At points this week, the wind chill temperature in New York City dipped down to
zero degrees-- it was definitely the coldest front yet and I can't
imagine how anybody stood in Times Square to watch the New
Year's ball drop. It's fun to catch up on inside activities on cold
days like this, but braving the cold is great too. Getting your heart
rate up in cold weather feels amazing, and the human body is capable of
adapting to deal with seriously frigid temperatures, as long as you
train and dress properly.
Being acclimated to cold weather can
be rewarding-- in Sheboygan, Wisonsin, winter wind storms can turn the
Lake Michigan into a formidable surf destination among those willing to
brave the cold. For me, cold weather surfing is a constant inspiration
to seize the day even when it's easier to stay home.
Today when I left my house it was under freezing, the first truly
wintry day in recent memory. It took me an extra twenty minutes or so
to pick out my clothes before leaving the house because I wanted to
make sure I'd be comfortable all day. It paid off, and all day I've
been listening to people around me complain that they're uncomfortably
cold. The way I figure it, if people have been able to survive in
Russia and Alaska for the past thousand years, there's no excuse to get
flustered by slightly sub-freezing conditions. You just need to be
prepared.
If
you don't want to let cold weather stop you from getting your outdoor
activity time in, you need to dress right. If you wear too little,
you'll freeze, but if you wear the wrong clothes you'll get soggy,
sweaty, and chilled by the cold sweat trapped in your clothes. The
layer of clothing closest to your skin should be made of a material
that wicks moisture away from your body, so that your skin doesn't get
wet and cold as your body warms up. Silk and Wool are common natural
materials that wick water away pretty well. Cotton, on the other hand,
will absorb moisture and make you cold, so watch out for cotton base
clothing. The clothing should be tight, so that no sweat hangs out on
your skin and gives you chills, either. The next layer is your
mid-layer. It should be a little bit looser. The final layer is your
outerwear, and the most important thing for cold-weather outerwear to
do is protect your body from wind chills and precipitation. There's
nothing worse than getting suited up in cotton clothes, thinking your
about to be really warm, and then feeling a gust of wind rip right
through the porous fibers.
There are a number
of different moisture-wicking materials, and many of them are man made.
Synthetic fibers do a remarkable job of getting moisture away from
your body, but there are some health hazards involved in the use of
synthetic fibers, especially when they're close to your skin.
Synthetic fibers can irritate skin and the breathing process in some
individuals, and their long term effects are still not totally
understood. Clothing made with cotton that was grown using harmful
chemicals is very common as well, and lots of common clothing materials
are known to give off particles that aren't exactly good for you. One
easy way to counter this is to buy used clothing, which has in theory
already given off a significant fraction of its harmful biproducts.
Dress right and you'll enjoy being outside a lot more, shop smart and
you'll be healthier while supporting local businesses instead of
Wal-Mart type chain stores or the fashion industry.
Why would anyone go swimming in the ocean, no wetsuit, in the middle of
February? It seems like a great way to catch a nasty cold. But if
you're part of a Polar Bear Plunge,
taking a winter dip could be a way to raise money for research on
cancer or to fund the Special Olympics. Around the country every
winter, thousands of do-gooders brave the cold for sponsorship money in
the name of local charities.
Plunges, from my understanding,
must be a pretty recent phenomena, because there isn't any history
available on the internet. There is, however, a ton of information
about cold water swimming in a more general sense, and it turns out
that regularly swimming in cold water can actually prevent respiratory infections.
According to Dr. Werner Siems at Humboldt University in Berlin,
Germany, "Modern life has a deficiency of stimulating factors such as
cold, heat and physical stress and this results in poor resistance to
disease... Brief exposure to cold causes a mild oxidative stress which
may prepare the body to resist a greater stress." Just remember to dry
yourself well afterwards, because having icicle-hair isn't 'brief
exposure', it's hours of coldness on your head. I was a swimmer
year-round for almost 20 years, and that's the thing I remember most
vividly.
Prolonged exposure to cold, or physical exertion in
cold environments by people who aren't acclimatized to it, however, can
put high levels of stress on one's heart. In Russia, according to
Oliver Gillie, it's not uncommon for people to be treated with cold
water from infancy through pregnancy and old age-- but if you didn't
grow up getting ice water dumped on your head, you should start getting
into cold-water dips slowly, training yourself over time until you're a
lean, mean, cold-resistant athletic machine.
