Feeling chilly: How the body weathers winter

Suddenly in February, the day turns sunny. It’s 50 degrees and it feels marvelous. Turn down the heat! Go for a walk!

So why does 50 degrees feel so chilly in October?

Physiologists say the body adjusts to increasing cold over time. In October, our bodies just haven’t adjusted to the temperature drop, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The human body has two main ways to cope with chills when the temperature drops. The first is to constrict blood vessels. This pushes warm blood to the body’s core. That’s when your arms and legs could start to feel colder. The second way is to shiver. That’s when you turn up the heat 10 degrees.

Humans, it turns out, have continuously invented ways to cope with cold by changing their environment — turning up heat sources, staying near those heat sources, and adding layers of clothing.

Interestingly, humans who constantly experience cold temperatures, like native people in the Arctic, just don’t feel as cold as others. Fish industry workers, whose hands are in cold water for hours, have been found to have warmer hands than other people.

The physiological explanation is that blood vessels don’t constrict so much after long-term exposure. So those people really are warmer.
But if you aren’t an Eskimo and you do need thick, fuzzy socks all the time, there could be a medical explanation.

The first medical explanation is probably obvious: Aging makes people colder. Circulation decreases, the blood vessel walls lose elasticity and the fat layer thins. Well, sometimes.

Also the body’s metabolic responses to cold can be slower.

According to the Journals of Gerontology reported in 2011 that older people on average had a body temperature .3 degrees lower than younger people.

All of which leads us to what we already know: We have got to buy that sherpa blanket.

When feeling cold is a symptom
Feeling cold is normal during the winter or as we age, but sometimes it can be a symptom of other problems of even a side effect of medicine.

Medical causes of coldness:
– Hypertension.
– Diabetes.
– Thyroid conditions.
– High cholesterol.

Pharmaceutical causes:
– Beta blockers that decrease heart rate (and circulation to hands and feet).
– Calcium channel blockers, used to treat hypertension.