I’m sure everyone has experienced having cold feet. For example, when you’ve been sitting for a long period of time and the blood flow to your legs is poor.
When this happens, and you feel your feet with your hand, the foot always seems to feel much colder than it ought to. In other words, in a room that’s 70F (21C), why do my feet feel more like 45F (7C)? Expecting this has to do with heat capacity, the feet also feel colder than, say, a glass of room temp water.
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The temperature at the floor may or may not be significantly cooler than higher in the room. It depends on a lot of things:
Some things that can lead to a cold floor are:
A floor where the under side is that is exposed to cold outside temperatures or cold ground.
A floor with poor insulation.
A heating system that doesn’t circulate the air well (as you mentioned).
But I suspect your feet only FEEL like 45F. If you check them with a thermometer, I suspect they are way warmer than that.
This has to do with your bodies circulation, and the general way in which we sense our surroundings and the ability of heat to transfer in general.
You need to start with heat transfer in general. Consider how 70 degree water feels vs 70 degree air. Water is much better at heat transfer and so up against your 90+ degree body it rips the heat right off you and you feel cold. Air is much worse at heat transfer and so the little bit of heat you lose is easily replaced by your warm blood circulation from your core. In reality we are always shedding heat and having that heat replaced. When you get hypothermia, you are losing heat faster than you can replace it.
Note that if it’s really cold water/air the effect is significantly magnified. Cold air will feel chilly blowing over your skin as your body struggles to keep up, but cold water can kill you in a matter of minutes or hours.
Humans weren’t always so well clothed/protected from the elements, our bodies have significant defensive strategies for protecting us from the cold. As an example when we get into really cold situations the body will start constricting arteries in our limbs in order to prioritize warm blood flow to our core. Warm and functioning organs are matters of life and death, cold fingers and toes are much less important. This dynamic system of constricting and dialating is a balancing act effected by temperatures, fitness level, medications, temperature, etc etc etc.
Poor circulation is a chronic problem for many people. It frequently is not much more complicated than your body improperly doing things like constricting arteries in limbs. Your feet, being heated improperly by poor blood flow, are unable to easily overcome the heat that it sheds naturally.
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