondents blamed a deficient mental health care system as the prime reason for America’s incessant gun massacres, while 23 percent pointed to weak gun regulations.

What’s most troubling about these results and the question that prompted them is that they perpetuate a dangerous stigmatization. The vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent. I wrote about this in my recent Mother Jones cover story on threat assessment, a growing strategy for stopping mass shooters that relies on collaboration between mental health and law enforcement experts:

We know that many mass shooters are young white men with acute mental health issues. The problem is, such broad traits do little to help threat assessment teams identify who will actually attack. Legions of young men love violent movies or first-person shooter games, get angry about school, jobs, or relationships, and suffer from mental health afflictions. The number who seek to commit mass murder is tiny. Decades of research have shown that the link between mental disorders and violent behavior is small and not useful for predicting violent acts. (People with severe mental disorders are in fact far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.)

Then there is the role of guns. As a top forensic psychologist described it to me at a recent summit of more than 700 threat assessment professionals in Southern California, “One of the first things you focus on with this process is access to weapons.” Guns obviously are no more a sole cause of mass shootings than schizophrenia or suicidal depression are. But their role in such crimes is self-evident:

Can they be prevented from striking?

Possession of a firearm, of course, is not a meaningful predictor of targeted violence. But at the conference in Disneyland, virtually everyone I spoke with agreed that guns make these crimes a lot easier to commit—and a lot more lethal. “There are so many firearms out there, you just assume everybody has one,” Scalora says. “It’s safer to assume that than the opposite.” The presence of more than 300 million guns in the United States—and the lack of political will to regulate their sale or use more effectively—is a stark reality with which threat assessment experts must contend, and why many believe their approach may be the best hope for combating what has become a painfully normal American problem.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll furthered a misleading stereotype about a broad population of Americans by presenting a false choice between mental health and gun policy. The chart above shows that only 10 percent of respondents recognized that solving mass shootings is more complicated than checking one box or the other. Any solution deeply involves both, and a whole lot more.

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What a New Poll About Mass Shootings in America Gets Dangerously Wrong

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Chris Christie’s Aides Sure Did Joke About Traffic Jams a Lot

by MandyLienhop Posted on February 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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I haven’t written about Bridgegate lately, figuring that MSNBC’s saturation coverage is probably plenty for anyone who’s truly interested in every last jot and tittle of speculation about what happened. Today, though, the New York Times adds something concrete to the story: yet another exchange between two of the people at the center of the scandal. For some obscure reason, they appear to have gotten annoyed with Rabbi Mendy Carlebach of South Brunswick Township, which prompted this exchange:

“We cannot cause traffic problems in front of his house, can we?” wrote Bridget Anne Kelly, then a deputy chief of staff for Mr. Christie.

David Wildstein, a Christie ally at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, suggested that they should think bigger. “Flights to Tel Aviv all mysteriously delayed,” Mr. Wildstein wrote. (Again, he appeared to be kidding.)

This came a few days after Kelly’s infamous email to Wildstein that gleefully declared, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Apparently these two were pretty pleased with their little traffic jam idea and joked about it repeatedly. This adds to the evidence that they considered traffic jams a form of political retaliation, and that this was what motivated the lane closures at Fort Lee.

There’s still no evidence that Christie knew what they were doing, but Kelly and Wildstein sure seemed to think they were working in an environment in which this kind of thing was just another day at the office. It probably was.

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Chris Christie’s Aides Sure Did Joke About Traffic Jams a Lot

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