It’s summer, time for BBQs and playing outside. It’s also the hottest time of the year. It’s important to think of your heat management and hydration.

Can CBP Help with Heat Management?

In Corrective Chiropractic care (CBP), the goal is to get your spine as close to structurally normal as possible, which keeps the least amount of pressure on your nervous system. Your nervous system controls your whole body. It controls your circulatory system, your vascular system (your veins and arteries), it controls all of the messages in your body, so just about every cell in your body is controlled by your nervous system, which is encased in your spine.

In terms of heat management, your thyroid gland has a lot to do with heat control. People who have thyroid problems they are either too hot all the time or too cold, there’s no in-between for them. A lot of times people who have nerve compression to the nerves that control the thyroid gland or to the kidneys, which have a lot to do with water and hydration, if they have any pressure on those nerves and those nerves are not working at 100%, there is potential for problems.

What about hydration?

This time of the year, when it’s super hot out people are reaching for cold beverages, that aren’t necessarily water. They may be going for an iced coffee, iced tea, or a frozen drink, which is essentially ice, sugar, and potentially dairy. During hotter times, people could be reaching for ice and alcoholic beverages such as beer, because they think it cools them down. In fact, drinking something cold when you’re hot is counter-intuitive, because it can actually cause your body to shut down. If you’re hot you should be drinking luke-warm water or a luke-warm beverage. Beverages like coffee, tea, beer, and other alcoholic beverages take water out of your cells, which makes you more dehydrated. In order to stay hydrated, you want to steer away from these on hot days.

In order to stay hydrated, you need to consume about half your body weight in ounces. If you decide to have coffee or iced tea or even a beer make sure that you drink an additional 8-12 ounces of water per drink to counteract the dehydration effects of caffeine and/or alcohol. Also, make sure to add more water also if you are sweating.

How can dehydration effect me?

If you become dehydrated you will have the potential for your body’s systems to stop or to slow down. This can cause mental confusion, headaches, generalized aches and pains, and lethargy. It can also lead to kidney failure or diabetes if you don’t have enough water.

Along with water, it is important to have an electrolyte balance in your water. If you use a water source like a Britta, which filters out everything from your water, you can go to your health food store and by mineral drops, which you can add to your water. Make sure to stay away from drinks like Gatorade which is basically sugared colored water with salt, it does not have enough active electrolytes to be effective.

You can also find electrolytes in the foods you eat, such as bananas, oranges, and spinach. You want to look for foods that contain potassium, magnesium, and sodium. Eating these foods can help to replace lost electrolytes as well.

Taking care of your spine can help you manage the heat better.

If your nervous system, at the get-go, isn’t working well, because you are not getting your spine adjusted by a CBP chiropractor and you’re not having enough hydration on top of that, you’re going to have a really hard time managing heat. However, if you have regular CBP adjustments and drink a good source of water with electro-lights, you’ll find that you’ll be able to tolerate the heat much better than you had before.