Why Drinking Hot Chocolate in Summer is Good for You

So many associate hot chocolate as a winter drink but here at 80NU HQ we are here to share with you the reasons why it is truly an all year round cuppa! Like the hot tea and hot coffee you see all the time, hot chocolate is no different.
A hot chocolate may be the last thing on your mind on a warm summers day, but a daily dose of hot chocolate can improve our internal systems in the hot weather. Remember a counterintuitive cooling technique that many of us had heard of but doubted? In many countries around the world, conventional wisdom says that you can cool down on a hot day by drinking a hot beverage.
Sweating is vital for our bodies to function, "because if you didn't sweat in a hot environment, then your central temperature would rise and it only takes a rise of a couple of degrees for that to cause brain damage and death," says McNaughton.
How drinking hot chocolate aids our internal systems in summer:
• It allows the body to relax, calm down, and cool itself down to a normal homeostatic temperature (equilibrium) without needing to compensate for the difference in temperature.
• It increases the rate of perspiration- sweat is a nuisance but when sweat evaporates from the skin energy is absorbed into the air which cools the body, a larger amount of sweat means more cooling.
• In hot, humid, summer weather, our bodies can accumulate too much internal ‘heat’ and ‘damp’ energy that can become pathogenic and cause illness. The digestive organs are particularly vulnerable to this. Warm beverages promote circulation and nutrient absorption in the body.
• Drinking ice water or cold water hampers the process of digesting food as it causes your blood vessels to shrink. This restricts blood flow to the digestive system, in effect weakening our digestive function. As the food is not digested properly, the nutrients are lost or not absorbed by the body.
• Healthier Lungs- Long term accumulation of cold in the body can really weaken lung function to the point of developing sinus like infections, allergies, hay fever and asthma. The stomach is the ‘mother’ of the lung; a strong stomach is needed for healthy lung function.
• It promotes a healthy blood flow, speeds up your metabolism and allows the body to use fat stores for energy, which is why tea is promoted as an aid for weight loss.
Ok, so here’s why. The stomach is a ‘yang’ organ, meaning it has hot and active properties. It’s like the stove of the body; our internal fire that must be kept burning in order to maintain our metabolism and energy.
Water is ‘yin’, or cold, by nature. So the more we pour cold water into our bodies, the weaker that internal fire gets.
Because the body is a mini universe, if one thing is out of order, eventually everything else falls out of place.
#Healthy Living #Health & Wellbeing #hot chocolate #summer drinks #summer #wellbeing #hot drinks #mindful #dark chocolate proven benefits

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