eli5 How does your body raise and lower it’s own temperature?
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it’s like this….
there’s a few things happening.
* we’re basically giant thermos’s of nails and flint. anything we consume is gasoline. Since we’re alive, there’s already a spark so anything we consume is burned away, adding more fire.
* additionally, all the nails and flint is constantly rubbing each other, causing a lot of sparks, adding to the heat
* but, we’re not just dumb giant thermos’s… we’re cheaply made thermos’s. The thermos walls are always leaking through the cheap materials it’s made of, letting heat leave from inside.
* Even though we’re cheaply made, we do have some ‘smart’ features… if we really get hot, then the thermos will start to leak on command, and the heat is able to escape much easier.
Just by living, our cells is consuming material and producing energy & heat. our bodies operate ‘best’ at a certain temperature so we also have skin that allows heat to be pulled from our bodies when it’s cooler than our core temperatures. At rest, we feel comfortable.
If we get too hot by excercising or by the outside temp being hotter than ‘comfortable’, then we’ll start to sweat. Sweat is a liquid and it allows for better exchange of heat from out bodies to the air outside.
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