![]() The caveat, though, is that all that extra sweat produced as a result of the hot drink actually has to evaporate for it to have a cooling effect. A larger amount of sweat means more cooling, which more than counteracts the small amount of heat contained in a hot beverage relative to the entire body. When sweat evaporates from the skin, energy is absorbed into the air as part of the reaction, thereby cooling the body. Although sweat may seem like a nuisance, the body perspires for a very good reason. The increased rate of perspiration is the key. “Yes, the hot drink is hotter than your body temperature, so you are adding heat to the body, but the amount that you increase your sweating by-if that can all evaporate-more than compensates for the the added heat to the body from the fluid.” How does this work? “What we found is that when you ingest a hot drink, you actually have a disproportionate increase in the amount that you sweat,” Jay says. “If you drink a hot drink, it does result in a lower amount of heat stored inside your body, provided the additional sweat that’s produced when you drink the hot drink can evaporate,” Jay says. Their answer, in short: Yes, a hot drink can cool you down, but only in specific circumstances. We got in touch with Ollie Jay, a researcher at University of Ottawa’s School of Human Kinetics-and an expert in all things sweat-related-to ask a pressing question: is this claim for real? His Thermal Ergonomics Lab, it turned out, had published a study on this topic just a few months ago. In many countries around the world, conventional wisdom says that you can cool down on a hot day by drinking a hot beverage. Here in Washington, we finally got a slight break from what is shaping up to be one of the hottest summers in recent memory for pretty much the whole country. As we pondered the fact that this sort of weather could well become the norm in future decades due to climate change, we also remembered a counterintuitive cooling technique that many of us had heard of but doubted.
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