It’s a beautiful morning here in Vancouver – sunny and cold, with an emphasis on the cold. It is in fact a “holy shit!” on the international scale of coldness, and all the smart cyclists1 are wearing balaclavas and looking like ninjas. So it’s a good day to ask a question about a cold-related phenomenon I’ve noticed in myself and others over the years.
When you’ve been out for a while on a cold day, and then come back inside, why does the first blast of heat make you shiver?
1 Not me. My face was so cold when I got to work this morning that I couldn’t talk properly for the first five minutes of the meeting I was chairing.
Dunno that one, except a physiological response to a rapid and large temperature differential?
I remember when I was Penn State, I failed to note the weather before embarking for college. I didn’t wear a woolly hat and got frostbite in one my ears.
I always confuse balaclava with baklava.
Ian, it’s not quite that cold here. Yet.
Eva, a balaclava makes you look like a ninja. Baklava makes you look like you’ve snogged a pastry monster.
I don’t know the exact reason, Cath, but temperature sensations, cold or hot, as well as sharp, localized pain sensation, are all transmitted to the somatosensory cortex by the same neural pathway. The medical students abbreviate it as the PITTS pathway, for pain, itch, tickle, temperature, and sexual sensation.
Release the sp&mbots, for that last one – sorry, but that’s the mnenomic!
I never wore a balaclava, or even a baklava. A beard helps enormously – perhaps you should try it. The main problem is cold foggy mornings, when one can get considerable build-up of ice.
Kristi, so the sudden change in temperature gets mistaken for more cold? Or something like that?
Bob, thanks for the very helpful advice. My husband has actually had his last shave before our ski trip; he finds a beard to be very helpful in the cold, too. Our first day on the slopes should be Boxing Day,
hangoverssnow conditions permitting.Cath, I think it might be related to whether the temperature stimulus is innocuous or noxious. For innocuous warm and cool stimuli, there are separate warm and cool thermoreceptors, but extreme (painful) temperature levels might stimulate the same group of thermonociceptors.
From Haines’ Fundamental Neuroscience for Basic and Clinical Applications:
“Levels of heat (>45C) or cold (
The explanation I got as a youngster back home was that the change to heat when the cells/skin had “adapted” to the very cold was the same as getting the very first cold feeling. (I guess as Kristi is writing more eloquently than I am.) It’s like when you have been in the sauna for a while, throw yourself into the ice water and then go back into the sauna… wait a sec, maybe it’s not the same 😉
I end up forgetting not to likc my lips when I have a balaklava on, something with being silly? I’d rather use a scarf around the face and be able to breath without choking on the cold. In any event, good luck going back home tonight!!
Thanks both – this speculation is providing some definite leads! I’ve always struggled with neuroscience, but I knew there’d be some NNers with better insights, either through specialised training or from being Swedish and knowing about saunas 😉
Is this the same thing that happens when your hands are really cold, and you put them under cold water, and it feels like the water is really hot??
I’ve felt this sensation, Alyssa, but is very unpleasant!.
It’s like swearing in the air.
I had that sensation in the shower after my bike ride this morning. Painful!
give me -7deg with sunshine any day over +5deg with rain. Maybe I should have moved to Winnipeg?
Oh, hang on, in 2 weeks time it will be sunshine and 32deg 🙂
Yeah, well, I’ll be skiing.
Jealous? Me? 😉
Darren: Oh I am so with you. Snow any day, cold and sun any other day…. not rain and drizzle and cold… .huu…
Cath: I¨m envious. Tell Grouse hi from me 🙂
I’m going to attempt the old “ski and surf on the same day in 2 different hemispheres” trick next week. Spend the day at Cypress, then jump a plane home, then a cheeky surf at the other end. OK, technically it’s 2 days later but still within 24hrs.
I’ve felt this before too- but more often I sneeze when the temperature suddenly shifts one way or the other.
Saunder’s is having a really hard life right now clearly (just kidding have fun Darren!!).
give me -7deg with sunshine any day over +5deg with rain.
How very true. I’m just jealous of Cath. November in Sweden this year had 17 hours of sunshine – all of which I was at work. (November is always dreadful, but a “normal” year like last year at least offers something close to 50 hours of sunshine). So give me a cold clear blue sky and I’ll not complain one bit (or maybe only a little bit…)
Yes, clear and cold is the way forward! November is notoriously awful in November – dark, gloomy, and wet. I escaped to Cuba this year and can highly recommend this strategy.
give me -7deg with sunshine any day over +5deg with rain
I’ll hop on this train too. Being cold and wet is the worst. Although, it gets a whole lot colder than -7deg (C) in Winnipeg! The winters there are absolutely brutal.
hmm, apparently ( + C + ) = (C). Of course, I meant it to mean Celsius 🙂
Bah. I’ll take the +5 and rain. I hates the cold, hatessssssssssss it my preciousssssssssssssss.
Also, I have no idea what the answer to your cold sensation question is.
That is all.
November is notoriously awful in November… I couldn’t agree more Cath 😉
@ Sabbi – It’s tough, I just have to grin and bear it. I’m gonna be the most pale/pasty looking guy in the water for a few weeks.
@ Anna – We were actually tossing up between moving to Vancouver or Stockholm a few years ago. My wife talked me out of Stockholm because of the darkness in winter. Having experienced what the relatively less extreme version of winter dark and gloom here does to my state of mind, I’d think it was probably a good decision!
Gaah! One of those “November”s was supposed to be a “Vancouver”.
Darren> but in the summer time Stockholm is awesome. You stack up on summer light… well.. you try to… eh… I tried…
Åsa > I’ve been there in summer and loved it. Problem is, my “sunlight battery” seems to run out of juice in a few weeks… not the months required to get through winter. I don;pt really mind winter – just in small chunks