So I want to understand why exactly our bodies say the outside cold hurts and why the hot temperatures feel nice up to an extent then it hurts but also just feels more uncomfortable. I understand the direct touch aspect but not ambient.
So I understand the evolutionary need for it but I want to know the science. What is going on in your body that makes the cold hurt
In: Chemistry
I’m no expert, but I’ll venture a guess and say *people who didn’t get out of the cold because they thought it hurt died*.
To keep you alive. It hurts so you don’t get hypothermia and die. It hurts so you do something quickly to get yourself away from the extreme temps.
My guess, based purely on my own experiences, is that the cold ambient temperature makes it feel like my muscles are contracting, borderline cramping which sends pain signals to the brain. In contrast, warmth usually helps muscles relax and loosen up which might explain why you feel less pain in warmer ambient temperatures. That’s how I’ve rationalized it based solely on “ice to reduce swelling and heat to relax” from my experiences with years of PT.
Pain (and other uncomfortable feelings) evolved because they are useful to motivate behaviour that helps us survive.
Enough cold or heat is dangerous to our health. Making cold or hot enough temperatures unpleasant is a way for our bodies to motivate us to do something to fix it (seek shelter or shade, huddle together for warmth, get in water to cool off, etc).
If the temperatures weren’t uncomfortable, you might just keep going till you got heatstroke or hypothermia.
Ambient temperature is just air directly touching you. There is no difference in what you label “direct touch” and “ambient”.
Thus if you understand that directly touching something hot or cold hurts it should make sense that ambient temperature should also be able to hurt, because there is literally no difference in how you perceive that.
Senses are old, while being smart is new. Pain needs to make even the dumbest animal understand that it needs to get away from what causes it.
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