Just doesn’t make sense
Our temperature is higher
We should feel hot (IMO) 🤷♂️
Edit 1: With that why do we feel so weak and tired when sick/have a fever
In: 3288
Your body has a kind of built-in thermostat that it can regulate. When you get a fever, the first thing that happens is that the thermostat gets cranked up a few notches when the body decides it needs to be hotter e.g. to kill off an infection more effectively. The body then suddenly finds itself at an actual core temperature lower than the “set” temperature of the thermostat. This produces the feeling of cold forcing you to get under a blanket, drink hot beverages etc. in order to raise your core temperature to the “set” temperature as fast as possible. So that feeling is the way your body communicates to you what it needs to be done right now. You also get involuntary shivers which are a way of raising core temperature as well (rapid muscle movement spends their stored energy and releases heat).
*You* are warmer, therefore the world around you is *colder* than you. And your body doesn’t want to lose that heat, so cold becomes unpleasant and your body does things like shivering to generate more heat, even when there’s no danger of you getting too cold.
Edit: as more people have pointed out, this isn’t entirely accurate. Heat transfer is more important than relative temperature. However, how fast heat transfers depends in part on said relative temperatures.
What we feel isn’t the absolute temperature of things, we feel the rate at which heat is conducted. For example, at the beach, even if the water and air are at the same temperature, the water will always feel colder because it takes heat away from you quicker.
When you have a fever your body temperature is higher than usual, so you transfer heat to the surroundings faster. Therefore you feel colder.
Our bodies don’t actually feel temperature — we feel energy flowing into, or out of, our bodies.
Energy flow is dependent on a lot of things, like material properties — this is why metal feels colder than wood, even though they’re the same temperature (it’s more conductive so it pulls energy out of you faster.)
When you have a fever there’s a bigger temperature difference between you and the air — which means more energy is leaving your body. Also you might be sweating — and sweating makes energy leave your body faster as well
> Edit 1: With that why do we feel so weak and tired when sick/have a fever
To answer this since people already answered the main part of the question. When your body is sick, it’s trying to kill off an invasion of foreign bodies that are very much determined to live even at your expanse. This process consumes a large part of your energy, thus leaving less energy for the rest of your bodily functions, thus making you tired.
Ofc that’s not the only parameter at play but as far as I’m aware it’s the main one 🙂
If youre outside in below freezing weather, have a nice jacket/sweater etc but no gloves, even just for a few minutes outside. Then go in, turn on the cold tapwater and run it over your hand – it will feel warm, but if you run your wrist that was warm and covered its cold. Same thing in reverse, you are hot and the air around you feels cold rather than your hand being cold and the cool water feeling warm.
I’ll have to strongly disagree with the heat transfer hypthesis described in multiple posts here. The sensation of cold/heat during fever is internal sensation usually caused by a mismatch between internal thermostat temperature and real body temperature. Whereas the things you describe come from an sensation form your environment (outside sensation which can be influenced by many factors).
Your body has a thermostat which regulates temperature usually it is set around 98,6 F. During normal situation everyting is in balance, you lose as much heat as you produce and you feel neither really warm or cold.
During fever your body decides to set temperature to 100 F (to kill bacteria and viruses more effectively). Even if you are already warm (lets say 99F) your body temperature does not match the desired thermostat (internal sensation of cold) and does everything to get to that set temperature (shiver, extera layers of clothing) to increase heat production/conservation resulting in higher body temperature (fever). Going outside into 50 F you would almost certainly feel even more cold (outside sentation cold).
Conversely during an extended Sauna session the core temperature of a healthy person could also be raised to 99F. Because the thermostat is still set to its normal temperature at 98,6 the body feels it has too much heat (internal sensation of warm). Now it tries everything to cool you down (mainly sweating). If you would go outside into mild winter cold (around 50F) you could still sense outside as cool though percieving your internal as too warm. In this case the outside temperature is not nearly as unpleasent because it helps your body to bring it to the desired temperature.
Heat transfer would be roughly the same in both situations (outside sensation of cold), Internal heat sensation in both situaions can vary drastically bases on internal set temperature.
Anecdote: One time I was biking home in a torrential downpour on a rather chilly early fall night. By the time I got home I was soaked to the bone. After changing into dry clothes I poured myself a glass of water from the room temperature jug and it tasted warm?!?
Is it possible that someone or something heated up my water? Sure. But more realistically it’s the fact that my body temperature was way lower than normal that caused it to taste warm to me.
Fever chills are the same concept, but the other way around.
Your immune system works better at higher temperatures.
Your body wants a higher temperature.
Its your bodies way of telling you to pile on more blankets.
With more blankets your temperature goes up, and or you can maintain the current temperature with fewer calories.
There is a great experiment that you can do at home:
Prepare 3 bowls of water, one cold, one natural temp and one (kind of) hot.
Put your left hand on the cold and your right on the hoy one and leave it there for a while.
Then put both on the natural temperature one. For one hand it will feel cold, for the other hot.
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