With record-breaking heat sweeping across the country and around the world, people are increasingly seeking ways to stay cool and turning to all kinds of tips, tricks and folk remedies to do it.
But how many of those heat-beating hacks are actually grounded in science?
HuffPost asked experts to weigh in on some of the most common old wives’ tales about surviving the heat, from damp sheets to cabbage leaves to yoghurt on windows.
The verdict? Some have truth to them, others don’t hold up to scrutiny, and a few could actually backfire depending on the conditions.
1. “Sleeping under a damp sheet cools you down.”
“The ‘Egyptian method’ involves sleeping under a damp sheet to cool down,” Dr. Swapnil Patel, vice chair of the department of medicine at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center, told HuffPost. “A damp towel can be used as an alternative.”
The cooling effect is the result of a simple evaporation process.
“A lightly damp sheet or cloth can cool through evaporation,” s...
English (US)