Main concepts 🥶
- Environmental cold stress occurs during outdoor activities in cold weather due to factors like air temperature and wind speed.
- We dress to reduce sensations of cold, prevent drops in core body temperature, and avoid cold injury, including hypothermia.
- Hypothermia, low body temperature, has different clinical categories (mild, moderate, severe, profound). Mild hypothermia is common, with core body temperatures around 34 to 35°C.
- Warning signals for hypothermia: uncontrollable shivering, slurred speech, stumbling, drowsiness, inability to stand and move after a rest.
- Wearing clothing to minimize cold exposure can reduce heat loss from evaporative cooling, radiation, and convection. Too much insulation can lead to exercise-induced hyperthermia and dehydration.
- The head loses 30-40% of body heat even though it is only 8% of the body’s surface area. Vasoconstriction doesn't occur in brain circulation during exercise in the cold.
- Humans have less capacity for adaptation to long-term cold exposure than to prolonged heat exposure.
