You are reading our weekly Well+Being newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Thursday.
Extreme heat kills more people in the United States than any other weather hazard, and the risk of longer and more frequent heat waves is only expected to increase as climate change worsens. Use this helpful tracker to find out more about whether the heat has reached dangerous levels where you live.
You may be particularly surprised by a story from Gretchen Reynolds this week exploring the ways you can stay cool while exercising outdoors. Studies show that menthol — which is found in cough drops and mouthwash — can help you feel cooler.
Athletes increasingly are using menthol, in various forms, to keep their cool during hot-weather training and competitions. To learn more, read the full story, “Cough drops and mouthwash: Tips to stay cool during summer workouts.”
It’s never been more important to be smart about the heat. On this I can speak from experience. When I was a teenage runner, I developed a few bouts of heat illness and later suffered full-blown heatstroke that left me hospitalized. I was fortunate to get quick medical attention and recovered, but in that I was lucky. As Richard Sima reports this week, the mortality rate of exertional heatstroke could reach around 27 percent.
Parents and coaches of high school and college athletes should keep a watchful eye. Heat illness can distort your thinking, and many people aren’t aware that they are in the throes of heat illness. Get to know the symptoms of heatstroke, and exercise with a friend if you’re working out in the heat.
Read the full story here: How our brain tries to beat the heat — and why heatstroke is so dangerous
‘Live a little!’ Remembering Susan Love
I was sad this week to learn my friend Susan Love has died. You may know her as one of the country’s most respected women’s health specialists and the physician author of “Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book.”
Love spent decades crusading against breast cancer, including as a co-founder of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, a grass-roots group that has aggressively lobbied to increase federal funding for research into the disease.
She was also a champion for self-compassion and investing time in the people and things that matter in life. She co-wrote one of my favorite books, “Live a Little! Breaking the Rules Won’t Break Your Health,” in which she makes the case that many of us are worrying about the wrong things and are actually living more healthful lives than we realize.
Love said that while it’s important we take care of ourselves, too often health goals become a source of stress and guilt.
“Is the goal to live forever?” she posed to me during a 2010 conversation. “I would contend it’s not. It’s really to live as long as you can with the best quality of life you can.”
She added: “The goal is not to get to heaven and say, ‘I’m perfect.’ It’s to use your body, have some fun and to live a little.”
A leukemia diagnosis later in life gave her new perspective on the experience of patients and living life to the fullest. Love was an advocate for healthful living, with equal emphasis on both healthful and living.
Her diagnosis reminded her “that none of us are going to get out of here alive,” she said.
“We don’t know how much time we have,” she said during the same interview. “I say this to my daughter, whether it’s changing the world or having a good time, that we should do what we want to do. I drink the expensive wine now.”
Will getting out in the sun help my sleep?
This week’s Ask a Doctor has timely advice explaining the link between sun exposure and sleep. It may surprise you to know that sun exposure also helps regulate melatonin, which affects your sleep.
And don’t forget to send your questions to Ask a Doctor. Our columnist is Trisha S. Pasricha, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School, and she may answer your question in a future column.
Please let us know how we are doing. Email me at wellbeing@washpost.com.