Warming up when it's cold can be desirable or even save lives. Keeping your body warm makes you feel more comfortable and helps reduce energy expenditure during the winter. Here are some tips for keeping warm in the cold.
Steps
Method 1 of 2: Warming Up in Extreme Conditions
Step 1. Wear warm clothes
The best way to stay warm is to wear appropriate clothing. If you're going out, wear several layers of clothing.
- You should have three layers of insulating fabric. For the first layer, wear thermal pants, second skin, or other material that insulates moisture. For the middle layer, wear thick clothing such as wool jackets or feathers. For the top layer, wear a waterproof material that protects you from rain and wind.
- Layers should be loose, not tight. You need to avoid sweating, as it creates moisture that makes you colder.
Step 2. Cover all parts of your body
Wear a cap, scarf and gloves. You will get colder if you forget to wear a scarf as you will lose a lot of heat through your neck. Wearing only one layer of pants is a mistake many people make. Wear thermal pants, tights, or leggings under your jeans. Put on several pairs of socks with winter boots. Make sure the socks are made of tight wool.
Step 3. Create a friction
If you don't have warm clothing available, or if you're still cold even though you're wearing layers of clothing, create friction on the cool parts of your body. Rub your arms and legs and try to create as much friction as possible; this should generate some heat.
- If possible, keep your arms inside the shirt. You will become a larger mass, thus retaining more heat as it radiates from the fabric and your arms. If you are wearing a long-sleeved shirt, put one arm in one of the sleeves and vice versa.
- Become the biggest heat mass you can. Put hands and arms under your legs or use the t-shirt technique. But don't let go; most heat is conducted when many parts of the body are together and can share and provide heat to each other.
Step 4. Move arms and legs
To warm your feet and hands, circulate the blood inside them. If your foot is cold, try moving your leg back and forth 30 or 50 times. Include your thigh muscles in this movement and swing your legs in wide arcs. To warm up your arms, do wide 360-degree circular motions. Have your entire arm involved in these movements.
- One of the reasons your hands and feet get cold is that the inside of your body sucks all the heat into itself, leaving your extremities without heat and without blood. Wear vests and more layers of clothing over your torso if your hands and feet are constantly cold.
- If extremities such as the nose and hands get cold, use your breath to warm them up. Generate warm air from the back of your throat and exhale into your hands. For the nose, cup your hands in front of your face. Exhaling in this way will warm your nose and also keep your hands warm.
Step 5. Hug someone
Body heat is transferred between people and the larger body mass attracts more heat. Other people emit a lot of body heat, so if you're stuck somewhere with someone, hug each other to stay warm.
Method 2 of 2: Warming Up Under Normal Conditions
Step 1. Drink hot drinks
Drinking hot tea, coffee and soup activates heat sensors throughout your digestive tract, which provides a warm feeling. Tea and coffee have many health benefits, so when you drink these drinks, you warm up your body and also take in good antioxidants, as long as you forgo creams, sweeteners and marshmallows. Soup has the extra benefit of being low in calories.
Drinking hot drinks can also warm your hands. Holding a mug of hot tea or coffee in both hands can warm you up in a few minutes
Step 2. Eat ginger
Eating ginger is a natural way to get warm, with several beneficial side effects. It works as a stimulant that circulates blood and raises your body temperature. Ginger warms your body from the inside out. Try using it as an ingredient in teas, breads, biscuits or sprinkle some grated ginger on other dishes.
Try putting powdered ginger inside shoes, sandals, or socks if you can't get your feet warm
Step 3. Cook
Using the oven and crockpots helps to heat the kitchen by cooking on a lower heat for a longer period of time. Pies, stews and soups warm the body and are still delicious dishes!
Step 4. Take a hot shower
If you're cold, soaking in a hot tub or a few minutes in the shower raises your body temperature. After showering, dry your body as quickly as possible and wear a long-sleeved blouse and pants to retain the heat.
Try spending time in a sauna to warm up, if you have access to that place
Step 5. Eat healthy fats
One reason for poor regulation of body temperature is low body fat. Fat is needed to keep your body warm, so include monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in foods such as nuts, nuts, salmon, avocados and olive oil in your diet.
Step 6. Clean the house
Doing household chores gets you moving, which pumps your body's blood. When blood begins to circulate, its inner temperature rises. Vacuum and sweep the floor to warm your body.
- Washing the dishes can help you warm up significantly. Filling the sink with hot water and leaving your hands in the water while you wash and rinse the dishes helps to raise your body temperature.
- Washing clothes can also help fight the cold. If you have a dryer, the heat emanating from it can help warm your hands and feet. Put on the warm clothes you take out of the dryer to keep warm.
Step 7. Work out
Exercising circulates your blood and warms your body. Run, lift weights, do yoga or any type of movement that makes you sweat.
- If you can't do exercises on a large scale, do some that require less physical effort, such as stretching your legs and moving your arms.
- Practice the Ashtanga method of yoga. This technique has breathing positions and exercises that generate internal body heat, using continuous movements that make the body sweat a lot.
- Too cold right now and no time for yoga classes? Try this simple exercise, called the snake: Lie face down on the floor. Place your palms on the floor, close to your chest. Boost yourself upward, lifting your head, shoulders and chest. Lower your shoulder blades at the same time. Stay in this position for a few seconds, then lower further. Repeat this step a few times until you've warmed up better.
Step 8. Breathe through your nose
The air heats up when you breathe through your nose, which helps raise your body temperature. Try to inhale and hold air for 4 seconds before exhaling. Repeat a few times to warm up.
Step 9. Be sociable
According to research done at the University of Toronto, people who are lonely or excluded feel colder. So spending more time with other people makes you feel warmer. Instead of being alone watching TV, get together with a friend or relative.