I got up this morning at 5:45 a.m. and even in my half-asleep state, I noticed it’s a lot less bright out at that time than it was a couple of weeks ago. While I love long summer days as much as the next person, I have to admit that I get a little bit excited when I think about what shorter days mean – cooler weather.
It’s not that I don’t like summer weather. I love being able to leave my house without worrying about pushing snow off my car, and it’s nice to run outside instead of on a treadmill. But I get really sick of air conditioning.
I appreciate air conditioning in certain circumstances – like when I’ve just gotten in my car after being outside in the sun for a couple of hours, or when I’m trying to sleep and it’s hot and I can’t handle not being covered by a blanket.
But I get really sick of having to carry a sweater everywhere I go all summer. And it seems like offices and restaurants and stores don’t understand that the shock to our systems caused by constantly adjusting to extreme temperatures is just unnecessary. It’s air conditioning abuse, and it makes me quite eager for this part of the year to be over.
Some people put away their winter clothes as soon as summer hits, but for me, it’s necessary to keep my woollies out all year round. As I write this, I’m sitting in an office wearing two warm sweaters in an effort to stay comfortable – but I’m still chilled. And when I leave, I will be quite inappropriately dressed to be out in the sun. I miss easy winter weather, when it’s a moderately warm temperature inside most places, and you just slip on a jacket to go outside. Perfect.
And sweaty clothes? Ugh, there is almost nothing worse than going for a run out in the heat and then walking into an air-conditioned room to be stuck in damp, cold clothes.
My summer allergies, caused from breathing thick, pollen-y summer air, are made considerably worse from breathing dry, cold air once I get inside. There’s nothing better than having a sore throat all summer, right? And the strain on my immune system from trying to fight this crap off just makes me that much more susceptible to the dreaded summer cold, which inevitably gets me at least once throughout the season.
As warm-blooded humans, we are hard-wired to keep our body temperatures at an average 98 F, and shifting from one extreme temperature to another several times throughout the day forces our bodies to work even harder to maintain that optimal core temperature. This constant shifting also interrupts acclimatization, the process that helps our bodies adjust to the temperature of the environment. According to a study by University of Iowa scholars, the natural process takes approximately two weeks in a healthy adult, but frequent transitions from sweltering heat to frigid cold can make it much more difficult for our bodies to complete the process.
I don’t currently have air conditioning at home, and I will admit that there have been times throughout this summer where I’ve passionately expressed my displeasure with this fact. But air conditioning is a luxury that I wouldn’t want to abuse.
