Too Hot to Handle: 5 Ways to Take Better Care of Yourself During El Niño Season

Living in the Philippines means forming a complex relationship with the unforgiving heat.

We know it all too well. We plan our days around it; our conversations revolve around it, and our instinctive reaction is to look for the nearest air conditioning vent the moment we walk into a room. Even the portable fan has evolved from a mere gadget into a permanent extension of ourselves. 

However, there comes a point where “mainit lang” no longer cuts it.

In the face of a severe El Niño actively unfolding across the Pacific, the kind of heat we’ve grown accustomed to could become a lot more constant, draining, and even debilitating. Because this heat is so familiar, it’s easy to overlook just how much it takes out of us.

Of course, the standard advice for extreme heat remains valid: drink more water, protect yourself from the sun, and keep cool. But surviving an extraordinary dry season means doing those basics a little better.

Staying hydrated is easily the most generic and familiar wellness tip in the book. It requires no fancy supplements, no sleekly designed serums, and definitely no complicated morning routine – just water. Yet, there is a reason why it will always be the first piece of advice we receive.

Consistency is key. There’s nothing to be gained by playing catch-up in the middle of the day, once you’ve realized that you’ve survived the entire morning on nothing but breakfast and a second cup of coffee. Your body can only absorb water so fast; chugging a liter at 3:00 PM won’t undo hours of dehydration. It will just leave you feeling bloated. True hydration means sipping consistently throughout the day, to offset the fluids that are constantly lost to the relentless heat.

But as El Niño pushes our bodies to their absolute limits, staying hydrated requires a bit more strategy than just drinking plain water. Whether it’s a strenuous outdoor training session, a long commute, or any situation where you are sweating continuously, the body is losing more than just water. It is also shedding essential electrolytes, like sodium, which are crucial for keeping your energy up. When electrolyte levels become depleted through heavy sweating, you’re left feeling completely drained, no matter how much water you take in.”

But it doesn’t mean replacing your regular water with a brightly colored sports drink. It still should do the bulk of the work. However, having a backup supply of electrolyte powder, tablets, or oral rehydration salts makes perfect sense on days when your body has been putting in extra effort.

A purse has always been an odd little repository of who we are at any given moment, receipts that should have been discarded months ago. Three lip products that somehow all serve the same purpose. A charger. A random mint. It is the messy proof of many lives running concurrently.

El Niño season calls for a more functional revision.

Alongside your usual daily necessities, your bag now needs to include a reusable water bottle, a tube of sunscreen (or an SPF stick), a pair of sunglasses, a handheld fan, a handkerchief or a little towel, and a few electrolyte packets. None of these items feel particularly interesting – until a routine five-minute stroll stretches into a twenty-minute ordeal, a fast-moving queue suddenly wraps around the corner, or a daily commute grinds to a complete halt.

During times of extreme heat, public health guidelines heavily emphasize wearing light clothes, protecting yourself from the elements and staying hydrated. Think of these items in the same way you view carrying an umbrella during the rainy season – a bit of a nuisance when left unused, but absolute lifesavers when the conditions turn brutal.

Preparation isn’t exactly glamorous. But neither is nearly fainting in the parking lot.

Somewhere along the way, sunscreen became that beauty product you know you should use, but tend to quietly overlook the moment the beach is out of sight. A severe El Niño season might be the ultimate wake-up call to rethink this habit.

Sun protection is more than just dodging the discomfort of an accidental sunburn. Unchecked UV exposure can lead to early skin aging and raises the risk of skin cancer, making sunscreen application a non-negotiable health measure every single day, and not just on vacation.

Slathering on a broad-spectrum sunscreen at 7:00 AM isn’t a one-and-done solution either. That protective barrier will be long gone by the time you step out for lunch. The American Academy of Dermatology recommends that sunscreen should be reapplied every two hours outside or after being in the water.

Of course, sunscreen is not your only line of defense. Think of sun safety as a multi-layered strategy: an umbrella, UV-blocking sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat, and breathable, lightweight clothing are also helpful in this situation.

Remembering to pause and reapply an opaque cream or lotion every two hours can feel tedious, especially when it threatens to mess up our look. It is almost paradoxical, in a sense, to think about how we view sun-kissed beauty because there is so much focus on how to achieve a warm, healthy glow under the sun that it becomes incredibly easy to overlook what that same light is really doing to our skin underneath.

Because that deeper UV damage happens silently, we cannot treat sun protection as a matter of convenience. Instead, think of using SPF not just as an accessory but as a regular appointment.

There are days when the thought of a warm, heavy meal feels less like a lunch and more of a threat.

Extreme heat naturally suppresses the appetite, and there is no harm in adjusting your meals to match that reality. What matters more is being able to distinguish between eating lighter and eating too little.

Fresh fruits, crisp vegetables, yogurt, chilled sandwiches, and several small meals throughout the day can become much more practical when temperatures peak. The goal is not to try and force down a feast just because it’s that time of the day. Rather, it’s about ensuring that an uninspired appetite doesn’t accidentally slide into a dangerous pattern of coffee for breakfast, an iced beverage at noon, and then suddenly discovering at 7 p.m. that you’ve hardly eaten at all.  It’s easy to mask exhaustion with ice-cold sugary beverages that feel like a temporary lifesaver under the scorching sun, but the body ultimately needs plain water to survive the strain. Severe heat is already forcing the body to work double time just to keep cool, so feeding yourself should help relieve that burden, not add to it.

What makes extreme heat so dangerous is its slow, insidious arrival. You start sweaty, progress to being fatigued, become irritable, then suddenly feel dizzy. Because each stage feels just normal enough to ignore, it is very easy to convince yourself that you are doing alright.

Sometimes you are. Sometimes you are not.

Heat exhaustion can manifest itself through symptoms such as headache, nausea, dizziness, muscle weakness, thirst, and heavy sweating and cannot simply be put in the category of “bad weather.” Symptoms that are more severe, including confusion, fainting, seizures, or dangerously high body temperature, could be signs of heat stroke and require immediate medical attention.

We are conditioned, in so many aspects of life, to praise perseverance. Finish the workout. Power through the meeting. Push on. Don’t make a fuss. Maybe there is another type of self-discipline in recognizing the moment your body says no.

The heat outside is an issue that cannot be negotiated. We cannot beg El Niño to dial back the temperature, rearrange our local forecasts, or demand that the afternoon behave itself just because we have important work to do. The weather will not adapt to us. What we can do, however,  is learn to listen to the quiet warnings our bodies are sending.

Ultimately, surviving extreme weather conditions is not about being tougher. True resilience doesn’t mean increasing your tolerance for suffering.

Sometimes, it simply means knowing exactly where to draw the line.