Project POTS · Jun 03, 2021

PROJECT POTS - Episode 6: Beating the Heat with POTS - Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome

EPISODE 6

Beating the Heat with POTS

Hello NormaLyte community! It's Valerie here back with another episode of Project POTS.

This week i'm gonna talk about beating the heat.

You know that obviously heat is not our friend for those of us with POTS. Especially on a college campus in the south when you're walking across campus for different meetings and such throughout the day. It can be kind of tricky and so here are some things that I've done to help maneuver that.

When I'm going from class to class and one may be here and one may be there, what I try to do is, when walking, I try to cut through as many buildings as possible. So if there's two or three buildings in the way between me and my destination, cutting through that air conditioning limits the time outside.

If that's not an option for you, try to find the pathway with the most shade. There's a lot of different routes you can take to class and even if it's slightly longer it's gonna be better in the long run. If you're in the shade rather than having the 90-degree heat beating down on you, obviously you will be much better.

Obviously carrying a water bottle to the class with you is super helpful. For those of you who are allowed to have a freezer in your dorm room or maybe a community freezer, try freezing some water and keeping that in your bag or keeping that somewhere with you. That way you always have something cold with you. It can also be ice pack that you can thaw and drink it.

Just scheduling your classes. This is something I've talked about a lot. Always make sure that maybe they're in the morning or they're at nights if possible. Make sure that you're not walking in the heat of the day. Some things I personally haven't tried but I know work for a lot of my friends are products like cooling vests and cooling towels.

Keeping your dorm room as cold as you possibly can or as cold as comfortable so that when you come home from your classes and it's been a long day and you're hot and tired you have someplace to cool down also helps.

Hopefully this helps and I'd love to hear what some of your things to do to beat the heat are. I look forward to seeing y'all next week