How to Help Your Body Adjust to Colder Weather


Olde Hornet

Well-Known Member

Fall is here, and the mercury is falling in thermostats across the northern hemisphere. The good news: Not only will your body acclimate to the cooler weather, but you can also hurry this process along.

Beginning in the 1960s, U.S. Army researchers found that nude men who spent eight hours a day in a 50°F (10°C) chamber became habituated to the cold and had mostly stopped shivering after two weeks. Later research from Scandinavian and U.K. teams likewise concluded that people can get used to cool environments. And a recent research review from Army researchers concluded that all humans seem to have at least some ability to acclimatize to the cold.

A small 2014 study published in the journal PLOS One, a group of healthy men spent up to three hours a day sitting in baths filled with 57°F (about 14°C) water. (That’s roughly the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean along the New Jersey and New York coastlines in late October, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)
 
Back
Top