We're finally into summer 2022. California heat really is something this year. I've been living here for ten years and this has to be the worst heat I've ever personally experienced. This heat is unfit for man nor beast. However, that doesn't mean that 105 degree heat is something that is impossible to face or experience. Humans are tough creatures and are made of tougher stuff. And if you're not now, you will either evolve or become a dinosaur in the process. The dinosaur me would've just sat inside my room under AC playing video games all day today.
This brings me to a random question. How does climate change affect the human mind and behavior? Surely there's a correlation between 105 degree heat and people being extremely irritable. Not to mention that climate change will probably completely change the way we think about food, transport, receive, and eat food, what with certain crops/meats probably not going to be available forever in the future due to inevitable food shortages and the war in Ukraine.
In terms of the physicality of 105 degree heat I did a test run. I decided to go out around 230 pm and stay out till 8 pm. Not outside the whole time but walking here and there to the market, to get coffee, and the library. I'm on foot walking in 105 degree heat. I needed to go to the market to buy lunch, then the coffee shop to eat lunch, drink, coffee, and chill for some hours using Wi-Fi, and then I had to go to the library to pickup some ordered books. The walk to the market itself is like 2 miles there and back again, and the places in between are like a .5 mile, so altogether that's something like 2.5 miles of walking in 105 degree heat. I have to get my head examined.
What's the result? Well, I surprisingly felt really good. Concentration during the day was good. I did a lot of reading at the coffee shop under their AC. I was well focused and temperament was nice and easy going.
The warmth of the sun provides a free energy like no other. In fact, I think more Americans need to be exposed to sunlight more often because being stuck indoors in quarantine the last 2.5 years has made us cave dwellers who lack vitamin D, which you get free from being in the sun.
There are cons though of course. My appetite just wasn't that strong. I ate a small salad, some crackers, and a tea and that seemed to hold me for the entire duration of 230-8, but I ate dinner at home around 9 pm. The high heat level just doesn't generate a strong thirst for hunger. Water, drinks, yes, but solid foods, not so much. A result of a high heat diet might include more fruits and veggies and less heavy beef or pork, but more chicken, for example.
Another con, though, is that some of the more sugary foods and snacks seemed to affect me a lot more, it was a lot stronger. For example, I had a can of Coke from the gas station and for a while the usual mild sugar rush from soda seemed to be a lot less mild and more dramatic. For example, maybe if you want more fruits and vegetables, you have to really cut out the sugars, because they don't balance each other and/or mix well.
These are just some random notes on a day walking in the sun.
The sun's warmth is free energy.
Been creating content on this site since 2014. Please check out my plague journal, about the covid years, beginning on the day covid began in the United States. You can find the entries here.
