Why is it that when pour extremely cold water on yourself, you start breathing deeply even though you don’t need that much oxygen, and you get normal within 15 seconds again
In: Biology
A better ELI5 after reading the comments on here is why would your body think it’s a good idea to take a deep breath if their is water in your face…
Mamilian diving reflex. It happens when cold water touches the face. It’s meant to help increase oxygen flow to the body, keep awake, and alows you to conserve oxygen.
It’s reflex that happens when mammals get into water.
Sorry if it wasn’t detailed enough.
Hope it helps!!
Professor Mike Tipton of Portsmouth Uni is an world renowned expert on cold water shock. In this video he explains in detail cold water shock and how to survive it by fighting against your natural urge to panic. It’s not just receptors in your face, but receptors in any part or all of your body immersed in cold water which can produce cold water shock. The cold water shock response can also be triggered by hot water weirdly, as Professor Tipton explains in another of his excellent videos.
It’s called the cold shock response. When the cold receptors in your skin are all suddenly stimulated they cause an involuntary gasp and, for about a minute after that, hyperventilation (fast, uncontrolled breathing).
If you fall into chilly water, the cold shock response will kill you long before hypothermia (lowered body temperature causing organs to stop working) does. Either that first gasping breath will fill your lungs with water (drowning you), or the hyperventilation will make swimming almost impossible. In the UK, 67 per cent of drowning victims are strong swimmers, and over half of those are within 3m of the shore or the side of their boat when they drown.
I believe it is a mammalian response to alert the body of danger and to literally shock you into taking avoidance action. We tend to wear lots of clothes and live in warm houses etc, so are more accustomed to a warmer environment, so the temperature shock is greater, causing more harm than good. I think there is quite a bit of research into it, and people do condition themselves to it for cautious reasons.
[Cold Shock Response](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_shock_response)
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Check Wim (the iceman) Hof breathing. Tried myself, is awesome.
The short answer would be : you pump your body up with oxygen to create heat.
Because your body is stupid and thinks you’re about to go swimming so it wants as much air as it can get.
Oxygen is what we burn with carbohydrates to generate heat. Get real cold, your body turns the furnace up.
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