To wish people would stop saying “just put a jumper on”?

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There have been sooo many thread over the years with people saying how no one really needs heating - how e.g. 16 degrees is positively sweltering - and if you feel the cold you should just put a jumper on and a bit of cold never hurt anyone…

This is complete rubbish and I think this myth needs to be debunked. It’s not helpful. Of course many people are being forced to have their heating off but that does not mean this is good for their physical or mental health.

I was prompted to start this thread as I was listening to a radio 4 science programme that tackled this topic head on. In summary:

• when we get really cold (e.g. a room at 10 degrees) our body has to work really hard to keep our core warm and this places great strain on our body - increased heart rate, blood pressure, decreased congnitive ability, etc;

• surprisingly, for a lot of people 23 degrees is the right temperature if you are just sitting around - this does not surprise me as if I am working from home, if I have my thermostat set to 19.5 degrees, I still have to wear ugg slippers and a big jumper;

• getting chilled does make you likely to get sick - this is because we are constantly being exposed to viruses, which we do fight off (the cold virus in particular) but when we get chilled our body’s immune response is severely impaired.

I'm sat in 17c in the living room. Jeans, uggs and a tshirt.

I wore the same clothes today for WFH, however needed my Oodie this afternoon. I try to avoid putting the heating on in the day unless I'm freezing as it has always seemed so wasteful. I didn't live in a house with central heating until 2002 at university!

A related issue will be dampness in houses (especially older houses, which is a lot of them). Colder air causes damp, as does insulating a house, so the amount of damp / mould / mildew will rocket a lot of places. This is of course bad for the lungs as well as being unpleasant in itself. No amount of jumper wearing will solve this one!

I think 16 is plenty warm enough.

Rather than putting a jumper on a hat will make more difference. We all have a responsibility to use less energy if we want to avoid blackouts. Wearing only a T shirt and having the heating on to counter this is really selfish given the current situation.

I am up north so yes gets very cold here. I'm not talking about current temps but last year when I stayed at my boyfriends apartment, he only has electric heaters which cost a fortune to run so never puts them on. The apartments are really inefficient, apparently the efficiency rating they currently ha e wont be legal soon and they need to do some work to bring it up to standard. It honestly feels like you are sleeping outside it gets that cold

I 100% agree. "Just put a jumper on" is patronising nonsense that implies we aren't already wearing a jumper, and that true cold can be defeated with just one layer of synthetic wool.

I work from home at my desk all day and in my last (rented) house the heating and insulation were both extremely sub-par (very old night storage heaters that weren't big enough for the size of the rooms, very large single glazed sash windows with rotting wooden frames), which meant that even with the heating on full, the house was bloody freezing constantly.

I used to wear fingerless gloves at my desk from October through to April, and on really cold days I would wear a woolly hat indoors too. I regularly used to wear a thermal vest and longjohns under my clothes at home, and even though we had an electric blanket on the bed there were still nights where I struggled to get warm at night even WITH the electric blanket on. I regularly used to put off showering and even going to the loo because the bathroom was so unbearably cold I couldn't bear to expose skin. (The bathroom was regularly at around 9-10 degrees C from December to February).

I get the feeling the "just put on a jumper" brigade have never known true cold.

i think having to wear more than one jumper and blanket means your ARE cold and should probably warm up your place.

Or a heated blanket central heating is too pricey. But sitting in the cold and damp consistently isn't great for you.

I fully agree that constantly breathing in cold air can't be healthy

why would breathing cold air be unhealthy? Damp and mouldy, yes, but why would cold air itself be an issue?

My room temp is currently reading 16 degrees and I'm sat here in a T-shirt 😅

Some of us don't actually have any jumpers, and not really any spare money to buy any! I have a winter coat for when I go out but tend to wear long sleeved T-shirts round the house, new clothes never seem top of the priority list for me so I genuinely don't have many clothes at all. I wouldn't say we overuse our heating during the winter, tend to keep it on a fairly low constant temperature and our house holds the heat well so it's always been ok. Not sure what I'm going to do this year though if I can't afford heating or new jumpers

I grew up in a house with no central heating and only a fire that heated the hot water. Radiators in the bathroom and front room only.

Many a night did my room go below 10 degrees and I survived, no adverse effects or health problems. You'll be amazed what a hot water bottle and blankets can do!

Humans are tropical creatures native to Africa. Of those who moved to colder regions like Europe, the vast majority of them died before age five, and those that survived spent a lot of winter huddled around fires. Even my Gran’s generation still had a coal fire in the house and ‘banked’ the fire overnight so it wasn’t completely out then revived it in the morning.

It’s a dangerous myth that humans ever lived without heating.

And my 99 year old grandmother still refuses to live in a house with heating. It's not as unsurvivable as people think

I grew up in a cold house, and now live in one (by choice).

Each to their own.

I put the heating on for an hour or so when it's properly cold, so the house doesn't get damp (it's prone to it).

If I start to feel cold, I put another cardy on and make a hot water bottle for my feet.

OP, studies have also shown that a comfortable room temperature is higher for women than men. Meanwhile office settings take the men's comfortable temperature range as the standard for comfort leaving women cold.
And if course there is a cultural/geographic element. If you are from a hot country/region your cold is different from someone from cold climes

YANBU. Saying "put a jumper on" is stupid. My old manager used to say this to me.. Usually whilst I was already wearing a jumper 🙄

That horrible feeling of being cold to your bones is awful. It's much easier to cool down than it is to warm up.

I have no heating at the moment and some walls down! It is freezing. A jumper won’t help.

a heated throw has been my saviour - and an oddie!

But, I find I don’t move around the house as much. I get home from work - layer up, wrap myself in a heated throw and sit on the sofa all night. It’s a miserable way to live - I haven’t cleaned the kitchen in weeks😂. It’s too cold to spend any time in there. Just microwave a meal and run back to the sofa.

Everyone's different!
My boss, when we shared an office, was a hot person. In the middle of winter she'd be in a T-shirt, skirt, no tights & thin shoes & was fine. She grew up in Scotland.
I, on the other hand am a cold person, & would be on the other side of the office in three layers (including jumpers!), fleece blankets, boots, heater & occasionally gloves. Then my boss would ask if we could open the window
My SIL is even more extreme than me - she is usually in at least 3 layers at all times. House temp is on average 24 degrees (too hot for me!) & during the heatwave she managed to get down to just one layer. She's Australian but had lived over here for nearly 20 years.

Have you considered that your house might be better insulated than some other people's houses? Do any rooms in your house ever reach 9 degrees C in winter? Why are you only talking about having heating on at night? Obviously if you are able to heat your house to a decent temperature during the day and your house is decently insulated then you can turn the heating off at bedtime and the residual heat will keep everyone reasonably toasty until morning. But if you can't heat your house to a decent temp before bedtime in the first place, either because you can't afford the heating or your house is too poorly insulated (or both) then you are in for a bloody miserable night. I remember laying in bed at night as a child and young teen, before we got central heating, breathing under the covers to try and warm myself up, convinced I had early onset arthritis because my joints ached so much from the cold and damp (it happened again when I was a student living in a miserably cold and damp house share and I got tested at the GP - no arthritis, just miserable living conditions). It sounds like you are lucky enough to have never experienced such cold and damp.

No heating whatsoever? Not even a fire or wood stove? What is the insulation in her house like? (No heating in a very well insulated house can be quite comfortable. No heating in a very poorly insulated house is a very different matter).

I think that's a bit over the top OP. I grew up on a farm with no central heating whatsoever in a very cold area. The fire only went on in the evening. We just wore more clothing and were more active. We didn't sit around all day like people do now. People have managed without central heating for thousands of years and we haven't died out yet.
I haven't got my heating on. I have an active full time job and keep busy at home. Even hoovering makes me too hot. I'm 60 not a youngster. It's much more dangerous people sitting about all day not moving. We weren't designed to sit at a desk all day or in front of a TV for hours.

Question to the people who have the heating on in the evening as they would never let a baby or toddler sleep in a cold room. Do you keep the heating on all night?

It’s really sitting down (working from home, elderly, disabled etc) that really makes you feel the cold I find. I do agree that there are lots of cases where “put a jumper on” doesn’t work but some people want the heating on 25 and to wander round in shorts and t shirt so I do think it’s relevant to them.

If it doesn’t apply to me, I just think “well I’m wearing 2 jumpers plus a dressing gown over the top so they aren’t talking to me!” If I see that. Having said that the comments on heated throws, hot water bottles etc are handy for me when I’m working from home and I do find putting a long fleece dressing gown on over my clothes and making sure I’m wearing slippers hugely helps.

YANBU op. I have several health conditions that mean I suffer from constant pain in my joints (lower back, hands feet, shoulders) and any amount of cold is agonisingly painful. I also lose feeling and go numb for long periods so I fall a lot 🤔 It pisses me off as I prefer much cooler environments and hate warm claggy rooms.

OP, 10 Degrees as mentioned in your OP is very different from 18, which many people are happy with , while others want 23.

There are plenty of people who wear T shirts indoors with the heat up high. I think most ‘put on a jumper’ is aimed at them.

I am sitting still, TV all evening, in 17 degrees wearing a thermal vest and a hoodie, and am perfectly comfortable. I really don’t think my health is at risk.

I'm one of those perpetually warm people. Until yesterday I was in jeans, T shirt and no socks, but am now wearing my jeans with socks and a shirt. I've put a jumper on once this autumn and had to take it off again. Old house, currently 17 degrees inside. There's absolutely no way I'm putting the heating on! We have fluffy blankets in case we get cold, and will have to start lighting fires to get our washing dry soon. We don't use the thermostat - heating goes on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening when it gets cold enough. I'm super stingy.