I'm not sure I would do any of this, but it's certainly an interesting writeup. I particularly enjoyed the part about watching Michael Phelps, and realizing he was burning extra calories because he was spending time in cool water every day.
I recall reading an article, though, where Michael Phelps admitted he didn't eat as much as was reported. The story about the gargantuan amounts he ate was something the media loved, and something that helped build a "mythology" around him, but even Phelps said it wasn't true.
12,000 is on the high end of extreme athlete caloric intake, but not totally outlandish. There are many stories about Iditarod mushers throwing whole sticks of butter into their food for the fat, and a study of one musher showed average consumption of about 9,000 calories per day through the race [1] (with weight loss indicating a deficit of ~2k/day). A quick google says Tour de France racers consume in the range of 6-9k calories per day.
Weird. This is something that I always sort of believed because it's much easier for me to lose weight in the winter than it is in the summer. However, I figured that what was really happening is that I was more inclined to move and exercise when it was cold out. I hate hot weather like poison.
But still, it's truthy.
Adaptations can happen quite quickly. There are quite a few that the human populations which migrated out of Africa developed shortly afterward in response to new environments. Pale skin and retention of the ability to digest milk past childhood, for example.
Perhaps they should have specified that they were referring to specific populations of humans that evolved in the last few hundred thousand years, then. Seven million years ago, our lineage hadn't even split off from gorillas.
I'm really not sure what "seven million years" actually refers to and it's oddly specific. Past a million years, you're talking about primates, not humans.
It snowed last year here in Africa, South Africa more specifically... It happens once in a blue moon, but other than that it can get really cold here. Just because you think savannah and dry-desert and Egypt when you think of Africa, doesn't mean it can't get cold there.
Yep. Burning calories is great if you're having trouble getting in a caloric deficit. The easier way is to just not give yourself a huge caloric surplus in the first place.
That doesn't work. People eat when they are hungry, if someone is hungry when he doesn't actually need food, he'll still eat.
Telling people not to eat isn't going to work.
For some, small, subset of people it might work. Emotional eaters, or people who make really poor choices of what food. But for most people who are trying to lose weight your advice is useless because it doesn't work.
I don't think he'll sell many ice vests to women - they always seem to feel the cold. The women at work are always rugged up, while the guys (ok, all the guys do a lot of exercise) are mostly in shorts and t-shirts. In bed, my wife has a couple of duvets on, and I'm on the top of the bed with nothing on, sweating away. Maybe, based on the theories in this article, women would find it easier to lose weight if they let themselves get cold. But they already are.
They're cold because they're more used to dressing up warm. If they let themselves be constantly cold, their metabolisms would eventually increase to heat them.
I'm continually travelling from north to south and I feel a lot more people live healthy by the beach so they look good during the year while up north it's easy to bundle up because it's easy to wear long sleeves all the time.
As someone who was a grad student in an apartment with poor heating: it's not worth it. Eat appropriately, and exercise. The bloody cold numbs your brain too. I also remember reading, though I can't find a good source now, that programmers perform better when warmer (until a point, maybe 27 degrees C).
Besides, exercising feels good, while this feels bad. Might as well enjoy yourself.
My Cambridge (UK) house regularly got to 8-12 C in winter. I only turned on the heat for guests. It's not too bad, if you get used to it. Running barefoot in the snow can be fun, too. (But I wouldn't want to have to stand in one place.)
Would like to see a source for that claim. 27C is pretty hot and multiple studies have found that temperature to be suboptimal for classroom performance (which may not by indicative of programmer productivity, I guess).
"... the performance of two numerical and two language-based tests was significantly improved when the temperature was reduced from 25°C to 20°C (77°F to 68°F)."
It's probably this source that I misremembered (the numbers are close enough for me to have made a mistake). That explains why I couldn't find anything. Thanks.
I feel like all this talk is nonsense and people should simply work at the temperature they feel comfortable at. Offices should be at a neutral temperature and provide personal heaters.
I keep my room around 28C during the winter and 35C in the summer. The office I work at is set to 21C. I hate it and feel like I work better when I'm hotter.
I doubt there is a magic number that would have everyone work faster.
Oh certainly, I didn't mean that there was some magic number. I just wanted to say that obviously temperature extremes don't work. I should never have mentioned that 27 C thing (which was just a misremembered number). It isn't even my own favourite.
20C is ideal, 25C is too hot. In China, they always try cutting the AC back, and I always have to complain about it. It is difficult programming when your arms are sticking to the desk. Also, humidity has a lot to do with it (AC will remove humidity from the air as much as it will cool it).
Deserts are nice. I prefer low humidity like Salt Lake City, Denver, Reno, or even the bay area (not technically a desert, but pretty dry). Even Seattle has a nice climate since the mountains push the humidity up so high that it rains rather than gets bogged down in the air.
Beijing is technically dry but can get really humid in the summer (dry windless winters, humid windless summers, go figure).
TL;DR: One study suggests ability to recognize spelling and grammar mistakes improves in a cool room. A second study suggests ability to do math and make a correct decision based on it improves in the cool room. The third study suggests people in a warm room prefer to avoid complex cognitive decisions and rely on simpler patters of decision making even when it resulted in inferior choices.
YMMV. Empirically, I focus and perform better when a room is 18 - 19 C (below "room temperature", which seems to be 20 to 22 C). I am Canadian.
I think you're projecting with this. I find 60 degrees F (around 16 degrees C) comfortable and I'm happy and productive working at that temperature. Getting up past 21 or 22 degrees C and I start hating life.
I'm not really sure this is revolutionary or even "news" when high school wrestling coaches have been telling kids to sleep with their bedroom windows open to cut a couple pounds for decades?
(no idea if that works, always wrestled above my weight)
People's reactions to the cold always astonish me. I spend a lot of time in Canada and Hong Kong. In Canada, it can be 12 C (~53F) and lots of people will be wearing t-shirts and jeans, and it isn't too uncommon to see the odd person wearing shorts. In Hong Kong, 12 C necessitates a cold weather warning, and a fair amount of people die when it drops to 10 C (50F).
It would be interesting to try this article's suggestion of 55F offices out in various parts of the world. I would hypothesize that you'd see really different results, and that 55F as a "weight loss" temperature would probably only work in northern climates.
I just got back from Southern China yesterday visiting my wife's mom. And it was cold...I mean, it was only 7C out, but there was absolutely no indoor heating at all. It actually felt warmer outside than inside (and probably was since it took the sun a while to warm up the concrete). It was unbareable even with a kotatsu.
I am so happy to be back in freezing but well-heated Beijing. I can wear shorts in -10C weather, but no indoor heating at all will beat me down pretty quickly.
In my experience, comparing absolute temperatures across different climate/countries does not give the full picture.
I used to live in Paris where it felt warmish when the temperature was around 10C. Now that I live in Hong Kong, 10C feels freezing cold, as you pointed out.
Maybe it's related to humidity ? Or maybe it's because there is no indoor heating at all, as seanmcdirmid noted.
>I used to live in Paris where it felt warmish when the temperature was around 10C. Now that I live in Hong Kong, 10C feels freezing cold, as you pointed out.
expectations and clothes. In Russia i never wore shorts in 10C which i do in CA (even at 5C :) In Russia it would be jeans, good boots, t-shirt, sweater, good jacket. In CA - shorts, light sneakers, t-shirt, light jacket. Getting caught in SF at cable car stop summer evening without jacket - you get to freeze like it would be -25C with wind in St Petersburg :)
Also consider the constructions of the buildings. Perth, Western Australia can be a very hot place, but during nights and winters I hear from people visiting here that it feels far colder than their homelands which reach lower temperatures. All our houses are built with concrete flooring due to being built on sand - the concrete acts like chunk of ice under the house.
Dew point. When you sweat your skin will rapidly drop toward the dew point. Where I live it varies thru the year from below 0 to about 80, always below the air temp of course. When you don't sweat your skin approaches the sometimes much warmer air temp.
30 degrees air and 30 degrees dew point right after a snowfall is sweater and pants time. This morning the dew point is only 10 degrees so I have to wear a coat although I didn't need to zip it up. No wind helps.
A highly effective way to get killed doing winter sports is to build up a massive sweat and then completely stop moving before drying out... An air temp of 10 degrees is laughable and more or less comfortable if you're not sweating, but a dew point of 10 degrees if you're all sweaty will quite effectively give you hypothermia and kill you. Or the hypothermia will make you stupid, and then everyone will wonder why the heck a smart guy was walking along the cliff edge etc. Sweating in the cold is very dangerous. I usually don't wear a coat while I snowshoe hike (although I carry it in the backpack), wearing gloves and a hat and goggles but no coat always feels weird for the first time each season but you get used to it quickly.
Don't forget one thing though: Canadian homes are built to resist the cold and they are usually well-insulated.
Hong Kong, by comparison, is probably one of the worse places when it comes to thermal insulation. When it's 12 outside, it's not far from being the same inside.
It always amazed me how such an energy-hungry place, where electricity is expensive, is built so cheaply that insulation doesn't factor at all. Energy-efficiency is totally unknown when it comes to housing.
I'm yet to see a double-glazed window pane in Hong Kong.
No, Canadian homes are not built to resist the cold. They have the same silly 3cm cardboard walls that American houses have. This was very stunning for me coming from a country where the temperature rarely drops below 0 degrees Celsius. I have learnt that the Canadians only feel like they are being eco-friendly because the only place they are comparing themselves with is the US. I mean: a remote control for your car's motor so you can have it pre-heat, half of the people driving around in pick up trucks or the toilets having about a million litres of water in them.
Effective R value and the air barrier are a lot more important than thickness or material (of course material choice factors into R value, but better materials generally hit higher R values at lesser thickness...).
Modern building codes require a vaguely reasonable R value.
>It always amazed me how such an energy-hungry place, where electricity is expensive, is built so cheaply that insulation doesn't factor at all. Energy-efficiency is totally unknown when it comes to housing.
I agree that it's absurd. Switch off the aircon in summer in any of the apartments I've lived in there, and it's back at 33C within 10 minutes. After several years I finally rebuilt a place from the concrete up with proper insulation and double-glazed windows and the difference is astonishing.
The amount of wasted energy is depressing. Not so surprising though when the same groups that own the larger housing developers also own the power company.
In the deep desert, temperatures change fast. I once spent some time in a desert environment that went from 120F (49C) to 50F (10C) in a matter of a couple weeks. Where I come from 50F is light jacket weather if it's windy at night. But in the desert, after having become accustomed to hair dryer temperatures all day, I was freezing.
I mean shivering, teeth chattering cold. It was the most bizarre feeling. I could feel the air temperature, and it was fine, but my body simply couldn't keep up with the sudden change and I didn't get used to the new temperature for a few weeks.
I played soccer outside on Dec 26 in shorts and a soccer jersey in a balmy 6C here in Toronto. Would not have been possible without the sun shining right on me.
6C doesn't strike me as that cold for playing football in t-shirt and shorts. Actually, compared to most school football matches I can recall that seems quite civilized...
[It's been a while, so my memories of school PE do seem to becoming more like something from Ripping Yarns with each passing year.]
What? I didn't that your nasal mucus froze. I thought your body temp would keep it from freezing. How does it feel? Is it a beginning sign of frostbite?
I grew up in rural North Dakota, here's what happens. You walk outside and inhale, and your boogers will immediately freeze in your nose. It feels.... odd, I've no way to explain it properly, it honestly is something one has to experience. The general rule is below about -10C or thereabout you blow your nose before going outside. That or you're going to wait for it to thaw and then blowing your nose.
Doesn't have anything to do with frostbite that I'm aware of.
When its that cold for shits I would take a full cup of boiling/hot water and throw it in the air. Making snow is fun.
I know an 84 year old man in the prime of life, he speaks 37 languages, five of them nearly natively (including three that I happen to speak at a high level from my study and travels, and in which I have conversed with him), and is learning more every day. He is the personal language consultant of a billionaire, and recently picked up a new language fluently for him in less than a year. He also made impressive strides in an uncommon language I speak due to my family which is notoriously difficult, and has learned most of the dictionary and can read a newspaper as well as converse fluently. (The above information means there's a good chance someone here might recognize him, though the overlap with startups would only be via the billionaire.)
I asked him what his secret is for being so sprightly. He said, "I don't have one." Then on reflection he says, "Oh, I take a cold shower every day."
Of course 1 data point is not a study. But you might try it for a year and see if anything happens :)
So, I heard it stated that when someone has no rebuttal, instead of refuting a poster's point they will ask for references.
This isn't why I'm asking. It's just that I just would like to know if you have a better reference, i.e. where did you hear or learn this. Your article is from 'the art of manliness', and unlike the earlier sections from it on benefits, the section you cite doesn't actually contain any references to medicine at all. It just seems to be the author's speculation.
so I guess I'm saying I don't believe your facts, but am happy to be proved wrong if you happen to know or can find something I didn't. I think this is a civil response that leaves it quite open to my being wrong.
Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Someone made studies about running in summer or winter? Because if you go out in winter and you are exposure to low temperatures you would burn more calories. I think my Strava is not taking account this factor. Always I'm having same calories burnt in same distance.
Who keeps the AC at 60F? I live in Georgia and the normal setting is somewhere between 68 and 74. On a hot day, I don't think most people's ACs are even cable of getting the temperature down to 60.
I don't know about summers, but my parents enjoyed only turning on the heaters in winter when it got to maybe 45F indoors. Any colder and it might wake you up in the night, which is tremendously distracting, but aside from that there are no meaningful downsides to just wearing a sweatshirt. But those temperatures probably aren't common outside of Minnesota, Montana, the Dakotas, probably other midwestern areas (I'm in Michigan at the moment and it's bizarrely temperate -- people insisting coats are needed when sweatshirts hardly are).
FWIW, I moved from sunny Greece to somewhat cold Austria at the age of (almost) 18. In the following 2 years, I gained quite a bit of body hair (more than typical in the family), which I (now) attribute to the cold temperatures I had to endure during the first winters due to poor heating and light clothing. My point is: perhaps the body has more tricks up its sleeve than just to turn up the heating by burning more calories, not all of them as desirable as we'd hope. Then again, it might have been normal for my age and not related to climate, although I had plenty of facial hair very early (at 14) and generally didn't develop/grow much after 16.
Needless to say, I wasn't able to reverse the process with proper heating. I lose hair in all the wrong spots only!
After reading this article, I thought of gifting Dr. Wayne Hayes' ice vest to a friend. I googled Hayes and I found his website: http://coldshoulderweightloss.com.
I found his website shockingly bad. I wonder how anyone could buy a personal care product from a website that looks like that.
It's surprising how web presence can still be taken for granted. Especially when their website is a point of sale for their product.
I'm in Europe. I've been using only (cold) tap water in my house for more than a year. It began with a broken heater in the midst of last year's summer when I decided to postpone buying new one to see how long I can last with cold water. I thought that sooner or later I should catch cold and then I would switch back to using warm water. That summer was hot (up to 35 degree Celsius) and tap water was warm, slowly it began cooling but I didn't feel any difference. When it hit -25 degree outside I was sure that my cold water showers will put me in bed but that never happened. The only inconvenience was (and is) that many hygiene products (shampoos, soaps, and such) work poorly with cold water and it takes more time to properly wash myself. I can't say whether this habit affects my weight or gives any other benefit, but as long as it's not harmful I can't care less.
It's "common folk knowledge" where I live (Poland) that to be healthy you should "temper yourself" - after hot shower you should follow with cold water for a minute or so.
I do this (not each time but often) and I like the feeling after the cold shower ends - air feels warm instead of cold, heart is beating very fast, and it's very refreshing.
It's probably bad idea if you're not healthy to begin with (thermal shock etc), but if you are healthy it's great.
The article talks mostly about weight loss as a benefit. There are also suggestions that cold may improve your immune system. Wim Hof (aka the "Ice man") is exploring that idea[1]. Among other things, he runs marathons in the arctic on bare foot and sits in ice cubes for prolonged periods. He also did a ted talk a while ago. http://www.icemanwimhof.com/en-home
What's funny is that the article never suggests that the simplest solution would be to go swimming (Phelps example) instead of resorting to things like the cold vest or sleeping without a blanket.
And swimming has more advantages than just being cold : it provides your cardio in a non damaging way (contrary to running) and you gain a valuable skill that can save your life.
This is actually a very good point. Other studies found the general damage done by sedentary lifestyles lived by lots of us is irreversible and I don't think thee are lots of studies showing negative effects of light excercise in general. So trying to cope with obesity by not moving but instead just sitting and having cold (not sure if the article literally suggests it but there were definitely hints towards it) certainly goes against that.
I think the idea is that this worked for Phelps because he was in cold water all day, and this is what the vest is trying to replicate in a way that will fit in more easily with most peoples' lives.
That's what happens with any exercise or anything that uses calories. Your body is meant to survive anything. So any caloric expenditure is met with higher feelings of hunger.
Running, especially when heavy or overweight puts a lot of stress on your joints, most notably the knees. The effect is worse when you're untrained and don't have a proper technique. Swimming does not, since your body weight is suspended by the water.
It messes with your knees and heel. When you take a step during a run, your leg lands with your entire body slamming into it.
There are ways to run that are less damaging (better equipment, like socks and shoes, or using the technique where you largely only make contact using the balls of your feet), but it doesn't change the fact of a shock happening.
That said, it's unlikely to be so damaging to you as to outweigh its benefits. Swimming is better mostly because water has less resistance than the ground, and pushing off isn't really a shock to anything.
I looked into this quite a bit some years ago and found no research to suggest more cushioned shoes, less cushioned shoes, pronation-control shoes, barefoot running, etc. have any effect on injury rates. Are there recent studies or info that I missed on this topic?
> it's unlikely to be so damaging to you as to outweigh its benefits
It's even possible that all the shock and load bearing of running /is/ a benefit.
Running is associated with acute injuries of all sorts, but as others have commented does not correlate with osteoarthritis or other long term injuries.
"There are caveats, though, especially for people who have suffered significant knee injury or are overweight."
Sure, in moderation it's a small net gain, but few are the correct weight, without injury, and run in moderation.
Note: Simply being tall can have the same effect as being overweight and shorter. The knee supports 3d volume on a 2d surface so it has scaling issues. There is a significant peak load difference between a 5'2" runner and a 6'2" runner.
Edit: "We know from many long-term studies that running doesn't appear to cause much damage to the knees," vs. "In one study, Swedish researchers found that exercise, including jogging, may even be beneficial." So, at best "if you have a relatively normal knee and you're jogging five to six times a week at a moderate pace, then there's every reason to believe that your joints will remain healthy." Which is hardly the same things as saying running is not harmful.
"Is there a causal relationship between running and osteoarthritis? The current data are based on small studies, and their results are often unclear."
I've previously come across the cited studies by Lane, "at 9-year follow-up, the results were the same; there was no difference in the incidence and progression of knee and hip osteoarthritis in runners and nonrunners", but had not seen Sohn's comparison of college varsity runners and swimmers, "There is no association between moderate longdistance running and the future development of osteoarthritis. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that neither heavy mileage nor the number of years running are contributory to the future development of osteoarthritis."
On the other hand, Schmitt et al found that "Osteoarthritis of the knee joint is rare in former elite marathon runners. The risk of osteoarthritis of the hip joint seems to be higher than in control subjects who do not engage in much sport."
"The current evidence in persons who participate in elite sports activity, particularly in sporting groups susceptible to joint injury, suggests that these groups are at increased risk for OA as a result of their participation, but it is unclear whether participation in the absence of injury is harmful. "
Weight and other health issues are a massive and hard to control for Confounding variable in most of these studies. Osteoarthritis causes (weight, injury, bone misalignments etc.) are also likely to inhibit running. At the same time running increases the risk of injury.
Note: Most of these studies are also talking about jogging not running as running is shown to cause damage.
However, from your link "Researchers22 found a significantly higher incidence of osteoarthritis in men (aged 20–49 years) who were involved in high levels of physical activity (ie, walking or running more than 20 miles per week). "
The article never talks either about "getting cold" (and being sick). How does it work? Each time I spend a few hours in the cold (e.g. at work in Sydney in summer, they keep the A/C at 19C), I feel like I have a mini-fever for 24hrs. Is it a natural reaction of the body? Does it go away after adaptation?
I occasionally have the same issue: At work all day feeling cold (normally on a Monday as the heating is not on during the weekend) and then I feel like I'm getting a cold, I'm glad it's not just me.
May not be the correct answer for you, but it's true for me. In the winter when the temperature has dropped suddenly I often need to take a decongestant for a few days and then I'm fine for the rest of it. Crud in your sinuses (for me at least) caused by allergies (grasses in my case) or weather can trigger a low-grade fever and other cold-like symptoms. It's worse since I work in a heated (too hot, IMO) office and then have to go back out into the cold. This was less of a problem when I worked in a more "frugal" office where the temperature (while still warmer inside) wasn't so extremely different from outside.
Do you wear a long-sleeve shirt? I used to have this problem when I wore t-shirts and worked in an air-conditioned office. Now I wear a long-sleeve button-down shirt with an undershirt and I feel much more comfortable every day.
>What's funny is that the article never suggests that the simplest solution would be to go swimming
or how about some thinking/learning - brain consumes a lot of energy when it works. I mean when it really works - to save energy we push (as result of training/repetition) many things into habit, automatic response territory and thus most of the times our brain doesn't actually "work".
the facts in the article can be interpreted in many ways.
Anyway, i was saying it based on my lifelong observations and personal experiences and understanding of how brain works. In short - i've never seen a fat mathematician :)
In my experience, it's not likely because they expend calories thinking, but that they get so emersed into their work, they forget to eat :) lot of good programming folks seem to be the same way
Agree; but note the study of the Swiss swimming team Limmat Sharks on fat reduction and cardio:
"The results suggest that in terms of beneficial effects on body composition, there is no difference between aerobic exercise on land and in water as long as intensity, duration and frequency of workouts are comparable. [..] However, swimming as the exclusive sport could be problematic, because the small load on the skeleton is not favourable to prevent osteoporosis"
When I was about 10-12 y.o. I realy enjoyed cold. And it's kind of easy to get some snow in Russia.
But then I've got pyelonephritis for a long time, so my parents did their best to keep me away from long direct cold exposure. Like, you know, don't go out without scarf, skating and skiing in wool socks etc.
When it comes to ice swimming, most of swimmers are overweight... Seems like thier calories are not buring due to cold. Or, perhaps, they've got too much of calories.
I remember camping when I was younger in the Boy Scouts, and coming home after a weekend trip and always being tired. I always thought that it was due to all of the energy I spent regulating my body temperature in the elements.
Years later, in the military, we would spend 3-14 days in the wilderness for training. I was in much better shape, and would not get tired from simply being outside.
This may be anecdotal, but it seems to lend support to the author's claims.
Some groups of Australian Aborigines are known to enter a 'hibernation' state at night, in which temperatures plummet to near-freezing temperatures. Their bodies don't shiver - instead, they go into hypothermia, and 'revive' in the morning.
There's a well-known paper from 1958 documenting some of this: 'Cold Adaptation in Australian Aborigines', by Scholander et al; but the more interesting account is from the Textbook of Biochemistry and Human Biology by Talwar & Srivastava: "Australian aborigines... a group of stone age people who customarily sleep comfortably without clothing, on the ground at temperatures well below freezing. Their body and skin temperature drops tremendously, insulation against heat loss increases by vasoconstriction, and metabolism and heat production remains unaltered. This ethnic group have developed the inborn ability to tolerate hypothermia without recourse to compensation by metabolic heat production - a case of acclimatization by genetic adaptation." (page 886)
When the English first began settling in New England in the 1600s, they were astonished that the local Indian men and boys wore only a loincloth during most of the year, even in snowy weather, adding leggings and a small shawl on the shoulders only in the coldest weeks of the New England winter.
I would love to learn more about this adaptation, which has been witnessed in multiple ethnic groups by so many witnesses that, even allowing for tall tails from exotic lands, still is apparently a real phenomenon (or multiple phenomena).
I wonder, for example, whether it makes a difference how old you are when you begin your "training". I wonder how much nature (genetic adaptation), if any, is required vs. nurture (exposure).
Also keep in mind that Indians also largely only wore leather. Leather is renowned for its great insulative properties.
The other factor is wind exposure. It's easier to stay tolerant of cold when there's no wind. When that wind picks up and starts stripping you of your heat layer, you'll feel it much more even at slightly warmer temps.
I grew up in a part of the country that almost never gets cold and moved to chicago. First two years were rough. Got a (black dyed motorcycle style) leather jacket and learned to dress in less, but tighter layers. Haven't had a problem since. Too many poofy layers is more air that needs to be heated and kept heated by your body. Only times I have an issue is when skin is directly exposed. Even a thin cotton shawl is enough to keep the bodyheat layer more protected.
As I got more used to the winters, I also found it more comfortable to keep the temperatures lower indoors. I get nauseous when I'm outside and it's freezing and I step into a store or building that is heated above mid 70's. That constant warm up, cool down, warm up cycle of walking in and out of buildings in the city is more taxing than simply dealing with the cold.
With that in mind, I found it more comfortable to walk into my apartment as long as it was mostly just warmer than outside rather than the usual indoor temps people are used to. 62 degree (Fahrenheit) indoor average temp is quite easily adjusted to as long as skin isn't exposed elsewhere on the body.
Now I find I don't sleep as well if my pillow gets too warm. I have a pillow on my bed that I swap out with the other and when I do, I make sure it touches the wall so it's as cold as it can get when I swap them out again.
I did this in my late 20s, early 30s... so I don't think it would be a case of not being able to do this if you were older, training yourself to acclimate to colder temperatures.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 214 ms ] thread[1] http://bit.ly/1xtaSKi
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/sep/17/ranulph-fiennes-an...
Almost all of that time was spent in Africa. Even during glacial periods, was it ever icy? I don't know much about the paleoclimate, so I'm not sure.
(see http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/exercise-to-lose-we... )
Telling people not to eat isn't going to work.
For some, small, subset of people it might work. Emotional eaters, or people who make really poor choices of what food. But for most people who are trying to lose weight your advice is useless because it doesn't work.
For me, I don't buy ready made food and typically my own laziness is the reason I don't eat much.
If you want to lose weight, you'll have to go through something unpleasant. Either it's being hungry, exercising a lot, or being cold.
Besides, exercising feels good, while this feels bad. Might as well enjoy yourself.
"... the performance of two numerical and two language-based tests was significantly improved when the temperature was reduced from 25°C to 20°C (77°F to 68°F)."
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10789669.2007.103...
I keep my room around 28C during the winter and 35C in the summer. The office I work at is set to 21C. I hate it and feel like I work better when I'm hotter.
I doubt there is a magic number that would have everyone work faster.
Beijing is technically dry but can get really humid in the summer (dry windless winters, humid windless summers, go figure).
Three are discussed here. ("Cool room" was 19 C, "warm room" was 25 C.) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/warm-weather-makes...
TL;DR: One study suggests ability to recognize spelling and grammar mistakes improves in a cool room. A second study suggests ability to do math and make a correct decision based on it improves in the cool room. The third study suggests people in a warm room prefer to avoid complex cognitive decisions and rely on simpler patters of decision making even when it resulted in inferior choices.
YMMV. Empirically, I focus and perform better when a room is 18 - 19 C (below "room temperature", which seems to be 20 to 22 C). I am Canadian.
(no idea if that works, always wrestled above my weight)
It would be interesting to try this article's suggestion of 55F offices out in various parts of the world. I would hypothesize that you'd see really different results, and that 55F as a "weight loss" temperature would probably only work in northern climates.
I am so happy to be back in freezing but well-heated Beijing. I can wear shorts in -10C weather, but no indoor heating at all will beat me down pretty quickly.
I used to live in Paris where it felt warmish when the temperature was around 10C. Now that I live in Hong Kong, 10C feels freezing cold, as you pointed out.
Maybe it's related to humidity ? Or maybe it's because there is no indoor heating at all, as seanmcdirmid noted.
expectations and clothes. In Russia i never wore shorts in 10C which i do in CA (even at 5C :) In Russia it would be jeans, good boots, t-shirt, sweater, good jacket. In CA - shorts, light sneakers, t-shirt, light jacket. Getting caught in SF at cable car stop summer evening without jacket - you get to freeze like it would be -25C with wind in St Petersburg :)
50f in San Fran can feel downright chilly.
50f in Chicago is shorts weather.
Dew point. When you sweat your skin will rapidly drop toward the dew point. Where I live it varies thru the year from below 0 to about 80, always below the air temp of course. When you don't sweat your skin approaches the sometimes much warmer air temp.
30 degrees air and 30 degrees dew point right after a snowfall is sweater and pants time. This morning the dew point is only 10 degrees so I have to wear a coat although I didn't need to zip it up. No wind helps.
A highly effective way to get killed doing winter sports is to build up a massive sweat and then completely stop moving before drying out... An air temp of 10 degrees is laughable and more or less comfortable if you're not sweating, but a dew point of 10 degrees if you're all sweaty will quite effectively give you hypothermia and kill you. Or the hypothermia will make you stupid, and then everyone will wonder why the heck a smart guy was walking along the cliff edge etc. Sweating in the cold is very dangerous. I usually don't wear a coat while I snowshoe hike (although I carry it in the backpack), wearing gloves and a hat and goggles but no coat always feels weird for the first time each season but you get used to it quickly.
Hong Kong, by comparison, is probably one of the worse places when it comes to thermal insulation. When it's 12 outside, it's not far from being the same inside.
It always amazed me how such an energy-hungry place, where electricity is expensive, is built so cheaply that insulation doesn't factor at all. Energy-efficiency is totally unknown when it comes to housing.
I'm yet to see a double-glazed window pane in Hong Kong.
Modern building codes require a vaguely reasonable R value.
I agree that it's absurd. Switch off the aircon in summer in any of the apartments I've lived in there, and it's back at 33C within 10 minutes. After several years I finally rebuilt a place from the concrete up with proper insulation and double-glazed windows and the difference is astonishing.
The amount of wasted energy is depressing. Not so surprising though when the same groups that own the larger housing developers also own the power company.
I mean shivering, teeth chattering cold. It was the most bizarre feeling. I could feel the air temperature, and it was fine, but my body simply couldn't keep up with the sudden change and I didn't get used to the new temperature for a few weeks.
[It's been a while, so my memories of school PE do seem to becoming more like something from Ripping Yarns with each passing year.]
Doesn't have anything to do with frostbite that I'm aware of.
When its that cold for shits I would take a full cup of boiling/hot water and throw it in the air. Making snow is fun.
I asked him what his secret is for being so sprightly. He said, "I don't have one." Then on reflection he says, "Oh, I take a cold shower every day."
Of course 1 data point is not a study. But you might try it for a year and see if anything happens :)
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/01/18/the-james-bond-show...
This isn't why I'm asking. It's just that I just would like to know if you have a better reference, i.e. where did you hear or learn this. Your article is from 'the art of manliness', and unlike the earlier sections from it on benefits, the section you cite doesn't actually contain any references to medicine at all. It just seems to be the author's speculation.
I performed the following Google query:
https://www.google.com/search?q=are+cold+showers+harmful
so I guess I'm saying I don't believe your facts, but am happy to be proved wrong if you happen to know or can find something I didn't. I think this is a civil response that leaves it quite open to my being wrong.
Thank you.
Needless to say, I wasn't able to reverse the process with proper heating. I lose hair in all the wrong spots only!
I found his website shockingly bad. I wonder how anyone could buy a personal care product from a website that looks like that.
It's surprising how web presence can still be taken for granted. Especially when their website is a point of sale for their product.
Why this junk is on the top of the HN front page I don't know.
I do this (not each time but often) and I like the feeling after the cold shower ends - air feels warm instead of cold, heart is beating very fast, and it's very refreshing.
It's probably bad idea if you're not healthy to begin with (thermal shock etc), but if you are healthy it's great.
And swimming has more advantages than just being cold : it provides your cardio in a non damaging way (contrary to running) and you gain a valuable skill that can save your life.
I've read in the past that being cold from swimming tends to make your body think that you are in need of calories.
So casual swimmers will eat their workout at the vending machine, the one conveniently placed near the pool exit.
There are ways to run that are less damaging (better equipment, like socks and shoes, or using the technique where you largely only make contact using the balls of your feet), but it doesn't change the fact of a shock happening.
That said, it's unlikely to be so damaging to you as to outweigh its benefits. Swimming is better mostly because water has less resistance than the ground, and pushing off isn't really a shock to anything.
I looked into this quite a bit some years ago and found no research to suggest more cushioned shoes, less cushioned shoes, pronation-control shoes, barefoot running, etc. have any effect on injury rates. Are there recent studies or info that I missed on this topic?
> it's unlikely to be so damaging to you as to outweigh its benefits
It's even possible that all the shock and load bearing of running /is/ a benefit.
Running is associated with acute injuries of all sorts, but as others have commented does not correlate with osteoarthritis or other long term injuries.
General medical consensus is that moderate running is an indicator for better joint health.
[1] http://www.npr.org/2011/03/28/134861448/put-those-shoes-on-r...
Sure, in moderation it's a small net gain, but few are the correct weight, without injury, and run in moderation.
Note: Simply being tall can have the same effect as being overweight and shorter. The knee supports 3d volume on a 2d surface so it has scaling issues. There is a significant peak load difference between a 5'2" runner and a 6'2" runner.
Edit: "We know from many long-term studies that running doesn't appear to cause much damage to the knees," vs. "In one study, Swedish researchers found that exercise, including jogging, may even be beneficial." So, at best "if you have a relatively normal knee and you're jogging five to six times a week at a moderate pace, then there's every reason to believe that your joints will remain healthy." Which is hardly the same things as saying running is not harmful.
http://www.jaoa.osteopathic.org/content/106/6/342.full
"Is there a causal relationship between running and osteoarthritis? The current data are based on small studies, and their results are often unclear."
I've previously come across the cited studies by Lane, "at 9-year follow-up, the results were the same; there was no difference in the incidence and progression of knee and hip osteoarthritis in runners and nonrunners", but had not seen Sohn's comparison of college varsity runners and swimmers, "There is no association between moderate longdistance running and the future development of osteoarthritis. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that neither heavy mileage nor the number of years running are contributory to the future development of osteoarthritis."
On the other hand, Schmitt et al found that "Osteoarthritis of the knee joint is rare in former elite marathon runners. The risk of osteoarthritis of the hip joint seems to be higher than in control subjects who do not engage in much sport."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16932832
"The current evidence in persons who participate in elite sports activity, particularly in sporting groups susceptible to joint injury, suggests that these groups are at increased risk for OA as a result of their participation, but it is unclear whether participation in the absence of injury is harmful. "
Weight and other health issues are a massive and hard to control for Confounding variable in most of these studies. Osteoarthritis causes (weight, injury, bone misalignments etc.) are also likely to inhibit running. At the same time running increases the risk of injury.
Note: Most of these studies are also talking about jogging not running as running is shown to cause damage.
However, from your link "Researchers22 found a significantly higher incidence of osteoarthritis in men (aged 20–49 years) who were involved in high levels of physical activity (ie, walking or running more than 20 miles per week). "
Would love to know why this happens though?
I always figured it was somehow psychosomatic.
May not be the correct answer for you, but it's true for me. In the winter when the temperature has dropped suddenly I often need to take a decongestant for a few days and then I'm fine for the rest of it. Crud in your sinuses (for me at least) caused by allergies (grasses in my case) or weather can trigger a low-grade fever and other cold-like symptoms. It's worse since I work in a heated (too hot, IMO) office and then have to go back out into the cold. This was less of a problem when I worked in a more "frugal" office where the temperature (while still warmer inside) wasn't so extremely different from outside.
or how about some thinking/learning - brain consumes a lot of energy when it works. I mean when it really works - to save energy we push (as result of training/repetition) many things into habit, automatic response territory and thus most of the times our brain doesn't actually "work".
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thinking-hard-calo... seems to say, not really.
"The results suggest that in terms of beneficial effects on body composition, there is no difference between aerobic exercise on land and in water as long as intensity, duration and frequency of workouts are comparable. [..] However, swimming as the exclusive sport could be problematic, because the small load on the skeleton is not favourable to prevent osteoporosis"
http://limmatsharks.com/Swimming%2BFatReduction/index.html http://www.limmatsharks.com/Fatburner/
Generally, the articles of Limmat Sharks are great reads on swimming. I can't recommend them enough.
https://www.wallenberg.com/kaw/en/research/bodys-brown-fat-w...
* Cold acclimation recruits human brown fat and increases nonshivering thermogenesis http://www.jci.org/articles/view/68993
* Calorie-burning triggered by cold temperatures can be achieved biochemically – without the chill http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/06/114951/immune-system-molecu...
When it comes to ice swimming, most of swimmers are overweight... Seems like thier calories are not buring due to cold. Or, perhaps, they've got too much of calories.
Googled a bit about ice swimming. This is exactly how it looks like here http://s.inyourpocket.com/img/russia/Moscow/ice-swimming_b93...
Years later, in the military, we would spend 3-14 days in the wilderness for training. I was in much better shape, and would not get tired from simply being outside.
This may be anecdotal, but it seems to lend support to the author's claims.
- body area/volume. The smaller you are, the easier it is to lose heat. You probably have twice the weight, but only about 30% more body area now.
- I expect you were trained to pay attention to how you dressed in the military, and paid more attention to it than when you were young.
- advancements in clothing technology.
On the other hand, chances are that military training included doing things you should avoid when out in the cold.
There's a well-known paper from 1958 documenting some of this: 'Cold Adaptation in Australian Aborigines', by Scholander et al; but the more interesting account is from the Textbook of Biochemistry and Human Biology by Talwar & Srivastava: "Australian aborigines... a group of stone age people who customarily sleep comfortably without clothing, on the ground at temperatures well below freezing. Their body and skin temperature drops tremendously, insulation against heat loss increases by vasoconstriction, and metabolism and heat production remains unaltered. This ethnic group have developed the inborn ability to tolerate hypothermia without recourse to compensation by metabolic heat production - a case of acclimatization by genetic adaptation." (page 886)
I would love to learn more about this adaptation, which has been witnessed in multiple ethnic groups by so many witnesses that, even allowing for tall tails from exotic lands, still is apparently a real phenomenon (or multiple phenomena).
I wonder, for example, whether it makes a difference how old you are when you begin your "training". I wonder how much nature (genetic adaptation), if any, is required vs. nurture (exposure).
The other factor is wind exposure. It's easier to stay tolerant of cold when there's no wind. When that wind picks up and starts stripping you of your heat layer, you'll feel it much more even at slightly warmer temps.
I grew up in a part of the country that almost never gets cold and moved to chicago. First two years were rough. Got a (black dyed motorcycle style) leather jacket and learned to dress in less, but tighter layers. Haven't had a problem since. Too many poofy layers is more air that needs to be heated and kept heated by your body. Only times I have an issue is when skin is directly exposed. Even a thin cotton shawl is enough to keep the bodyheat layer more protected.
As I got more used to the winters, I also found it more comfortable to keep the temperatures lower indoors. I get nauseous when I'm outside and it's freezing and I step into a store or building that is heated above mid 70's. That constant warm up, cool down, warm up cycle of walking in and out of buildings in the city is more taxing than simply dealing with the cold.
With that in mind, I found it more comfortable to walk into my apartment as long as it was mostly just warmer than outside rather than the usual indoor temps people are used to. 62 degree (Fahrenheit) indoor average temp is quite easily adjusted to as long as skin isn't exposed elsewhere on the body.
Now I find I don't sleep as well if my pillow gets too warm. I have a pillow on my bed that I swap out with the other and when I do, I make sure it touches the wall so it's as cold as it can get when I swap them out again.
I did this in my late 20s, early 30s... so I don't think it would be a case of not being able to do this if you were older, training yourself to acclimate to colder temperatures.