1, allergic symptoms induced by air conditioning
"Environmental changes, such as large temperature difference or low temperature, are prone to allergic symptoms," experts said. Low temperature will stimulate the nasal cavity and trachea, leading to respiratory problems. Many people with allergies have experience. If you stay in an air-conditioned room for a long time, you will have a runny nose, sneezing, coughing, expectoration, and even asthma in severe cases.
Some people think they are not allergic, but blowing air conditioning will also cause the above discomfort. "You should suspect that you actually have an allergic problem," experts suggest. You might as well see a doctor for further confirmation.
The respiratory tract of the elderly is often the victim of blowing cold air, especially the patients with chronic emphysema. Experts say that low temperature will make expectoration difficult, which will cause tracheal inflammation or pneumonia for a long time.
In addition, under low temperature for a long time, the microvessels of our body will naturally contract, the muscles will be tight, the metabolism will slow down, and the gastrointestinal activity will be weakened, which will affect the functions of circulation and digestion.
From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, people who are weak and afraid of cold, have poor blood circulation and often have cold hands and feet are more likely to aggravate the problem. In addition, sitting in the office for a long time, or huddled up because of the cold, lack of activity, the symptoms of discomfort are more obvious.
"The lower limbs are our second heart," experts described. Therefore, if you sit still for a long time and the muscles of the lower limbs can't contract normally, it will squeeze the deep blood vessels and make the blood flow back upwards. After a long time, the blood circulation function, especially the peripheral circulation, will become worse.
More unfortunately, if the office is located directly below the air outlet, or if you drive for a long time, such as taxis and bus drivers, some parts of your body will often be directly blown by cold air, such as your head, shoulders and neck, lower limb joints, etc., which will also cause pain.
Especially the joints of the whole body, the original circulation and temperature regulation functions are not good, lacking muscles. Fat covers the joints and is prone to stiffness and pain for a long time.
2. How to blow the air conditioner in summer
Countermeasure "keep warm: drink ginger tea, wear a coat, get up and walk."
In addition to keeping the air conditioning temperature above 25 degrees Celsius, there are several measures to keep warm:
■ Patients with allergic rhinitis or asthma can consider wearing a mask in an air-conditioned room and using the hot air exhaled by them to warm their nose and mouth to alleviate the symptoms of respiratory discomfort. Dr. Lu Yixing suggested.
■ Keep a long-sleeved coat, scarf, shawl and other warm clothes in the office, especially for office women who often wear short (sleeveless) tops or skirts. They have more exposed areas, so they are more likely to catch cold in air-conditioned rooms and need to keep warm.
■ When the body feels cold, especially those who often have cold hands and feet, you can drink a little ginger tea to drive away the cold. "But don't drink too much, or you may get colder and colder," experts warned. Because ginger has a "divergent" effect, it will dilate blood vessels, and if you drink too much, your body temperature will be lost. "Just like drinking, at first your blood circulation will speed up and your body will get hot, but in the end, you will be afraid of the cold," experts said for example.
He suggested that after drinking ginger tea, it is best to exercise to keep warm.
■ People can't help drinking cold drinks in hot weather, but cold food and cold environment are more likely to cause asthma, headache and other problems. Experts remind that it is best to eat (drink) less.
■ Sit and work, get up and move every 1 hour. Although it is convenient to communicate with colleagues by MSN, you might as well go directly to the other party's seat, face-to-face interview is more clear, and give yourself an opportunity for activities. If you can't leave your seat, remember to lift your feet and turn your ankles to help blood circulation.
■ Exercise regularly and sweat. From a health point of view, summer should have accepted the sun be the spirit of the outside world and sweated moderately. If you stay in an air-conditioned room all the time, you can't sweat out, which is bad for your health after a long time.
■ If you enter the air-conditioned room, the respiratory tract will be "full" and you can't concentrate on work or rest. "Don't treat symptoms as a habit," Dr. Xiao Jianlong suggested. You should see a doctor as soon as possible and receive appropriate treatment to reduce inflammation, which can reduce discomfort.
3, blowing air conditioning, dry eyes and itchy skin
In addition to low temperature affecting health, turning on the air conditioner for a long time will reduce the humidity of the environment, even if it is too dry, it will make people uncomfortable, and the elderly, contact lens family, long-term computer use and atopic dermatitis patients need the most attention. Dry eye is a common problem.
The head of the family who goes to work stares at the computer for a long time, or reads books and documents, and the number of blinks decreases, resulting in less tears secretion and lack of water in the eyes. To make matters worse, the humidity of air-conditioned environment is low, and more eyeball water is lost, which not only makes eyes dry and uncomfortable, but also increases the friction between eyelids and eyeballs, which is more likely to cause chronic eyeball inflammation.
Dry skin also suffers from it, especially patients with atopic dermatitis.
Sweating in summer will make people with atopic dermatitis itch, so it is really comfortable to stay in a dry and cold air-conditioned room. Staying for a long time will itch, because it is too dry.
Countermeasures "Moisturize: blink more, apply lotion, and reduce wearing contact lenses."
At home, you can adjust the time to blow the air conditioner to avoid leaving the room too dry for too long. You might as well use an electric fan. "An electric fan will make the air flow, but it will not affect the humidity, which is better than blowing cold air all the time," experts believe.
■ Putting a glass of water on the table helps to adjust the humidity of the surrounding environment, blink more consciously and keep your eyes moist.
■ Every 40? Take your eyes away from the computer and books for 60 minutes, look far away, or close your eyes for 5 minutes, and then continue to work.
■ Wearing contact lenses for a long time is easy to make eyes dry and uncomfortable, especially in a dry air-conditioned environment. It's best to avoid wearing them all the time.
■ Apply lotion to moisturize properly, especially after washing hands. Lock the moisture with emulsion as soon as possible when the moisture is still on the skin, which can prevent the moisture from losing.
4, blowing air conditioning headache
You don't have to stay in a low temperature environment all the time, but you have to face another headache-waiting for an "oven" outdoors and entering an "ice palace" indoors. Sometimes the temperature difference is as high as 10 degrees, which is the most likely to cause headaches and discomfort.
At high temperature, our blood vessels and muscles will naturally expand, but when we suddenly enter the low-temperature air-conditioned room, we will suddenly contract and tighten, which will give us an instant headache. "Just like swallowing ice cubes and suddenly encountering cold, we will also have a headache due to the severe contraction of blood vessels," Dr. Cai Defeng pointed out. Some people are tired for a long time, and their shoulders and neck muscles are stiff. However, when air conditioning is blown for a long time, muscle pain and headache will become more frequent and obvious, especially in the afternoon near work, and the fatigue accumulated all day is even worse.
In addition, when the weather is hot, many people don't blow dry their hair immediately after washing, or go into the office to blow air conditioners or electric fans without blowing dry in the rain outside, which is easy to report a headache.
Keep your neck warm, turn your head and exercise, and press "Fengchi point" to relieve headache.
Raise the air conditioning temperature to avoid excessive temperature difference between indoor and outdoor. There are some health care methods to prevent headaches:
■ When entering the air-conditioned room from the high-temperature outdoor, stay for a while in the place where the air conditioning is not strong, such as the lobby, walkway and stairwell on the first floor of the office building, and then enter the low-temperature area.
■ Wear a thin coat or scarf to keep warm, especially to cover the shoulders and neck to avoid sudden temperature changes.
■ Dry your hair as soon as possible after washing it. It is best to dry in the toilet or blow dry with hot air before entering the office.
■ During the rest time, turn your head and neck, shoulders and stretch your arms, or apply hot compress to your shoulders and neck after coming home from work to relax your muscles, so as to avoid headaches caused by excessive stiffness and poor blood circulation.
■ If you feel dizzy, have a headache, or feel stiff and uncomfortable in the shoulder and neck, you can press the "Fengchi Point" (located on both sides of the back neck, hairline and lateral tendon of the spine, which is the starting point of the neck muscles) on your head to relieve the symptoms.
Moderate scraping can also promote the smoothness of qi and blood in shoulder and back. However, Cai Defeng suggested that it should not be more than once a week.
When scraping, the force should not be too great, so as not to scratch the skin or damage the microvessels, and at the same time avoid the neck, so as not to oppress the carotid artery and cause serious problems such as stroke.
5. How to blow the air conditioner correctly
I want to blow air conditioning to make my life comfortable, but I don't want to pay a lot of electricity bills and lose my health. Is there any secret that can help you?
● Keep the temperature of cold air at least above 25 degrees Celsius, preferably at 26 degrees Celsius? Between 28 degrees, it can avoid the excessive temperature difference between indoor and outdoor, which will affect the body temperature regulation function and cause discomfort symptoms such as headache, runny nose and cough. Moreover, according to the data of Taipower Company, every increase of 1 kWh in air conditioning can save about 6% of electricity bill.
● Never blow the air conditioner or electric fan directly on your body, which may easily cause headache and joint pain due to cold.
● If the office chair is under the air outlet and it is impossible to change seats, you can "block" (unseal) the air outlet with a partition or cloth, so that the cold air can be discharged to both sides, so as not to blow directly on the head.
● Put a basin of water indoors to adjust the humidity, so as to avoid the cold air causing the environment to be too dry, and it is more comfortable to keep the relative humidity at 60%.
● Turn on the air conditioner to reduce the indoor temperature before going to bed, turn off the air conditioner after the sultry heat dissipates, and use the electric fan to make cold air convection indoors; Or use a timer to blow 3? 4 hours, there is no need to leave it on all night, because the body temperature will gradually drop after falling asleep, and it is easy to catch a cold if you are not careful.
● Clean the air conditioner regularly and replace the filter screen to avoid dust, dirt or bacteria accumulated in the air conditioner circulating indoors with the air conditioner, causing respiratory diseases.