Healthy Living During the Summertime

Summertime health. You probably know all you need to know. Hydrate. Keep drinking that water on hot days and use sunscreen to block the rays of the sun’s dangerous effects that could cause skin cancer. You’d be right. Those are very important health safety issues during the summertime. But there’s much more to summer time health and it’s all just common sense.

Summer is a time for swimming. Public and private pools, beaches, bays, and rivers are all are there for the cooling effect and the fun of swimming. But swimming has inherent dangers. Know how to swim. Every summer hundreds of people across this country will drown because they’re “over their head”. That is, they just don’t know safety rules or even the basics of how to swim safely. Secondly, diving accidents. You hear about it all the time. Someone—a teenager, young adult, a child dives in to the shallow water without knowing it. They strike their head and have a neck fracture that leaves them paralyzed oftentimes for the rest of their life.

The summer means bugs. Stinging insects, gnats, bees, and wasps. It’s important if you are an allergic person that you take special precautions. Your doctor may even recommend that you have an insect sting kit with you. That’s epinephrine in a shot form that you would give yourself immediately after you had an insect sting.

Summertime is also the time for barbeques and picnics. Burn injuries are common around those very hot grills. How about smoldering charcoal that has been dumped out on the ground and now the little barefoot children playing around step in it? Picnics themselves---what could be more fun? Well, that’s absolutely true but what could be more nauseating than getting food poisoning from potato salad or slaw that has been left out in the heat uncovered? Be sure to cover all picnic food and right after serving it return it to the ice chest or cooler.

So it is true that we need to hydrate and drink lots of water and protect our skin with sunscreen, but other summer health hazards are right out there. Let’s avoid the hazards and enjoy the good times.