Don’t compromise your PPE!
It might be hot where you’re working, but when wearing PPE for your role its important not to compromise that last line of defence. Rolling up your sleeves or undoing a top button on fire resistant and antistatic (FRAS) clothing or ARC protective clothing might make you cooler, but it reduces your protection. Removing a high vis layer might make you cooler, but not being seen might lead to an accident.
Heat Stress
Symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke include tiredness, dizziness and weakness along with sickness and cramps. Preventing these symptoms beginning in a hazardous environment is vital to your safety.
So, how should you cool down, avoiding heat stroke and heat exhaustion?
The body has its own thermoregulation, or cooling process: Sweat.
The main function of sweat is to regulate body temperature. Moisture uses the body’s heat, or energy, to evaporate from the surface of the skin. In using this energy, the body is cooled. You need to stay hydrated to enable your body to produce sweat. And that sweat needs to be able to evaporate from your skin through the air. Wearing PPE can compromise this process, as summarised on HSE’s ‘Managing Workplace Temperatures’ pages.
To ensure the body’s cooling process works naturally, and to help it on its way, here are five important actions you can take:
- Watch your fluid intake:
Avoid alcohol, hot drinks and caffeine, all of which can make you hotter. Instead, keep taking sips of cool water or flavoured drinks to maintain your hydration levels. An isotonic sports drink is particularly good for replenishing lost fluids, sugars and salts.
- Be sun smart:
Try to keep to the shade when you can. Even if your work PPE doesn’t require it, wear a hat when in the sun to protect your head and reduce overheating. And don’t forget to use a high factor suntan lotion!
- Wear correctly fitting clothing:
Clothing that is too small and tight will reduce air circulation and potentially lower the breathability of specialist fabrics.
- Wear breathable clothing:
Check your PPE is made from fabrics which allow the body to lose moisture through them, whilst still offering you the protection you need to stay safe and compliant.
- Supercharge your own cooling process:
Wetting key points in the body such as wrists, temples and chest, where the circulatory system is close to the skin, will allow you to quickly increase the amount of energy used up in evaporation.