Page 6 | To tell you not to run around if caught in snow- exercise cools you down

Nimbostratus100 · 2023-03-09T09:06:38+00:00

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.

Sassyfox · 09/03/2023 11:10

I think the exercise argument doesn’t work in this situation as I think you’d need to be out in it for a long time and be exercising vigorously non-stop to have any negative effects.

But I do wonder if your theory could work on hot drinks?

They say to drink a hot drink when it’s hot because it cools you down, so I wonder if the same could be said for drinking cold drinks in the cold weather and whether drinking a hot drink could actually make your internal organs colder?

Frabbits · 09/03/2023 11:11

That thing about hot drinks cooling you down is a myth.

QueenCamilla · 09/03/2023 11:15

@Sassyfox in the treacherous survivalist-tough weather conditions the OP is experiencing, no hot drink could be sustained hot. You'd be sucking on icicles whilst huddling naked in a sleeping bag with your neighbour. I hope your neighbours like you enough to keep you alive 😂

Original poster

Nimbostratus100 · 09/03/2023 11:16

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 09/03/2023 10:56

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

surely it was the lack of coat which caused the hypothermia here, not the gentle exercise of walking round picking up litter.

I am sure it was! All I was saying here is that hypothermia happens, in common situations, and can happen very fast, and it is dangerous. It wasn't snowing that day!

OP posts:

Original poster

Nimbostratus100 · 09/03/2023 11:19

GasPanic · 09/03/2023 10:49

My guess is the answer to which is the best course of action is, it depends.

If you are trying to stop hypothermia for a short time it's almost certainly better to run around.

If you are trying to stop it for a long time then probably better to stay still.

From a purely energetic perspective, it is better for your body to use energy to keep itself warm than it is to move itself about, but that doesn't take into account that you need to keep your core temperature above a certain level.

If you are huddled up in relatively warm clothes it is probably better to use the energy to shiver and keep warm. If you are not in warm clothes then the immediate issue is keeping your body temperature up and the only way you can do that is to move around.

So IMO it's arguable.

A person who thinks they will be rescued quickly in thin clothing needs to move quickly to keep themselves alive until the rescue takes place, otherwise their core temperature will drop and they will die.

A person who wants to survive the longest in warm clothes is probably better huddling up and using their energy to shiver to keep themselves warm as long as possible in the hope rescue may occur. Energy is better used for shivering than running around in circles.

I would say that someone trapped in thin clothing needs to concentrate on shrinking their surface area as far as possible

OP posts:

QueenCamilla · 09/03/2023 11:25

A game.
Would you rather....
a) cuddle your neighbour naked
or
b) burn an original Picasso in your fire
to stay warm.

*Picasso apparently did burn his own works in Paris during the war.

I'd rather exercise but OP has taken that option off the list...

Aweebitpainful · 09/03/2023 11:33

Err… b

GasPanic · 09/03/2023 11:36

Frabbits · 09/03/2023 11:07

If you exercise to the point of generating excess heat, you sweat. In a situation where hypothermia is a risk, then it's unlikely you are going to be able to exercise hard enough for any length of time to actually generate heat.

OP is basically confusing two issues.

Firstly, exercise fundametally heats the body. It doesn't cool it. The OP claiming otherwise is just bullshit of the highest order.

Secondly if you are at risk of hypothermia the key thing to do is to remove yourself from that situation, find shelter of some sort and conserve heat, but this is enterely seperate from this batshit suggestion that exercise cools you down.

Show quote history

Maybe you mean sweat rather than heat in your first paragraph ?

I agree exercise generates heat. Whether or not it is the most efficient use of energy to maintain core body temperature is another question that I dont know the answer to. My guess is that shivering is a better way of maintaining core body temperature than exercise under certain conditions, but there are multiple variables/scenarios so it is complex.

I agree that exercise generates heat, but it may not necessarily be the best survival strategy either, which I think is the general point that the OP is arguing.

I think issues like how well you are clothed/heat loss rate, expectation time to rescue/ultimate objective (to survive a very cold temperature for a short time or a less cold temperature for a long time) all have a bearing on the best strategy to use.

If ultimately the objective is to ensure that all the available energy is used to preserve the core body temperature for as long as possible, it's not clear to me that exercise is the best option, and exercising to the point of sweating certainly does not feel to me to be a good idea.

Youpillock · 09/03/2023 11:36

AgnesNaismith · 09/03/2023 09:17

I’m shocked, shocked to my ice cold core.

For God sake then, don't exercise!!

Youpillock · 09/03/2023 11:40

LookingOldTheseDays · 09/03/2023 09:20

Exercise does warm you up though.

The problems come when you run out of energy and have to stop exercising. The warmth you generate is your body burning its fuel (food), so the underlying source of the warmth is the fuel.

Having sweets on you, or some other energy dense food, will help keep you fuelled, active and warm.

I can confirm that i am constantly equipped for life and death scenarios then...

QueenCamilla · 09/03/2023 11:47

Aweebitpainful · 09/03/2023 11:33

Err… b

Sorry Ms Barnes, but I still have some fine art to go through.. 😂

I'd go a) myself.
That doesn't reflect in any way positively on my neighbours though. I'm just a materialistic, greedy cow. Zero dignity but money intact 😁

givemushypeasachance · 09/03/2023 11:51

Can @Nimbostratus100 provide a link to a coroner's report or inquiry into this capsized canoe case? Or clarify when/where it was so we can look up the details? I have tried to google with key words but found nothing.

Just reiterating what plenty of other posters have already said but there definitely seems to be some confusion at play here.

Can people easily get hypothermia, even in the UK, even when it's not snowing? Sure. If you get cold and aren't suitably dressed - young adults on a night out after drinking, just in a thin layer of clothes, it's under 10 degrees and they're out sat or lying on a cold pavement, that happens regularly.

And if you go out walking and build up a sweat, then stop your vigorous walking and cool down quickly, and it's cold and raining and windy, and you don't have dry clothes, that happens too. But it's not that the exercise of walking inherently cooled you down - it's that you got hot, and sweated which is designed to stop you getting too hot, and then you stopped walking and generating excess heat, and the sweat cools you.

The advice of not to exercise for warmth if you're stuck in the snow is more suited to a survival situation on a mountain with limited supplies, than being cold on a railway platform for presumably short period of time where you can soon go elsewhere and change clothes/warm up again!

Flossflower · 09/03/2023 11:52

Sorry . When I climbed Ben Nevis it was about -4 at the top. I arrived at the summit with most of my many top layers tied round my waist because I was baking hot from all the excursion.
I gradually put them back on as I cooled down while taking in the views.

Orcrist · 09/03/2023 11:54

If exercise cools you down how come when I go watch my son play football I’m fucking freezing shivering watching while all the players are hot and sweaty??!

OP I think you’re only right in a survival kind of environment, where you’re going to be cold for a very long time and need to conserve energy. If I want to warm up on the school run I’d jog home. I tell you now I’d be warmer on arrival at home than if I’d walked slowly. Because the exercise has warmed me up.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 09/03/2023 11:55

Isn’t it more that although the exercise warms you up, your body start trying to cool down by opening up the something or other (capillaries?). So in effect you do cool down more than if you haven’t exercised.

A bit like why you should put a warm top on after exercise

xogossipgirlxo · 09/03/2023 11:56

I think it's not explained well enough. When you do exercises, pores in your skin open to regulate body temperature. Then when you stop exercising, your body cools down, but I think this is when you put layers on. Runners feel like current temperature+10C, hence they wear less layers than other people on the pavement.

OneTC · 09/03/2023 12:00

As someone who spends alot of time voluntarily outside overnight in snowy conditions there's an element of truth to what you're saying. You don't want to exercise to the point of sweating.

But anyone who's ever spent the night out in minus tennis will tell you that you're going to be extremely uncomfortable if you're not moving at all. People of relatively good fitness can move through the night and not feel uncomfortable from the cold but even in the warmest clothes when you stop moving for the day and are sat about cooking that's when the cold really sets in.

So yes and no, there's a perfect amount of activity that both keeps you warm and distracted from your situation.

It's also a really common trick amongst mountaineers and outdoor people to do a quick burst of press ups when you get in your sleeping bag, this defo woks but again you need to not make yourself sweat

OneTC · 09/03/2023 12:01

Minus temps 😅

ManchesterGirl2 · 09/03/2023 12:03

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 09/03/2023 11:55

Isn’t it more that although the exercise warms you up, your body start trying to cool down by opening up the something or other (capillaries?). So in effect you do cool down more than if you haven’t exercised.

A bit like why you should put a warm top on after exercise

Sort of, but it seems you're assuming the amount of heat was fixed to start with, and you're just trying not to lose it.. Exercise warms you up by turning carbohydrates into movement and heat (the heat is a side effect of the process). Then, to stop this process making you dangeously hot, more blood is sent to your extremities and you might sweat.

If you don't exercise at all, then fewer carbohydrates are turned into heat.

Original poster

Nimbostratus100 · 09/03/2023 12:04

OneTC · 09/03/2023 12:00

As someone who spends alot of time voluntarily outside overnight in snowy conditions there's an element of truth to what you're saying. You don't want to exercise to the point of sweating.

But anyone who's ever spent the night out in minus tennis will tell you that you're going to be extremely uncomfortable if you're not moving at all. People of relatively good fitness can move through the night and not feel uncomfortable from the cold but even in the warmest clothes when you stop moving for the day and are sat about cooking that's when the cold really sets in.

So yes and no, there's a perfect amount of activity that both keeps you warm and distracted from your situation.

It's also a really common trick amongst mountaineers and outdoor people to do a quick burst of press ups when you get in your sleeping bag, this defo woks but again you need to not make yourself sweat

In a well insulated sleeping bag, you wont be losing heat to the environment

OP posts:

sevenbyseven · 09/03/2023 12:19

Swimming across the English Channel takes a minimum of 7 hours, wearing just a swimming costume and some grease.

If the same swimmer spent that long in the water motionless, they'd get hypothermia. How do you explain that OP?

NowDoYouBelieveMe · 09/03/2023 12:27

I have regularly done physical labour in the snow. I'm sure millions of others do too (outside work often can't just stop because of weather).

Why have I never noticed this phenomenon?

I feel warm during, so wear just trousers, a jumper and a jacket. I have to put on another layer when I finish and cool down.

vitahelp · 09/03/2023 12:48

I think I know what you mean. So if you were stranded for a significant amount of time, exercising to stay warm wouldn't work since you wouldn't be able to sustain the exercise for the entire time you were stranded and would eventually have to stop and would go into a cool down mode and end up colder than you were before you did the exercise? I experience this after running, I get very hot then 10 mins after I stop I get very cold/shivery and feel colder than I did pre-run.
Whereas if you were stuck for a fixed amount of time and could continue to exercise for the entire time it would be ok?

Doesthepopeshitinthewoods · 09/03/2023 12:49

Has it been established if the OP is indeed a Penguin, or not?

Anyway, I have family in Shetland, and it’s 2 degrees there. It’s 12 where I am! I’ve got my window open.

Where are you OP that you’re so worried about this day of March snow?

vitahelp · 09/03/2023 12:49

@sevenbyseven @NowDoYouBelieveMe In both of these cases you aren't stopping the exercise for a significant amount of time though. I think that is what OP refers to, the part where you eventually have to stop (because it is unlikely ordinary people would continue the exercise for hours or more) and end up colder than you were in the first place.