Hydration for Your Sensation

Band camp next week is from 3 to 5 pm; the hottest part of the day. Sure there are the chances that precipitation will develop and either we'll not go outside or the skillet will be cooled down. I'm hedging that it won't rain (average of 30% coverage on all days). So how do you stay hydrated (and therefore happy) for the next time Mr. Drum Major yells "Opening set!"?

Water is one of the best hydration system in the world, Gatorade is quite overrated in terms of effectiveness. Electrolytes aren't that important in that you aren't running a marathon or out there playing a soccer match (both requiring a person to run more than 10 miles), you won't be that electrolyte depleted. Also, Gatorade is insanely expensive, you'll be better off financially if you just have diluted fruit juice.

For foods, watermelons and ice cream sounds like great stuff to cool you down right? Well, the water melon does but not neccarily the ice cream, its only temporary:

"This is because the parts of the body that are in contact with the ice cream are physically cooled by the contact as heat is transferred to the ice cream. However, as the digestive process kicks in, body temperature increases as the body works to digest and absorb the nutrients in the ice cream, as well as to store the calories," says Josephine Connolly-Schoonen, a professor of family medicine, Stony Brook University Medical Center.

Actually cooling food can be found here (21 of the them... and some of them are really random).

So what should you wear? Not anything with the color black, it absorbs more of the Sun's electromagnetic spectrum than any other color; white is the preferable color. Hats are also excellent (unless you're like me and have glasses, those wide-brimmed hats work well ie. Bill's awesome hat). If you're not afraid of looking slightly weird, here's a tip from a Lifehacker:

Take a (clean) sock, soak it in water, wring it out, put it in the freezer. In fact, do this with two socks. After an hour-plus, take one out, and drape it over the back of your neck. Bonus option: keep it around your neck with a binder clip. Rinse, replace, and switch with the other sock every hour. Super bonus option: use Christmas-themed socks that you don't wear anyway. It helps put you in the right mindset (winter).

Or just take a wet towel and wrap it around your neck, but please wash it afterwards....

-runiteking1

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