does the human body learn to accept warm or cold places to live?

[raggie33]

im reading about the heart breaking heat related deaths in the uk. but i recall as a kid in south florida we had no ac or fans no eletricty .but it was bad and it sucked but i felt we got used to it. can that be true maybe we sweated more?

 

[aginthelaw]

If I went to Alaska, I'd need a few layers but the folks that live there walk around in t-shirts certain times of year

 

[raggie33]

in winter people are always shocked id check mail barefoot lol.. i do admit i prefere the cold over heat as i get older. the heat here in ga would be ok if it wasnt so damn hummid

 

[chip100t]

Here in the uk we are not used to long hot summers so the moment the sun comes out people go mad and strip off to bask in the heat. I was out shirt on covered in factor 50 wearing in a hat similar to that worn by the French foreign legion with a long back and sides to protect my neck. Everyone else were just in beachwear rubbing in moisturiser rather than sun lotion.

What has been very sad is the daily reports of young people drowning while swimming in open waters.

Now we have lots of fires today due to the tinder dry grass and brush.

 

[raggie33]

the world has gone mad. sure would be nice for it to get better for a few weeks.

 

[Dave D]

You definitely acclimatise, here in southern Spain if the temperature drops below 20 degrees centigrade (68 F) then the fleeces come out of the cupboard, in the UK that would be a decent summer temperature!!

It takes the body about two weeks to acclimatise so these short heatwaves are difficult to deal with.

 

[fulee9999]

you definitely acclimatise to the weather you're in, in places where you have four seasons ( subzero winter, hot summer ) in springtime and in the fall you experience the same exact temperature wildly differently. for example 18 C degrees ( 64F ) after the hot summer will make you run for a hoodie, while in the springtime you walk around in a t-shirt in the same temperature.

regarding the "I remember when I was a kid" topic, in my country a hot summer in the 80s was 29C ( 84F ) while this summer temperatures up to - and sometimes exceeding - 39C ( 102F ) in shade were not uncommon, so whenever I hear people mentioning "back in my days we were working out in the fields in the heat" I get mildly frustrated... and this is not against you, I just remembered this from what you mentioned

 

[bykfixer]

I grew up in a house without ac or heat on the second floor. In summer you sucked in air from the north side all day with a fan and sucked it out all day on the southside. In winter you just added more blankets and dressed accordingly. None of my friends had climate control in their bedroom either. Sometimes you went outside to get warm in winter or cool in summer.

Not many people had ac in their cars, and school did not. We never really liked it but it was just a situation you made the best of. It probably helped me not be bothered by temperature extremes while working outdoors since 1983.

Oh it bugs me now no doubt. Partly becsuse everything is climate controled environments most of the time but partly because I'm all stoved up anymore.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Everyone nowadays is spoiled by air conditioning. When it's hot, wear less and lighter colored clothes. When it's cold, put on more layers and a warm hat. For heat, when I used to go backpacking, I always kept a little backpacker's towel with me. It packed the size of a small disk, but when you got it wet, you could put it around your neck to cool the carotid artery with evaporative cooling. Those towels are very cheap. Any towel or wet rag will work. A more high tech version is a Sharper Image or Arctic Air Neck Evaporative Cooler. Works best if put in the refrigerator for 30 seconds to supercool before using (at least for the old Sharper Image one). Also helps to drink cold liquids in the heat and hot liquids in the cold. If it's hot and you have electricity, cool water, juice, soda, etc. in the fridge to drink when you get hot. When you're freezing, try hot cocoa, hot coffee, hot tea, etc. If it's hot, stay in the shade and do more active activities when it cools down (morning, evening, night). If it's cold, keep active to keep warm but try not to overdo it by sweating which will make you cold. Acclimating to the weather doesn't just involve getting used to the temperatures. Your habits have to adapt to make it easier to handle the situation.

 

[Olumin]

Core body temperature & metabolic rate fluctuates between individuals and so as a result does the perception & tolerance of ambient temperature. Humidity also has an enormous influence as to how hot people feel. 35° at low humidity is tolerable for some time, but that same temperature at 90% can be deadly (look up "wet bulb temperature"). Populations native to cooler climates are generally more tolerant to colder temperatures, and of cause the other way around as well. I call that being hot or cold blooded. A large part of it is just acclimatisation of cause, but not everything.

Almost no home, public venue or workspace in germany has AC (maybe large shopping centers, thats about it), so its not hard to see why I wouldn't like summer very much. That & the insects.

 

[raggie33]

btw did you know how the mall of ameica which is in one of the coldest states in the country is heated?

 

[idleprocess]

I've lived in the Dallas area for more than 30 years now and ever year I have to acclimate to the summer heat. Those first couple weekends of yardwork are exercises in willpower overcoming reluctance. The apogee for me was in 2018 when I built a storage shed in my back yard from scratch during peak summer heat and didn't think too much of it (TL;DR I hydrated relentlessly and didn't work at anything close to a putting food on the table production pace). This's year's heat wave in TX is more intense than anything I can remember - not even the last streak of many more consecutive >100F (38C) days was as distinctly unpleasant as this year has been; stepping outside during the day feels like stepping into an oven, even in the shade. Some of this could be age - my 30s are behind me now so my tolerance isn't what it once was.

The winter of 2021 was cold for the region (overnight lows of -2F / -19C, daytime highs 15F / -9C) but I quickly acclimated to that as well. End of the ice storm I got tired of waiting for my sidewalks and driveway to melt and started shoveling on a day that had climbed to nearly freezing. As I worked I warmed up and reached the point where I'd dropped layers down to the point that I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt; neighbors seemed to think I was going to keel over from hypothermia but the sun was out and I'd almost worked up a sweat.

I suspect that while there's an element of self-control for me - willpower, willingness to be uncomfortable, and some past experience when I was young camping and hardwiring knowledge of the line between discomfort and danger - I also believe that much of this is the physiological hand I was dealt thus do not expect others to be as willing to be in as wide a range of conditions as I can be.

 

[idleprocess]

Almost no home, public venue or workspace in germany has AC (maybe large shopping centers, thats about it), so its not hard to see why I wouldn't like summer very much. That & the insects.

Location"...that famous Texas part of Hamburg"

Let's see ... Hamburg :

Sounds awesome during the summer, much like when I lived in coastal Oregon. Small wonder that air conditioning is rare.

Contrast Dallas area's summer average low temperatures where the average lows exceed Hamburg's highs:

 

[Olumin]

Yeah I just really hate warm weather. Anything over 15C outside is too much for me. I couldn't imagine living in a place thats actually warm. All things considered its not bad here. I have a small AC unit & I only have to run it for a few days during summer. But even that I notice on my electricity bill lol. Thats another thing about summer vs winter. Heating is simple and relatively cheap, now cooling things down, thats complicated & gets expensive quick.

If I wanna warm up, I just put on a sweater or a thicker jacket. Maybe some mittens. Too warm? Too bad. Outside of an air condition place that it.

 

[bykfixer]

In my twenties I worked in a street maintenance job, which sometimes involved cutting grass. In summer it was either cut grass or fix potholes with asphalt. This one fellow used to follow behind us with a swing blade acting like he was actually accomplishing something but in reality he was just trying to look busy. He'd been there like 40 years and ran equipment mostly, but if he didn't run equipment he'd do stuff like that. Anywsy, he kept a weather radio on his hip blasting non stop weather bulletins saying "dangerous heat, currently it's X degrees, stay indoors, drink plenty of liquids" yada yada yada, all freaking day long.

The heat did not bother me nearly as much when I was working with the asphalt crew even though we were shoveling stuff hot enough to slow cook ribs in, but that was because there wasn't some radio telling us all day how dang hot it was. Yeah we knew it was hot. It was July, August, summer below the Mason Dixon line. Yet even the slightest breeze was like air conditioning. Folks who work in auto repair shops, warehouses etc get my respect because they don't get those cool breezes like when working outdoors.

 

[jtr1962]

Yeah I just really hate warm weather. Anything over 15C outside is too much for me. I couldn't imagine living in a place thats actually warm. All things considered its not bad here. I have a small AC unit & I only have to run it for a few days during summer. But even that I notice on my electricity bill lol. Thats another thing about summer vs winter. Heating is simple and relatively cheap, now cooling things down, thats complicated & gets expensive quick.

If I wanna warm up, I just put on a sweater or a thicker jacket. Maybe some mittens. Too warm? Too bad. Outside of an air condition place that it.

Same here. I grew up without air conditioning. In fact, I didn't have A/C in my bedroom until I was in my late 20s. I still never got used to the heat. There are limits to acclimatization. I do much better with cold. I'm the guy shoveling snow in a blizzard when it's 15°F with just a sweater, and maybe gloves if I happen to remember to put them on. I remember the time I went out one night to get something out of the garage when it was well below freezing, and passed out for some reason. Probably exhaustion. When I woke up after lying in the driveway a few hours the sun was rising but I was none the worse for wear. Surprisingly, no frostbite. I was really cold, though. Not moving to warm the body will do that.

Now with climate change the summers are way worse than ever. Back when I was in school the schools got by without A/C. Sure, the last week or two in June, and first week or two in September, were mostly a waste because it was hard to concentrate when you were sweating like a pig. After that though it was OK. Now we sometimes have summer heat until late October, or starting in early April. NYC's famous humidity doesn't help matters. Evaporative coolers just won't work here. Neither will depending upon sweating to cool you. All the sweat does is pool up on your body and make another insulating layer. So yeah, now on many days it's not that A/C is needed just for comfort. It's needed for productivity, and on some days survival. 95°F with high humidity is life-threatening for lots of people.

That & the insects.

Yeah, I hate summers more on account of the insects than the heat.

 

[fulee9999]

I do much better with cold. I'm the guy shoveling snow in a blizzard when it's 15°F with just a sweater, and maybe gloves if I happen to remember to put them on.

Same here. I usually wore only a hoodie and a hat until it was freezing, no issues, even nowadays I manage cold a lot better. Not cold hands tho, that was taken care of a few years back, gloves and mittens for me below freezing temps

When I woke up after lying in the driveway a few hours

How tf no one noticed you were lying on the driveway passed out?!

NYC's famous humidity doesn't help matters. Evaporative coolers just won't work here. Neither will depending upon sweating to cool you. All the sweat does is pool up on your body and make another insulating layer.

Oh I hear you brother, I still have distinct memories of the monsoon season in asia and that was the worst... You either got wet from the rain, or by sweating profusely in the 100% humidity and there was just no chance of being dry, all the while enjoying the 30-35 C ( 85-95 F ) temperatures, that weather cooks you alive... The other way around is very dangerous too, 37 C ( 100 F ) with zero humidity dries you out like a beef jerky on the runway in the middle of the summer, and you don't even notice it, because you literally don't sweat, every tiny drop of liquid that leaves your body evaporates immediately. ( it's funny to pee in the desert tho, it dries up immediately )

 

[raggie33]

i love the cold comapred to the hot..

 

[orbital]

+

In any given year, in my neck of the woods, we can go from -40F wind chill to 110F heat index.
That's 150F feels like difference within a year (could actually be more than that for either number)

Much easier to deal with the cold!!



funny to watch the rabbits in my yard, at night, in the middle of the winter,
mine don't hibernate

 

[Lynx_Arc]

You can acclimate a lot to cold and heat..... more so when you are younger I think as when you get older extremes can rob you of energy for sure. When I was in my 20s I worked jobs where it was 100 degrees outside and was mostly ok but now 90 degrees with some humidity can overwhelm me at times as my body cannot cool itself as well likely due to higher blood pressure and more body fat etc. I do cold a little better now for the most part.
I know when I'm working in hot or cold weather I try not to use the heater or AC in my car at all till I'm off work as it could reverse climatize me. Often when you get used to cold enough that although it is not comfortable, you aren't shivering but get in a heated place and you can start to sweat some and won't know it till you get back to the cold and then things are worse. You can likewise get too cool and go back to the heat and not be sweating enough to suffice.
Cold for me is cheaper to deal with than hot likely because it doesn't get as bitter cold here (usually) as farther north. The minus 18 here (record breaker) was a mess to deal with as is the 117 we got once I think in 2010 or 2011