Not too long ago, I got a good lesson in hydration and the impacts of high temperatures in a somewhat embarrassing, but educational way. This week’s heat wave reminded me of how easy it is to lose sight of how ill-equipped we humans can be to deal with the heat — particularly when we aren’t accustomed to it.

The aforementioned embarrassing moment occurred while on vacation with my family over the February vacation week. It had been in the single digits in Maine with gusty winds, icy precipitation and plenty of shoveling.

Through the wonders of travel, I went from single digits to triple digit temperatures in a matter of hours. Needless to say, my body was not adapted to the heat. Add to that an early morning run, a lengthy snorkel and then a sprawl on the beach in the hot sun, and this was an obvious formula for heat exhaustion. While I am a broken record for my kids to always drink plenty of water, I had been in the moment too much to heed my own advice.

Then, while waiting in line to get a shaved ice with my girls, everything around me started to look a bit silvery and the voices around me became muted. When my daughter asked if I was OK, I knew enough to answer that I wasn’t, but not enough to find a place to sit down. Unfortunately, my body did that for me, and I found myself being helped into a chair by a couple of kind onlookers. While quite embarrassing, this also was an excellent teachable moment in more ways than one.

First, my girls did not panic, and one went to the car to find my husband and let him know what had happened while the other stayed with me. We were able to talk later about how important this was in that moment and also about how to read the signs of what is happening to someone in the future.

More relevant to this week’s hot weather is the second lesson, which is not just how to avoid heat exhaustion, but also what to do to recover from it. In the immediate term, just sitting down in the shade was a good start. Slow rehydration and cooling the body down with ice or a fan were also critical. But there were other tricks to remember and to share, like finding the places on your body that are most temperature sensitive, like your temples, under your throat, the insides of your wrists, backs of your knees and tops of your feet. Think of all the places where you have lots of veins and these are the most effective places to apply cool cloths or ice packs.

The other tip is to get your head lower than your heart since, when you are overheated, your blood rushes to the surface of your skin and, if you are standing, also to your feet. I certainly employed the “cooling spots” technique this week. But it also got me thinking about what ocean creatures do to keep cool.

I know much more about what they do to stay warm, since water typically does such a good job of cooling a body down. One interesting parallel is with marine mammals. Many marine mammals like seals and whales have thick layers of blubber that insulate them from freezing temperatures, but they also have “cooling spots” where they don’t have this insulation and instead have lots of blood vessels at the surface to help cool them down. These are the obvious appendages like flippers, fins and tails, and are known as “thermal windows.” When it isn’t super hot, they can tuck some of these appendages in to keep them warm if needed.

Fish are a different story. Because they are ectotherms, they can’t regulate their body temperature internally and are essentially the same temperature as their surroundings. For this reason, certain fish species are adapted to certain water temperatures, and if those temperatures get too warm or too cool, they cannot survive. While they can’t change their internal temperature, they can change behaviors like migrating to warmer waters or going higher up or lower down in the water column to reach the desired thermal range. This is much like a human moving to the shade or into the breeze to cool off.

This week’s hot temperatures came after a pretty long streak of cooler weather to start the summer and most people found themselves not adapted to the heat. Many found their way to the coast or to a lake or pool to find a way to get into the water — perhaps the best way to cool down. But, regardless, it is good to remember and to be humbled by how important it is to take care of yourself in the heat and to learn a few tricks from ocean animals like finding your “thermal windows” and moving to cooler spaces.

Susan Olcott is the director of strategic partnerships at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.