Our bodies are on average 98.6°, right? Why do we sweat profusely and dislike hot temperatures? Wouldn’t our bodies have to work less and use less energy to keep an internal temperature of 98.6°?
In: 16
Whenever we do anything (walk, talk, breathe, digest food, think), it uses up energy. Whenever energy gets used up, some gets wasted and turned into heat. For our bodies to stay at any given temperature, we need to be generating the amount of heat equal to the heat we lose to the environment around us.
The bigger the temperature difference between two things, the quicker heat flows from the hot thing to the cold thing. If it’s cold outside, our bodies lose too much heat and cool down quickly. To compensate, we make more heat, for example through shivering (basically a lot of small muscle movements designed to “waste” lots of energy).
On the other hand, if the air is the same as our body temperature, or even hotter, we don’t naturally lose any heat. In fact, if it’s hotter outside than we are, we’d be *gaining* heat. In either case, it’s a problem because we’re still *generating* heat through wasted energy.
And, there’s no easy way to make something cooler. Fridges and freezers work by taking the heat from inside them and pumping it outside, which is a really inefficient process. The best we can do is try to not use as much energy (so we feel really tired), take in cold stuff (like water) that can absorb some of our heat, and sweat lots because evaporation will cool what’s nearby.
Latest Answers