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The thought of heading into another brutal heat wave this weekend may have you feeling like a heat-pummeled, melting face emoji unable to get off the couch. For me, that\u2019s compounded by the fact that I don\u2019t have air conditioning anywhere in the house but for a small, rickety wall unit in the bedroom \u2014 and only installed recently.<\/p>\n
Instead, I use multiple electric fans to create a cross breeze, often sticking my sweaty, flushed face directly in front of the fan grill.<\/p>\n
Do not do this.<\/p>\n
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>, using electric fans in a heat wave of 90 degrees or more can actually make you hotter and can be dangerous for your health. Why? The fan acts as a convection oven, an appliance that circulates hot air in order to cook food quickly and evenly. In your home, during a heat wave, electric fans do the same: blow extra hot air around, potentially raising your body temperature instead of cooling it down. And that puts you at an accelerated risk for dehydration and heat exhaustion.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely true that if you\u2019re blowing air warmer than your skin over your body, then you\u2019re warming your body,\u201d says David Eisenman, professor of medicine and co-director of the UCLA Center for Healthy Climate Solutions<\/a>. \u201cThat heat wave mistake can be harmful. You\u2019re warming yourself up and it increases the temperature inside your organs, including the heart and the brain and the blood. That can lead to dehydration, heat illnesses, and it can lead to cellular breakdown that makes heart disease or any other chronic illnesses that people have worse.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to note, however, that the CDC\u2019s temperature threshold is conservative, Eisenman says. Normal body temperature is about 98.6 degrees. Your skin \u2014 the surface of your body \u2014 is closer to 95 degrees. \u201cThat\u2019s why international bodies, like the World Health Organization, say 95 degrees is the limit at which you should no longer use fans,\u201d he says. \u201cA young healthy person can still use their fan if it\u2019s less than 95 degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n The CDC chose 90 degrees as its fan safety cutoff point because \u201cit fits all age groups and all circumstances,\u201d Eisenman says, adding that humidity, age and the temperature inside someone\u2019s home \u2014 which can be hotter than outside \u2014 could all make the safety threshold for using fans lower than 95 degrees. \u201cWhen you\u2019re doing math messaging, you have to have one simple message for everyone,\u201d he says. \u201cThe CDC got more conservative and said let\u2019s drop it down a few degrees. I think we should stick with what the CDC says.\u201d<\/p>\n