Do neck cooling fans really help you beat the heat?

Jeffrey Pagulong and his boy Christof guidelines successful beforehand of nan Lincoln Memorial successful Washington, D.C., connected July 29. Pagulong, who is visiting from Boston, said his cervix instrumentality "helps a lot" successful nan precocious temperature. It makes noise, he said, but nan sound is amended than nan heat. Bill Chappell/NPR hide caption

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Bill Chappell/NPR

On a precocious July morning, nan sun is already broiling nan National Mall successful Washington, D.C. The aerial is truthful humid, moreover a loose garment quickly turns into a sticky mess.

Later, nan power scale will apical retired astir 103 degrees, turning nan locomotion betwixt air-conditioned museums into a scorching trek. I'm connected my bike, successful nan hottest portion of nan summertime tourer season, connected a mission: to find visitors who are trying to hit nan power pinch an odd-looking gadget that's gained successful fame successful caller years. It doesn't return long.

"These are amazing," says Christa Seger, who sits pinch 3 of her kids successful nan shadiness adjacent nan Washington Monument.

She holds up a cooling cervix fan. It looks for illustration a space-age horseshoe, but resting connected your neck, it uses dozens of vents to rustle aerial toward your ears and head. Some models — for illustration Seger's — besides person metallic panels, to thief dissipate heat.

"I can't judge really acold they get," says Seger, who's visiting from Denver.

Christa Seger holds 1 of nan 2 portable cervix fans she has pinch her connected a basking greeting successful Washington, D.C., connected Tuesday. Seger is visiting nan National Mall from Denver pinch her family. Maansi Srivastava/NPR hide caption

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Maansi Srivastava/NPR

Seger bought 2 fans for astir $25 each a fewer days ago, backmost successful Colorado.

"They past location betwixt 4 to 6 hours connected a afloat charge," she says. Thinking nan fans mightiness thief her girl arsenic they march from Smithsonian museums to historical buildings — and nan occasional crystal pick motortruck — she brought a artillery battalion to support nan fans juiced up.

"She loved it yesterday. It really helped her," Seger says.

Some of these fans tin costs hundreds of dollars. But I'm trying retired a very basal exemplary today. As it powers on, aerial starts whooshing past my ears and neck. It feels for illustration a bully breeze. But is it really doing thing to cool me?

How nan cervix fans work

Consider nan main strategy our bodies usage to cool down: sweating.

"The power of vaporization gets pulled from that sweat into nan atmosphere," says Dr. Adam Watkins of nan University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences successful Little Rock. "So you really are losing power that way."

But that's not ever enough. Watkins says nan emergency room wherever he useful is seeing 25% much power vulnerability cases this summertime than past twelvemonth — a inclination he says has been rising complete nan past decade.

Intense power waves are 1 logic why group mightiness look to a individual cooling fan. But location are limits to really good they tin work.

Visitors to nan National Mall successful Washington, D.C., get successful nan early greeting connected a time erstwhile temperatures would emergence to good complete 90 degrees — and a power scale of 103. Maansi Srivastava/NPR hide caption

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Maansi Srivastava/NPR

"The biggest point is being capable to evaporate nan sweat disconnected your body," says Cecilia Kaufman, head of occupational information for nan Korey Stringer Institute astatine nan University of Connecticut.

In theory, a instrumentality tin boost your body's evaporative cooling process by speeding nan travel of aerial complete your skin.

"The problem is erstwhile it's basking and humid, nan sweat does not evaporate arsenic quickly disconnected your skin," Kaufman says. "So that takes distant your body's expertise to really cool."

Surface area is cardinal to effective cooling

For evaporation to activity well, it helps to expose tons of skin.

"The champion measurement to cool down would beryllium fundamentally to return each your apparel off, expose nan full assemblage to nan aerial and fto each of nan sweat evaporate," says Chris Tyler, a interrogator successful biology physiology astatine nan University of Roehampton successful London. "But you'd get arrested," he adds pinch a laugh, "so that's not a recommendation."

Bella Cabassa, 8, and her relative Shaun, 10, usage insubstantial parasols to artifact nan sun — and to instrumentality themselves — successful Washington, D.C., connected Tuesday. The Cabassa family was visiting nan superior from Pennsylvania. Maansi Srivastava/NPR hide caption

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Maansi Srivastava/NPR

In contrast, a cervix instrumentality tin only impact a mini portion of your body. It mightiness consciousness bully to usage one, moreover if it's blowing humid air. In part, that's because location are a batch of thermal receptors connected nan look and neck, making them very delicate to heat.

In general, we shouldn't position these cervix fans arsenic a type of treatment, Tyler says.

"It's a spot for illustration playing athletics pinch a painkilling injection," he says. "The rumor is still there. It's conscionable that you can't observe it for a small bit."

As a result, Tyler and Kaufman say, nan mini fans apt do much to make america consciousness cooler alternatively than really lowering our assemblage somesthesia — which could raise nan consequence of personification over-exerting themselves without realizing really nan power is affecting them.

But they besides statement that investigation is ongoing into improving ways of cooling nan caput and neck, arsenic good arsenic using cooling garments for illustration hats and cervix gaiters successful basking environments.

Taking a cervix instrumentality for a trial whirl

Down astatine nan National Mall, I'm a spot skeptical erstwhile I first put my fan on. After all, nan midday aerial is still and scorching. The flags that ringing nan Washington Monument's guidelines are drooping and listless. (I consciousness you, flags.)

But arsenic it starts to rustle aerial connected my ears and head, this small doodad does look to make my clip riding and stepping a spot much bearable. I'm alert that I mightiness look for illustration an other from a low-budget sci-fi movie pinch this thick, integrative instrumentality looped astir my neck. But it doesn't consciousness excessively dense aliases obstructive. And while I don't person agelong hairsbreadth (or, let's beryllium real, overmuch hairsbreadth of immoderate type), it's worthy noting that galore of nan fans are bladeless, truthful they're little apt to get entangled.

Marnisha Mintlow, visiting from Los Angeles, wears a portable cervix instrumentality extracurricular nan National Museum of African American History and Culture connected Tuesday. "It is excessively hot!" Mintlow said. "With nan expanding heat, nan cervix instrumentality keeps maine cool and my hands free." Maansi Srivastava/NPR hide caption

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Maansi Srivastava/NPR

I rotation down past nan Reflecting Pool to nan Lincoln Memorial. Along nan way, I announcement that erstwhile nan cervix instrumentality is group to maximum power, nan sound of nan centrifugal tin beryllium a distraction. At nan bottommost of nan memorial steps, I tally into Jeffrey Pagulong, who's visiting from Boston. He and his boy Christof, 12, some deterioration cervix fans.

"It's really hot," Pagulong says, opinionated successful nan blazing sun. "And wearing this instrumentality benignant of helps a lot, it cools down your head, truthful it helps" to easiness nan power from walking, he adds.

I inquire if nan sound bothers him.

"The sound is OK. You tin perceive nan fan, but it's fine. The sound is overmuch amended than nan heat, you know? I tin return nan noise, but not nan heat."

Galilee Maldonado, 16, holds a insubstantial parasol successful Washington, D.C., connected Tuesday. Maldonado said she felt that nan D.C. summertime power is hotter than Texas, wherever she's from. Maansi Srivastava/NPR hide caption

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Maansi Srivastava/NPR

In my informal study of nan Mall, I spot much group utilizing old-fashioned parasols than newfangled fans. It turns retired a thoroughfare vendor has been doing brisk business, trading yellowish and reddish umbrellas for $10. One customer was Galilee Maldonado, 16, visiting from Texas.

"I bought it yesterday from a lady, but I really liked it," she says.

Like a cervix fan, nan parasol mightiness not do overmuch to little her halfway temperature. But it's making Maldonado, who says she was amazed by nan power successful Washington, consciousness better.

"It's helping maine header pinch this weather," she says.