Do you get used to being cold?

[Woeismethischristmas]

Stopped using the boiler (oil and can’t afford to refill the tank) the cold just seems to settle in my bones and toes. Am wearing layers, scavenging for wood to light the wood stove a few hours a day. How do you get used to the cold. Im just mooching around between heat sources. Electric bathroom radiator and oil radiator in the hall. Wearing layers and moving around but Still freezing even with endless hot drinks.

Do you just eventually adjust to being cold? Super warm at work so I spend the other half of the week boiling.

It's worth doing a sort of personal survey of what gets cold. I find I need to keep my wrists and forearms warm with thin fingerless gloves, a thin scarf in my collar makes a huge difference, and rubber soled slippers/crocs.

Mum always talked about keeping your kidneys warm. An extra layer round the middle seems to make a big difference.

Today I found it cold in the house so went outside. The same temperature didn't seem so insulting, as it was outside!

Go out for a walk. Pop some headphones on , grab a warm coat and hat and walk at a fairly brisk pace for 20-30 mins or so. On returning to the house, snuggle up with a blanket. Really stops the 'freezing bones' coldness.
If you can't / don't want to get out, then do a short workout at home. Anything to warm you up a bit. X

If anything good comes out of this cost of living crisis I hope that workplaces start being cooler in winter (jumper temperature) and warmer in summer (for workplaces that run freezing aircon so you need to bring a jumper in midsummer).

I have an underactive thyroid and feel the cold a lot more than I used to. When I get cold it takes me a long time to get warm again. Uggs and a heated throw.

I grew up in the 60s in a large house. There were open fires downstairs but upstairs had no heating. I think you do get used to it and adapt to wearing layers etc.

It's a miserable way to live though if it is associated with other problems such as a lack of good nourishing food.

I was a child in 1970s and cold due to gas fires and paraffin heaters. We wrapped up warm when out, had lots of warm meals like shepherds pie, thick soups, stews etc plus apple pie/crumble (homemade). I recall being tucked in with blankets (candle wick ones?). I’m sure if we were really cold we had electric heaters on for a short time. Baths every night or every other night were normal with a paraffin heater plus the small gas fire at top of doorway in bathroom. We had hot water bottles, hot chocolate etc. Food was definitely filling, milky foods, eggy bread etc.

If we went to grandparents house we knew they both had very warm living rooms and central heating in nana’s case.

I think you do get used to being cold but if most of your friends are it’s normal and you build up a good immune system. Running around a lot in playgrounds and walking to and from school and to shops helped warm us up.

We didn’t have thermal underwear but did have wool socks.

Yes, you do, eventually, and then you find other people's houses and hotel rooms far too stuffy!
Warm socks and slippers, fluffy dressing gown over clothes, blankets or electric throw on sofa for when you are sitting still. Electric blanket with timer on the bed. Hat on bed of you are baldy like DH! Wool duvets are great.

The trick is to move and wear fleece or real wool.

I wear fleece bedsocks or wool hiking socks under sheepskin lined slippers, a Heat tech top, wool sweater and felece dressing gown or blanket when working from home, with a fleece blanket over my knees. I get up once an hour and do some high kicks or lift some weights until I feel a bit too hot.

Yes. We’ve not had our heating on since Feb. Lots of layers, hat, blankets, shut the doors, draft excluders 😀

We have our heating turned to 18 for a a couple of hours in the morning and evening and then 12 the rest of the time. The kids don’t seem to have noticed at all. Isn’t too bad at this time of year anyway, we’re wearing an extra thick layer and wearable blanket when on the sofa and it’s not too bad, starting to get used to it. We never had central heating as a children let alone double glazing. Although had gas fires in the rooms, although had to be mindful about using them too much still as like many families in the 80s we’d of been very poor by todays standards but they were toasty when lying in front of them and my parents did everything to make sure we weren’t cold but at same time we expected to wear jumpers, not leave room doors open etc first but they would put them on if needed. Obviously there would be no heating at night and would wake up and you could see your breath but you would be warm under your duvet, just as with camping.
I do really feel for those with disabilities and medical conditions who would really suffer with the cold. I remember on the 80s stories of pensioners dying as they couldn’t afford to hear their homes. I think that’s why they bought in the extra grants for the elderly. I think the rest of us will adapt, if we really needed to we could turn the heating up but we still want to have the money for things like occasional days out and modest birthday treats etc but does mean tightening belt on heating, petrol, food etc but we still consider ourselves very fortunate

I'm happy to be active and cold (open water swimming, running) so have got used to prolonged cold temperatures, but being sedentary and cold is a different matter. My nose drips incessantly in cool air when my body's too cool.

Layering and keeping layers over as much of the body as possible including fingerless gloves.
Warm from the inside with hot food/ drinks
I can find it hard to warm up if I've been stationary and cold too long and layers don't work well on a low core body temperature.
Time a warm shower to warm up cold skin but get hair dry quickly.

I don't like excessively heating the house in the daytime for resources/ efficiency as much as anything else. I bought an electric blanket on the first cold days of last autumn and that's great for warming up when chilled as it's targeted and works quite quickly.

It's hard! I wear thin socks, wool knit socks, genuine ugg boots, thermal base layer trousers, jogging bottoms, thermal base layer long sleeve top, long sleeve top, wool knitted jumper and I'm still chilly. Today I've got all that on and then a wool scarf and a blanket over me and a hot water bottle on and I'm finally comfortable. Its 10 degrees in our house!

I feel guilty boiling the kettle for the hot water bottle though

I'm another older poster and never got used to being cold as a child when no-one had central heating and we all had ice on the inside of windows. I was also always cold commuting, waiting for buses or trains. Menopause helped but now I am through that I am feeling cold again and can't bear it. Some of us never get used to feeling cold. Yesterday I was cold even with the heating on.

Another 50s child here. No central heating, just an open fire in the lounge and a coal/wood burner in the scullery which heated the water. I used to wear woollen underwear, hand knit woollen jumpers and cardigans, woolly tights and hand made corduroy pinafore dresses.

We used to eat a lot of 'stick to your ribs' type meals. Stews, casseroles with dumplings, meat pies, puddings with custard. The winter of 62/63 was dire. I remember the 3 day week in the 70s only too well too. Being at work and typing by candlelight (!) It was cold then too.

Our heating went wrong a couple of years ago and we had no heating for a week in winter. It was awful. The cold gets into your bones.

Currently our heating is turned down and we use it for less time. We go out a lot more to the library and to shopping centres so we don't need to use our heating so much.

I was a 60s child and I don't remember feeling cold very often , however this year we have had our heating turned down and gone to bed at 9 quite often & I'm not loving it that much . Heat holders socks and a fur covered hot water bottle and fleecy blankets are good .

I managed when I was a student, but I’d hate it now I’m retired. We used to rent a freezing slum tenement in the 1970s, for £15 a month (that is not a typo!), with one paraffin stove.
In the winter (Dundee), the water froze in the toilet pan. Whoever got up first in the morning had to take a hairdryer to thaw the pipe to the only tap in the flat - the cold water supply to the kitchen sink, in order to melt the water to boil the kettle for a wash.
We had rags stuffed into the holes in the stonework round the windows, to try to block the drafts. When the pipes in the flat above us froze and burst, we had no water for ten days, and had to carry buckets up two floors from the shop down the street.
I hope nobody gets reduced to living like that in this day and age - we really need serious action on energy prices and insulating homes.

When my heating broke I found nights the easy bit

By “not overnight”, I meant it takes more than one night to get used to it. Not that nights were harder to get used to.

We had frost on the inside of the windows and no central heating growing up. But if you stayed in the living room (wood burner) dinning room ( open fire) or kitchen (aga) it was warm.
My brother and I had fire places in our bedrooms as well so in the very cold weather we had heat in our rooms. There was also a Calor heater in the hall.
We usually had the money for the fuel but we did have to help chop the wood. As we got older we took over all wood chopping duties.
My mother a child of the 1950s grew up in the damp hills and they had a range thing in the kitchen not quite a black range and not as good as an aga, and a fire in the living room and although money was very tight at times, fires in the bedrooms in the very cold weather or if they were ill.
Most people managed to at least hear one room in the past because they had a fire. Now most homes don’t have fires and there isn’t the option to keep one room warm easily and fairly cheaply.

My brother and I had fire places in our bedrooms as well so in the very cold weather we had heat in our rooms.

At the risk of going full on “Four Yorkshiremen”, we had fireplaces in our bedrooms when I was child but the only time we had a fire lit in them was when we were ill. Coal was too expensive to heat more than just one room.

@sandgrown

Another 50s child . Our only source of heating was a coal fire in one room. In Winter we had ice on the inside of the windows. No fitted carpets either just a square on top of Lino. Lots of layers . Hot water bottles and even coats on the bed if it was really cold . Physical activity helps get you warm and to be honest we were very healthy and rarely had a cold . I still sleep with the window open and no heating through the night .

Still like this in the seventies as a seventies child. Feck lino was cold on the feet. I used to make it snow indoors by pulling the net curtains off the ice.

Try three pairs of socks, but not too tight. Layers under trousers. Clothes that meet around your middle so no cold back. Polo neck scarf or snood.

Keep well hydrated. Hot drinks and hot food.

Keep active.

@lightand

No. Well I dont anyway. Had the heating on less by accident a couple of nights ago. Made me wake up, so even while asleep, I can still tell. Was awake for ages, then realised what the problem was.

I’ve never ever had the heating on at night ( NW England) ....don’t know anyone who does...used to have it on from 4pm to 9pm( after work/school).....not had it on for weeks now....I’m used to it....just have the log burner on which heats kitchen and family room ....lots of layers..hot water bottle for bed...sleep fine

I had an unguarded electric fire in my room and can only remember it being put on once. It stank of dust. We dressed downstairs or under the covers. Had a big eiderdown. I have a big wool blanket from the charity shop

@etulosba

When my heating broke I found nights the easy bit

By “not overnight”, I meant it takes more than one night to get used to it. Not that nights were harder to get used to.

Sorry, misunderstood. But anyway, my point stands, the nights are the easiest bits, as you can keep piling duvets and blankets on until your're warm enough. Mornings and sittng down in the evening, and, I imagine, WFH are tough.

Agree it's brutal in this day and age we're having this conversation. I grew up in a house with no central heating or double glazing (there was an Aga in the kitchen powered by coal that was always on). Gas fires in the living rooms and electric bar heaters for the upstairs rooms only when in them. Frost on the inside of the windows. Swear by hot water bottles, also we didn't have duvets, we had sheets, blankets and counterpanes and the sheets were tucked all round the bed so no draught got in. Many layers, a 'house coat' like a long dressing gown/cardigan and fingerless gloves. My gran would always wear fingerless gloves indoors in the winter, I'm wearing them now! Useful to have a few pairs for when they get wet/dirty. You do get used to it to a certain extent (I find the recommended 21 c far too hot) and I've always preferred a well ventilated 'cool' room to a hot and stuffy one. But only to a certain extent. Anything under 15 c I start to feel it and need to layer up.

Yes, but is it's miserable. I've lived in a draughty Georgian flat where you could see your breath in winter and that had a constant cold dampness. I've lived in a badly insulated, draughty 30s semi that was a nightmare to heat. The old fashioned snake draught excluders do help keep heat in a room. And so does going to bed early. If I was asleep I wasn't cold.