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The Benefits of Being Cold

theatlantic.com

21–30 of 181 posts

Re: The Benefits of Being Cold

#21
I'm not really sure this is revolutionary or even "news" when high school wrestling coaches have been telling kids to sleep with their bedroom windows open to cut a couple pounds for decades?

(no idea if that works, always wrestled above my weight)

Re: The Benefits of Being Cold

#22
post #17

As someone who was a grad student in an apartment with poor heating: it's not worth it. Eat appropriately, and exercise. The bloody cold numbs your brain too. I also remember reading, though I can't find a good source now, that programmers perform better when warmer (until a point, maybe 27 degrees C). Besides, exercising feels good, while this feels bad. Might as well enjoy yourself.

My Cambridge (UK) house regularly got to 8-12 C in winter. I only turned on the heat for guests. It's not too bad, if you get used to it. Running barefoot in the snow can be fun, too. (But I wouldn't want to have to stand in one place.)

Re: The Benefits of Being Cold

#23
post #17

As someone who was a grad student in an apartment with poor heating: it's not worth it. Eat appropriately, and exercise. The bloody cold numbs your brain too. I also remember reading, though I can't find a good source now, that programmers perform better when warmer (until a point, maybe 27 degrees C). Besides, exercising feels good, while this feels bad. Might as well enjoy yourself.

Would like to see a source for that claim. 27C is pretty hot and multiple studies have found that temperature to be suboptimal for classroom performance (which may not by indicative of programmer productivity, I guess).

"... the performance of two numerical and two language-based tests was significantly improved when the temperature was reduced from 25°C to 20°C (77°F to 68°F)."

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10789669.2007.103...

Re: The Benefits of Being Cold

#24
People's reactions to the cold always astonish me. I spend a lot of time in Canada and Hong Kong. In Canada, it can be 12 C (~53F) and lots of people will be wearing t-shirts and jeans, and it isn't too uncommon to see the odd person wearing shorts. In Hong Kong, 12 C necessitates a cold weather warning, and a fair amount of people die when it drops to 10 C (50F).

It would be interesting to try this article's suggestion of 55F offices out in various parts of the world. I would hypothesize that you'd see really different results, and that 55F as a "weight loss" temperature would probably only work in northern climates.

Re: The Benefits of Being Cold

#25
post #24

People's reactions to the cold always astonish me. I spend a lot of time in Canada and Hong Kong. In Canada, it can be 12 C (~53F) and lots of people will be wearing t-shirts and jeans, and it isn't too uncommon to see the odd person wearing shorts. In Hong Kong, 12 C necessitates a cold weather warning, and a fair amount of people die when it drops to 10 C (50F). It would be interesting to try this article's suggest…

I just got back from Southern China yesterday visiting my wife's mom. And it was cold...I mean, it was only 7C out, but there was absolutely no indoor heating at all. It actually felt warmer outside than inside (and probably was since it took the sun a while to warm up the concrete). It was unbareable even with a kotatsu.

I am so happy to be back in freezing but well-heated Beijing. I can wear shorts in -10C weather, but no indoor heating at all will beat me down pretty quickly.

Re: The Benefits of Being Cold

#26
I know an 84 year old man in the prime of life, he speaks 37 languages, five of them nearly natively (including three that I happen to speak at a high level from my study and travels, and in which I have conversed with him), and is learning more every day. He is the personal language consultant of a billionaire, and recently picked up a new language fluently for him in less than a year. He also made impressive strides in an uncommon language I speak due to my family which is notoriously difficult, and has learned most of the dictionary and can read a newspaper as well as converse fluently. (The above information means there's a good chance someone here might recognize him, though the overlap with startups would only be via the billionaire.)

I asked him what his secret is for being so sprightly. He said, "I don't have one." Then on reflection he says, "Oh, I take a cold shower every day."

Of course 1 data point is not a study. But you might try it for a year and see if anything happens :)

Re: The Benefits of Being Cold

#27
post #17

As someone who was a grad student in an apartment with poor heating: it's not worth it. Eat appropriately, and exercise. The bloody cold numbs your brain too. I also remember reading, though I can't find a good source now, that programmers perform better when warmer (until a point, maybe 27 degrees C). Besides, exercising feels good, while this feels bad. Might as well enjoy yourself.

20C is ideal, 25C is too hot. In China, they always try cutting the AC back, and I always have to complain about it. It is difficult programming when your arms are sticking to the desk. Also, humidity has a lot to do with it (AC will remove humidity from the air as much as it will cool it).

Re: The Benefits of Being Cold

#28
post #24

People's reactions to the cold always astonish me. I spend a lot of time in Canada and Hong Kong. In Canada, it can be 12 C (~53F) and lots of people will be wearing t-shirts and jeans, and it isn't too uncommon to see the odd person wearing shorts. In Hong Kong, 12 C necessitates a cold weather warning, and a fair amount of people die when it drops to 10 C (50F). It would be interesting to try this article's suggest…

In my experience, comparing absolute temperatures across different climate/countries does not give the full picture.

I used to live in Paris where it felt warmish when the temperature was around 10C. Now that I live in Hong Kong, 10C feels freezing cold, as you pointed out.

Maybe it's related to humidity ? Or maybe it's because there is no indoor heating at all, as seanmcdirmid noted.

Re: The Benefits of Being Cold

#29
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall reading an article, though, where Michael Phelps admitted he didn't eat as much as was reported. The story about the gargantuan amounts he ate was something the media loved, and something that helped build a "mythology" around him, but even Phelps said it wasn't true.

12,000 is on the high end of extreme athlete caloric intake, but not totally outlandish. There are many stories about Iditarod mushers throwing whole sticks of butter into their food for the fat, and a study of one musher showed average consumption of about 9,000 calories per day through the race [1] (with weight loss indicating a deficit of ~2k/day). A quick google says Tour de France racers consume in the range of…

30-50% more than the known extremes, looks outlandish to me.

Re: The Benefits of Being Cold

#30
Someone made studies about running in summer or winter? Because if you go out in winter and you are exposure to low temperatures you would burn more calories. I think my Strava is not taking account this factor. Always I'm having same calories burnt in same distance.
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