<story><title>The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)</title><url>http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/As-Freezing-Persons-Recollect-the-Snow--First-Chill--Then-Stupor--Then-the-Letting-Go.html?page=all</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danso</author><text>This bit about how certain groups of people have somehow developed different responses to cold is fascinating:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Were you a Norwegian fisherman or Inuit hunter, both of whom frequently work gloveless in the cold, your chilled hands would open their surface capillaries periodically to allow surges of warm blood to pass into them and maintain their flexibility. This phenomenon, known as the hunter&apos;s response, can elevate a 35-degree skin temperature to 50 degrees within seven or eight minutes.&lt;p&gt;Other human adaptations to the cold are more mysterious. Tibetan Buddhist monks can raise the skin temperature of their hands and feet by 15 degrees through meditation. Australian aborigines, who once slept on the ground, unclothed, on near-freezing nights, would slip into a light hypothermic state, suppressing shivering until the rising sun rewarmed them.&lt;p&gt;You have no such defenses, having spent your days at a keyboard in a climate-controlled office. Only after about ten minutes of hard climbing, as your body temperature rises, does blood start seeping back into your fingers. Sweat trickles down your sternum and spine.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ef4</author><text>I saw a talk from a US Army-funded researchers on cold weather adaptation. He described how to reliably train oneself to induce the &quot;hunter&apos;s response&quot;.&lt;p&gt;You just go sit outside in the cold for five or ten minutes at a time while keeping your hands and/or feet submerged in insulated warm water. The goal is to expose most of your body to the cold while keeping the capillaries open. After about fifty repetitions of this (at three to six repetitions per day), your body gets used to the idea of maintaining circulation despite an overall cold environment.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)</title><url>http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/As-Freezing-Persons-Recollect-the-Snow--First-Chill--Then-Stupor--Then-the-Letting-Go.html?page=all</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danso</author><text>This bit about how certain groups of people have somehow developed different responses to cold is fascinating:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Were you a Norwegian fisherman or Inuit hunter, both of whom frequently work gloveless in the cold, your chilled hands would open their surface capillaries periodically to allow surges of warm blood to pass into them and maintain their flexibility. This phenomenon, known as the hunter&apos;s response, can elevate a 35-degree skin temperature to 50 degrees within seven or eight minutes.&lt;p&gt;Other human adaptations to the cold are more mysterious. Tibetan Buddhist monks can raise the skin temperature of their hands and feet by 15 degrees through meditation. Australian aborigines, who once slept on the ground, unclothed, on near-freezing nights, would slip into a light hypothermic state, suppressing shivering until the rising sun rewarmed them.&lt;p&gt;You have no such defenses, having spent your days at a keyboard in a climate-controlled office. Only after about ten minutes of hard climbing, as your body temperature rises, does blood start seeping back into your fingers. Sweat trickles down your sternum and spine.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>freehunter</author><text>You can notice this effect in your life as well. I don&apos;t know where you live, but I know here in the north, 40F is &quot;freezing&quot; cold in November for many people. And when March rolls around, 40F is cause for breaking out the t-shirts. Your body will adapt to the cold to a certain degree. I think I saw it explained on a reddit &quot;ask science&quot; post some time ago, but I cannot remember the physiological details of these temporary adaptations to climate patterns.</text></comment>