How to Reduce Body Heat (Garmi) in Summer: What Works, What Doesn’t
“Garmi ho gayi hai.” It’s said about a nosebleed, a mouth ulcer, burning soles at night, a crop of boils, a short temper, a bad stomach and a fever, and the pharmacist nods and hands over a sachet. Reducing body heat in summer starts with unpacking what people mean by it, because half of “garmi” is dehydration you can fix by evening, and a small part is something a doctor needs to see.
In brief
- What “garmi” usually is: not enough water, too much sun, too little sleep, heavy spiced food in heat, and sweat rash.
- Fix first: fluids by the clock, shade between 11 and 4, loose cotton, a cooled room before sleep.
- Cooling foods: a real tradition, useful as a way to get water and salt in; not a medicine.
- Emergency: confusion, very hot skin (dry or still sweating), fainting, no sweat in a hot person. Cool them and call for help.
- Not garmi: yellow eyes, burning urine, a fever over 3 days, ulcers that last past 2 weeks.
What people mean when they say “body heat”
There’s no thermometer reading for garmi. It’s a folk word for a cluster of summer complaints, and the cluster is worth separating because each piece has a different fix. Burning palms and soles at night, a dry mouth, headache and dark urine: that’s a person who drank a litre and sweated three. Boils, prickly heat and an itchy back: sweat glands blocked under damp clothes, covered in prickly heat home remedies. A summer nosebleed: air-conditioned dry air cracking the lining of the nose, or a lot of sun. Mouth ulcers: often stress, poor sleep and a bitten cheek, and they cluster in exam season for reasons that have nothing to do with the weather. Short temper and poor sleep: a bedroom at 34 °C. Each one is real. None of them is a mysterious internal fire.
There’s a specific variant, jigar ki garmi, “heat of the liver”, used for a set of symptoms from bitter taste and nausea to acne and low mood. The liver is not hotter than the rest of you. If the symptoms come with yellowing eyes, dark tea-coloured urine, pale stools or a tender right upper belly, that’s a liver question for a doctor and a blood test, not for a sharbat.
The Unani and Ayurvedic idea, and where it’s useful
In Unani medicine a person’s mizaj, or temperament, sits somewhere between hot and cold, wet and dry, and summer is read as a hot dry season that pushes the body’s own heat upward; the remedy is food and drink of the opposite quality. Falsa, kheera, tarbooz, sattu, gond katira, tukh malanga (basil seed), khus and sandal sharbats, dahi and chaas are all “thanda” in that reckoning. Ayurveda’s grishma ritucharya says much the same: pitta rises in hot months, so eat sweet, cool, liquid foods, avoid sour, salty, pungent and hot things, rest in the afternoon, and sleep in a breezy room. Whether or not you accept the framework, look at the list: it’s water-rich food, less chilli, less frying, more rest and better airflow. As practical summer advice it’s hard to fault.
Where the tradition misleads is when the label replaces the diagnosis. A “cooling” sachet won’t do anything for a urine infection, a liver problem or an untreated fever, and calling them garmi delays the visit that would settle them.
Hydration, done by the clock
Most “garmi” resolves with fluid taken steadily rather than gulped when thirsty, because by the time you’re thirsty in a Pakistani June you’re already behind. The detail of how much is in how much water to drink in Pakistani heat; the short version is 2.5 to 3.5 litres a day for an adult who’s mostly indoors, more with outdoor work, judged by urine that stays pale yellow.
- On waking: 500 ml of water before chai. The night’s sweat has to be paid back before the caffeine takes its share.
- Through the morning: a 250 ml glass every hour. Keep the bottle where you sit; a bottle in another room is a bottle you won’t drink from.
- Midday: a glass of something with a little salt and sugar: thin chaas with a pinch of salt, a lightly salted nimbu pani, salty sattu sharbat, or half-strength ORS if you’ve been sweating hard. Plain water alone, in litres, without any salt on a heavy-sweat day, leaves you weak and headachy.
- Afternoon: a water-rich snack counts. 200 g of tarbooz or kheera is about 180 ml of water with the potassium thrown in.
- Evening: ease off an hour before bed so you’re not up three times, but go to bed hydrated. A last glass at dinner, not at midnight.
- Check: urine pale, headache gone, palms no longer burning by bedtime. If not, tomorrow’s numbers go up.
Cooling foods, described as what they are
The summer table in a desi home is already built for heat, and it deserves credit for that. Tarbooz, kharbooza, kheera, falsa, sugarcane, lauki and tori curries, dahi and chaas, sattu, gond katira, tukh malanga soaked into a drink, khus and rose sharbats, kachi lassi, and a raw onion with the meal. Every one of them is a way of taking in water, and several bring salt or potassium with it. That’s the mechanism, and it’s a good one. What they are not is medicine that lowers a temperature: a person with a fever needs paracetamol and a doctor’s eye if it lasts, not a plate of melon. And most of the sharbats carry sugar by the spoonful, so a “cooling” habit of four glasses of Rooh Afza a day is a sugar habit with a cool name; make falsa sharbat and gond katira at home where you control the sugar, and lean on chaas, kheera and water for the bulk of it. Salty sour drinks like jaljeera are for meals, not for all-day sipping, because their cooling is mostly salt. The raw onion tradition is its own story, told honestly in raw onion and the loo myths.
The other half of the traditional advice is what to eat less of, and here the tradition is simply right. Chilli-heavy, deep-fried, heavy meat dishes at 2 p.m. in June add a little to the body’s own heat production and sit in the stomach when blood is being sent to the skin to cool you. Move the karahi to after sundown and eat daal-chawal, dahi and sabzi in the day.
Clothing, sleep and the room
Loose, pale, cotton or lawn. A tight polyester kameez traps sweat against the skin, which is where prickly heat and boils start; a loose lawn kurta lets sweat evaporate, which is the body’s only real cooling system. Change out of sweaty clothes rather than letting them dry on you. Wear a cap or dupatta over the head in direct sun, and stay in shade between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. wherever the day allows it.
Sleep is where summer heat does its quiet damage, and a week of broken sleep produces exactly the irritability, ulcers and headaches that get called garmi. Cool the room before you get into it: windows open at both ends after sunset for a cross-breeze, curtains closed against the afternoon sun, a bucket of water in front of the fan in dry heat, a cotton sheet and nothing heavier. A lukewarm shower before bed (not cold; cold makes the body work to warm back up) brings the skin temperature down for an hour. When there’s no power, the tricks in cooling without a fan in load shedding hold. Sweat and smell have their own page in summer heat, sweat and cooling.
The three-day garmi test
Before buying a sachet, run three days of the hydration plan above, move dinner’s chilli and oil to after dark, cut screens after 10 p.m., and sleep in a room you’ve cooled first. If the burning soles, headache, dry mouth and bad mood are gone by day three, it was heat and water, and now you know. If a specific symptom is still there, it isn’t garmi and it’s on the list below.
When “garmi” needs a doctor
Emergency, now: someone in from the heat who is confused, agitated, slurring or fainting, with very hot skin whether dry or still sweating, or who has stopped sweating in the heat, or who has a fever above 40 °C. Move them to shade, strip outer layers, soak the skin with cool water and fan them, cold packs at neck, armpits and groin, and call for help; don’t give fluids to anyone who’s confused or drowsy. The full first-aid sequence is in the heatstroke first-aid article. Earlier than that, heat exhaustion looks like heavy sweating, cramps, nausea, headache and dizziness; rest, cooling and ORS should turn it round within an hour, and if it doesn’t, that’s a doctor. Same day: burning or frequent urination (a urine infection, not garmi); yellow eyes, dark tea-coloured urine or pale stools (liver, not garmi); a fever past 3 days or any fever with rash, stiff neck or breathlessness; a nosebleed that won’t stop in 20 minutes of pinching or that keeps recurring; mouth ulcers lasting more than 2 weeks or a single ulcer that grows. Extra care in the heat for babies and the elderly, who don’t feel thirst reliably; for pregnant women, in whom dizziness and swelling need mentioning at the next visit; for anyone with diabetes, whose readings go unpredictable when dehydrated; for kidney or heart patients on a fluid limit or on diuretics, who should not follow a 3-litre plan without asking their doctor; and for anyone on blood pressure tablets, antidepressants, antihistamines or antipsychotics, some of which reduce sweating or blunt thirst. Never stop or change any of those because it’s hot; ask the prescriber what to do in a heatwave.
More of the season’s answers, from sharbats to sweat, are collected under Desi Remedies.
Garmi questions, answered
How do I reduce body heat immediately?
Get into shade or a cooled room, drink 500 ml of water or half-strength ORS in sips, wet the neck, wrists and face with cool water, and sit in front of a fan in loose clothes. Burning and headache from mild dehydration ease within an hour. If the person is confused or very hot to touch, that’s an emergency, not a home remedy.
What foods reduce body heat?
Water-rich foods: melon, cucumber, lauki, dahi and chaas, sattu, falsa. Tradition calls them cooling; the mechanism is water and a little salt or potassium. Less chilli, less frying and lighter meals in the day help more than any single food.
Is jigar ki garmi a real condition?
It’s a traditional label, not a diagnosis. The symptoms attached to it (bitter taste, nausea, acne, low mood) have ordinary causes. If there is yellowing of the eyes, dark urine or right-sided belly pain, that’s a liver question for a doctor and a blood test.
Why do my palms and feet burn at night in summer?
Most often dehydration and a hot bedroom. Fix fluids and cool the room first. If burning persists after a week of that, or comes with numbness or tingling, it can be a nerve, vitamin B12 or diabetes signal, and needs a doctor.
Do cooling sachets and sharbats work?
They get water and some sugar and salt into you, which is what helps. Most are heavy on sugar. Homemade drinks with controlled sugar, and plain water with a pinch of salt on sweaty days, do the same job for less.
Can garmi cause fever?
Heatstroke can push body temperature above 40 °C and is an emergency. An ordinary fever with chills, sore throat, cough or body aches is an infection, not garmi, and needs the usual fever care and a doctor if it lasts beyond 3 days.