To tell you not to run around if caught in snow- exercise cools you down

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I am quite alarmed at the level of ignorance shown about this, so just in case anyone here gets caught in snow today

Please don't exercise to warm up - or tell your children to - this cools you down and leaves you vulnerable to hypothermia

Insulate yourself as well as you can, and huddle as close together as you can instead.

It's not arguable at all.

If you go out running in the cold, your body warms up. If you stop, then you get colder. The answer is to wear appropriate clothing - generally it's a good idea to go out wearing 1 layer too warm and remove clothing if necessary.

🙄It means that exercising in the cold is more likely to cause hypothermia than exercising in warm weather. It doesn’t mean that exercising in the cold is more likely to cause hypothermia than sitting still in the cold.

Totally agree with this. Standing still in the cold is a recipe for hypothermia.

It doesn’t mean that exercising in the cold is more likely to cause hypothermia than sitting still in the cold.

This study seems to suggestsotherwise.

You’re cooler than you think! Hypothermia may go unnoticed when exercising in the cold

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210819102728.htm

I am not talking about stopping children having fun in the snow, I am talking about a situation in which you are stuck outside in the cold - it will happen to lots of people today, it has already happened to a friend of mine and her daughter on a railway platform.

It is just important in those situations, not to run around to keep warm, rather to huddle up and conserve your heat. And I am highly alarmed at the number of people on mumsnet who think the best thing is to run around and get warm.

when you exercise your skin gets hot, because it is dumping heat from your core. So you might feel hot. But you are cooling down.

YOu might be stuck today, or another snow day - and incidentally rain causes hypothermia too, so it might not even be a snow day

You could be stuck in a car, or on a railway platform, or locked out in the front garden, or lost on a walk, who knows?

I just want people to understand, that "running around to keep warm" is not a good option in these circumstances, and will make the situation worse.

I also don't think people realise how easy it is to get hypothermia, particularly children - I see it on school trips, maybe not every year, but it isn't that unusual, and I am talking about big events in cities, not out in the wild somewhere.

The last time I saw it was a teenage girl from a different school who had come litter picking in a city park on a cold rainy day without a coat. At the time I saw her she was fairly coherent, and I walked her over to a member of staff from her school, who arranged transport back to her school for her, but she deteriorated while waiting for the transport, and an ambulance was called

well, obviously, if you are within walking distance of home, then you are not trapped, are you!

Fundamentally - as the OP tried to claim - the body absolutely does not "cool" to a temperature lower than a body's usual resting temperature as a result of exercise.

In normal conditions, this is correct.

But the OP is describing extreme snowy or cold winter conditions (albeit that these conditions are unlikely to arise in the UK) and the advice is correct in these conditions. "Stay dry" and "seek shelter" are the fundamentals of survival in extreme conditions. Everyone seems to have missed the sentence about "getting caught in the snow" - which I interpret as extreme snow conditions where you might be "caught" for a few hours. This is not the same as going for a run, ski, or play around in the snow for an hour in the park before going home to a warm house and a cup of hot chocolate.

"when you exercise your skin gets hot, because it is dumping heat from your core. So you might feel hot. But you are cooling down."

You are dumping heat from your core because your core has got too hot! Because exercise generates heat!

If you go out in the cold or the rain, you risk hypothermia.

If you exercise, your body temperature goes up, but your body can only generate so much heat. If you don't generate enough, you will still be cold. You are cold because you are in a cold environment, not because you are exercising.

Your body generates heat when it moves. Exercise fundamentally absolutely does not cause "the body to cool".

This used to be normal general knowledge when I was a school.

There was a terrible incident when a group of teens were canoeing in rough water, and most of them capsized, and ended up clinging to their canoes and each other waiting rescue, and their instructor told them to kick their legs to stay warm and most of them died of hypothermia

It was a long time ago, but there was a lot of upset at the time, as everyone knew the instructors advice had killed them, and at the time, this was just general knowledge. People knew not to exercise if you were trapped in a situation in danger of hypothermia

I expect a lot of people on Mumsnet are too young to remember that particular tradgedy

"when you exercise your skin gets hot, because it is dumping heat from your core. So you might feel hot. But you are cooling down."

No. Just no.

yes. Just yes.

The story is very sad. But kicking their legs did not worsen the hypothermia. The cold water caused the hypothermia.

It's not always convenient to "dress appropriately" when you are subjecting yourself to such different conditions.

The only foolproof option is to equip for the worst case scenario which would be to run with a rucksack on your back full of clothes to put on in case you were hurt or had to stop - and I was running for 10 years and would have never needed them in all that time. With this probability of occurrence, I'd take my chances having to knock on someones door.

This

When you are hot your skin turns red as the blood vessels widen and blood is going to the surface to cool down and you sweat which acts as a way to cool you down.
This means less blood is around your vital organs.

When you are cold your blood vessels narrow and moves blood away from your skin in order to keep your internal organs warm (which is your skin turns pale and lips turn blue and why your fingers and toes are first to succumb to frost bite).
You also shiver, have goosebumps and hairs stand up to insulate you.

So yes in theory you are completely right OP.

I don’t actually know what the professional advice would be and I’d probably find myself walking around just to keep myself warm but it would probably be best to get out of the wind and do anything you can to keep your body heat in.

Bear grylls literally says that to stop getting hypothermia, you need to exercise.

Cold water exposure is a very different thing

If you survive the gasp reflex, then you need to try to get to something to help you float and await rescue, within about 10 minutes, because that's about how long you have before further physiological responses deprive the limbs of circulation (ie blood diverted to core organs) making it hard to impossible to move much. Hypothermia, whether you are still moving or not, kicks in at about 30 minutes.

It follows on from a thread yesterday when OP was trying to insist a boy of 12 wear trousers in a car journey to football practice incase he got hypothermia.

You are talking shite.

When you exercise, it isn't your skin which warms. It's your muscles. The body isn't actually all that efficient at turning calories into movement - about 80% of the energy used to contract a muscle is wasted as heat. That heat is distributed around the body by your circulatory system and radiates onto your skin.

Sweat cools your skin. Your skin doesn't generate heat.

I know this because I actually have studied biology. You clearly haven't.

OP, you're getting your science confused a bit I'm afraid.

When you exercise / move, your body uses stored energy to do so. This release of energy warms up your body. It does not take this heat from a finite store of heat that you have internally. It does pump blood around the body and if you are foolish enough to be running around in the snow in a pair of shorts then you will lose this heat quickly and when you stop exercising / running, you will continue to lose heat. This can lead to hypothermia as your body is now losing more heat than its producing. The issue is that you are not dressed adequately for the conditions and your body is losing heat to the environment

However, if you are wearing appropriate layers and are in the cold, then you should move around to generate heat which is retained by the layers and it keeps you warm. If you don't then your body will reduce blood flow to its extremities to preserve warmth and you will be at risk of frostbite.

If you're still convinced I'm wrong, then provide a link and I'll take a look at it

kicking their legs increased the rate their bodies cooled until they were so badly affected by hypothermia that they could no longer hang on to their canoes.

They should have been told to hold their legs together to reduce the surface area exposed to the cold water, and conserve heat

If they had not kicked their legs, they might have survived long enough to be rescued. Possibly. No one will ever know. But half the group survived, so there it is likely that those who were lost, if they had held on a bit longer, might have survived too

That is not what that study is suggesting. We need more focus in life on scientific literacy and reading comprehension.

Thanks for this OP

No and yes.

you are “cooling down” because exercise has caused your body temp to rise above normal, so it utilises cooling mechanisms to bring it back down to normal.

once your body reaches normal temp again it will stop it’s cooling mechanisms- you stop sweating, skin capillaries contract etc.

what will not happen is that the body continues losing heat until you’re hypothermic. Your temp will stabilise at 37 degrees and no further. If you get colder- ie you’re wet, it’s freezing then your warming methods will kick in, you’ll shiver, blood flow to extremities will shut down etc

if the body kept cooling itself post exercise it would happen regardless of the weather and we’d be seeing hypothermic marathon runners and swimmers all over the place. People would be sweating profusely hours after their spin class.