Summer heat
Here are a variety of home remedies to stay cool when the summer sun is blazing
Medicinal mint
Guess what the Romans did to protect themselves from the harmful effect of heat? They tucked a spray of mint behind each ear!
Mint is a cooling and soothing remedy for indigestion, biliousness, flatulent colic and diarrhoea caused due to the soaring summer temperatures. Fresh leaf juice of mint mixed with a teaspoonful of limejuice and honey is recommended thrice a day by naturopaths for the aforesaid ailments.
Mint tea is a cool and comforting summer drink. To prepare mint tea:
· Add 10 – 12 mint leaves to a cup of water and let it come to a boil.
· Leave it covered for a couple of minutes.
· Add powdered jaggery as per your requirement.
Mango medicine
Excessive loss of sodium chloride and iron during summer due to excessive sweating can be easily prevented by consuming raw mango with a dash of salt. Eating a couple of unripe mangoes with salt and honey cures summer diarrhoea, dysentery, piles, chronic dyspepsia, indigestion and constipation.
Pineapple power
The most valuable healing factor in pineapple is its similarity to human gastric juices, which makes it an effective remedy for digestive problems, especially in the summer months as it also helps relieve body heat. Drink plenty of pineapple juice throughout the hot weather or freeze undiluted juice in ice cube trays and add to other beverages and juices.
Rice remedy
Thick gruel of rice mixed with a glassful of buttermilk not only makes a nutritious and easy to digest summer food but curative too in cases digestion-related disorders. Rice powder makes an excellent prickly heat powder and helps heal other inflammatory affection of the skin including burns and scalds.
Healing henna
Mehndi or henna flowers are an age-old antidote for headaches caused by the heat of the sun. Headaches are said to be relieved if a plaster made of mehndi flowers and vinegar is applied over the forehead.
The Arabs use henna on hands and feet not just to ornament these parts of the body but also to keep themselves cool and protected from the scorching desert heat. Mehndi soothes and comforts heat-related swollen ankles and scorched feet as well as burns and blisters.
Tamrind tea treatment
Tamrind pulp is cooling and antiseptic. Tamrind tea is considered to be very healing for summer colds and sore throat. To prepare the tea:
· Take a cup of tamrind pulp to one litre of boiling water.
· Cover and leave to infuse for two hours.
· Strain and drink, half a cup at a time, sweetened with a little honey, every four hours.
Simple sun-tan solutions
To remove a sun tan, try applying some lime juice mixed with rose water on the face before going to bed at night. Wash off with cool tap water in the morning. Another traditional solution to counteract sun tan involves mixing olive oil with equal quantity of vinegar and applying the mixture on the affected body parts an hour before bath.
Rose remedy
Rose petals are used to make an excellent cooling summer tonic popularly known as Gulkand. To prepare Gulkand, fresh petals of roses are cleaned and kept in a clean glass jar in layers. In between the layers of the rose petals, a type of sugar called khadishakar, is spread. (sugar quantity being twice the amount of petals). Alternate layers are thus prepared in the jar and left in the sun for fifteen days.
Rose water too can be prepared at home by using fresh rose petals or shade dried and powdered rose petals and some boiling water. Washing the face with rose water particularly after coming from the hot sun is very soothing and refreshing.
Margosa Magic
Summer boils, itching and prickly heat heal rapidly when neem leaves are used in the bathwater. Simply boil a handful of neem leaves in a container and add it to your bathwater. Use this as a last
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