14 essential tips to protect yourself from this cold snap
Each cold wave conveys its share of drama: homeless people found lifeless in the early morning of a freezing night, thousands of French people who suffer from precarious living conditions, old age which does not mix well with the thermal amplitude . Every year, winter is the scene of many dramas.
How many people are affected by the fight against the cold?
No one is safe from frostbite or a fall. But it is true that the situation can become catastrophic among disadvantaged people. According to the 23rd edition of the annual report on The State of Poor Housing by the Abbé Pierre Foundation, France has 4 million people who are poorly housed or homeless, while 12 million see their situation weakened by the housing crisis.
France would count, under the threat of cold:
Why do we shiver when it's cold?
Our personal boiler is not a common heater, but an ultra-sophisticated power plant programmed to keep our temperature between 36.5 and 37.5. Thermal regulation depends on an area located in the middle of our brain. If our temperature drops, this area sends nerve signals to our muscles to first perform piloerection (scientific term for "goosebumps"), then contract, this is called "shivering with cold". ".
What are these chills for?
The purpose of these chills is to produce heat through our muscles. To warm up in case of cold, or to evacuate it in case of fever. Conversely, if the temperature rises, the nerve signals will give the order to dilate the blood vessels to lose heat, which has the effect of making you blush and trigger sweating. So it's as stupid when you go out in winter to cover yourself excessively with layers of clothes as to show off in a T-shirt.
How to make Avocado Ice Cream. This avocado ice cream is a very easy to make and healthy homemade ice cream that's… https://t.co/HU0Y07sS5q
— 🍴2600+ Recipes Directory🍝 Sun Feb 28 17:17:00 +0000 2021
How to dress when it's cold?
The ideal outfit is both one that prevents us from shivering – because if we continue to shiver, it means that the body is suffering – and one that does not cause sweating.
Watch out for the skulls of toddlers. When it's cold, taking a child out bareheaded is like taking a shirtless adult out. The surface of the head in the very small is indeed proportionally much greater than that of the adult. And yet, we always come across these children who are certainly well swaddled in the bottom of a pushchair but… without a hat! Which is equivalent to taking out the shirtless grandfather. What no one would allow. The cold is dangerous, children and the elderly are more vulnerable than adults, especially because their skin is thinner.
Should the skin of exposed areas be protected?
You have to wear gloves. However, some reactions on the face are normal and no one can escape them: itching, dry skin, cracked lips. Frostbite and all pain due to cold are abnormal and should be treated like burns.
How do I know if it's frostbite?
If baby complains of pain in the hands, feet, nose, cheeks and ears during a particularly cold walk, you must have the "frostbite" reflex and return as quickly as possible to warm up the parts of the body that are affected with a lukewarm cloth or bath. Above all, do not expose it to a significant heat source as it could aggravate frostbite. If it is only pre-frostbite, the pain will subside quickly. If it is a confirmed frostbite, the pain will come back, quite sharp, like a burn.
Does this only apply to toddlers?
Adults are not immune to the harmful effects of the cold, especially older people who also have very thin skin. If so, it will first turn red, then white or greyish. Above all, do not rub. The only thing to do is to use lukewarm heat there too. That of his body first if it is the hands, then as soon as he returns home, the bath. If the pain does not yield or if blisters appear, the opinion of a doctor is essential.
Is it dangerous to breathe very cold air?
Here again, our organization has done things well. You have to breathe through your nose. The air that enters the nasal cavities is humidified, purified by our hairs, but above all warmed by an impressive number of small vessels. Moreover, a good blow on the nose makes it possible to check its richness in blood.
How to equip yourself to protect yourself from the cold?
Sufficient clothing, gloves, a scarf in front of the mouth, a wide open nose and nature takes care of the rest. And, whatever the age - especially at the ends of life - when it freezes, we must respect a few rules: avoid clothing that is too tight so that our blood circulation is not blocked and can play its role as an internal radiator . It is also necessary to fight against humidity, which plays an important role, and to take loose and waterproof clothing. And if the temperature is below - 20, do not go outside. These are temperatures where very young and old have - medically speaking - nothing to do outside.
Is alcohol a good way to warm up?
The Saint Bernards and their barrels of alcohol to the rescue of lost mountaineers would be potential criminals… If it weren't for a legend! The famous dog would have the same effect, for the missing in the snow, as a burst of submachine gun. Alcohol causes an impression of heat by increasing heart rate and blood pressure. Unfortunately, this reaction lowers the body temperature. In fact, the alcoholic resists the cold for less time. With alcohol it's hot outside, cold inside, since alcohol dilates the vessels of the skin. It is therefore a silly legend, but one that has a hard life.
The cold and its therapeutic virtues
Cold that kills, cold that hurts, but also cold that relieves. Sports enthusiasts have discovered with amazement a kind of freezer in which runners are placed to recover them. Cryotherapy, cold treatment, has existed since antiquity. It was in the 1970s that the application of ice packs or sprays began to be used by trainers as soon as one of their foals took a hit. The more modern version, chamber cryotherapy, is used against stress, insomnia, rheumatism, itching and certain skin diseases such as psoriasis. During these sessions, in a cabin cooled to minus 110 degrees, for a very short time, less than 3 minutes, the human body secretes endorphins, these morphine-like substances familiar to marathon runners, which have the effect of fight the pain.
The cold to stop the heart
At the beginning of the 20th century, surgeons hesitated to operate on the heart, simply because the incessant beating made the surgical gesture imprecise. It was a Canadian surgeon who, in the mid-1940s, had the brilliant idea of using cold. This marmot specialist was the first to imagine that by cooling the whole organism, by reducing the body's needs for oxygen, the beats would slow down enough to be able to stop the heart and therefore open it. Surgeons today still use the direct application of crushed ice on the heart – protected by a cloth – to quickly stop the beating. To restart just warm up.
Cold at the service of SAMU
But the most surprising use of the benefits of cold comes to us from the emergency services. Inspired by miraculous survivals of several minutes during drownings in icy water, they now offer kinds of freezing helmets and freezing substances that , injected very early, can increase brain survival by several tens of minutes after cardiac arrest. Huge progress; Nothing to do with Hibernatus, but it is the most modern way of research.
