The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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As far as I know the research suggests that humans, at least, can become very used to cold.
The original L'enfant sauvage Victor of Aveyron (one among several documented feral children) was reported to like the snow, even when wearing very little clothing:
Acclimatization to cold weather is probably the first step @SkookumTree should take if he ever does the Hock. From a brief bit of research on the issue, apparently a German Shepherd is more likely to have a problem with heat than with cold.
I soloed Mt. Washington in NH in January of 2024; for much of the climb I only wore light wool gloves. My hands were cold, but nothing I hadn't experienced a hundred times before. Snow stuck to my gloves, meaning that conditions inside the gloves were cold and damp. Also, I had been using Italian military surplus liners for my boots (Scarpa Nero) and these too were fairly cold.
I wound up with permanent but mild NFCI, nonfreezing cold injury, on three fingertips and my right big toe. I learned that vasodilation in response to cold was a problem. If you know of any way to deal with this other than warmer clothing on the extremities, please let me know.
N.B: this was NOT frostbite. At no point was there any visible tissue damage.
@self_made_human have you noticed your extremities got cold when your friends' didn't? I've read that much of that depends on 1) ancestry/genetics; there is a higher incidence of NFCI and cold injury in people whose ancestors hailed from tropical climates and 2) acclimatization/behavior; a dude from Alabama might not grok how to keep your hands warm in the cold the same way a North Dakotan might.
My whole life I had problems with cold hands until about a dozen years ago when I switched to mittens. After that it's been a complete non-issue, even when skiing in -10 F. For boots, just make sure they're reasonably waterproof and not too tight. There's a temptation to load up on socks for extra insulation but this just makes matters worse; the lack of circulation is what kills you. In ski boots I don't really have that option so I just have to live with cold toes and the pain of the circulation returning when I take them off, but getting more comfortable ones would cost money and performance, so I just use boot warmers and deal with the tradeoff. To illustrate how big of a deal having extra space is, last year I went skiing and after several hours outside my feet were freezing. We were tailgating in the parking lot at the end of the day and I changed in to the tennis shoes I drove up in, thin mesh ones that I was sure in the ~20 F weather would let the wind in and make my feet even colder. But once I was moving around in them my feet actually warmed up significantly, at least after the pain of the blood returning had subsided. Now, I'm sure that if I had been out there longer than an hour or so they would have gotten cold, so insulation is still important, but don't make the mistake of loading up on insulation at the expense of breathing room. I'd prioritize the latter over the former if you have to make a choice. Also, modern toe warmers last about 6 hours and aren't expensive.
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Well I happen to be a dude from Alabama so my hand warmth advice may be less than compelling. Good to hear you've pushed through some preparatory climbs.
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I can't really say I have? I know I am comfortable at temperatures where many Scottish women (natives) are freezing, but women feel colder more easily. With the dudes, I don't recall touching tips to see if I'm cold and they're not.
That being said, they probably are better able to tolerate it than I am, it's just rare for it to get cold enough for that to be obvious. Nobody there really wants to hang out outside on the rare occasions it dips below -5° C. Yet I know a dude who did a charity swimming thing when the North Sea was about 2°, which you can't really pay me to even contemplate.
My core has always run fairly warm, but my extremities run cold; before Mt. Washington, I thought that "I run hot" extended to my entire body. Not so. This is why I'm after aerogel insulation for my boots. Don't suppose you've got any connections.
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I thought this sounded fishy but looked it up and you're right! So I guess all the Japanese high school girls showing far too much leg in 34F temperatures are just slaves for fashion. Or for something.
You get this in the UK for both men and women: Geordie of the Antarctic. (Geordie means someone from Newcastle up north.)
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Prolonged exposure to cold produces brown fat, which makes you more resistant to cold. I'm much more resilient in that regard after my stint in Scotland.
Still, that only goes so far. Even Eskimo children bundle up, they don't play nude in the snow for prolonged periods.
In my experience, German Shepherds hold up surprisingly well to the local heat. Sure, they won't enjoy the odd day when it reaches 40°, but at that point they're finding refuge in the same place the humans are: in an air conditioned room.
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