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Horribly cold in Krakow at the moment , how do you cope with such temperatures ? [124]
And if the answer is beans,
Well . i shall try to avoid the fact that beans will save you from any fate , be it cold weather or nuclear war....lets consider other factors...
I won,t go into all the things that you can do to make a house warm , i will just spout about how to keep the body warm in a cold house , or outdoors...
To survive the human body needs to maintain its core tempreture at normal body tempreture , your core is the bit that contains all your vital organs , and suprisingly only a few degrees up or down can cause major problems , even death...
When your body finds itself in extreme cold it goes into survival mode , as your body tempreture starts to drop the first thing it does is shut off most of the blood to your hands and feet in order to keep this warm blood in your core , thats why your hands and feet start to feel the cold first....the body is attempting to sacrifice the bits that are not essential for life , in order to preserve life itself...People who have been stuck in extreme cold often survive , but lose hands , feet , even legs to frostbite...
If its so cold that your body is struggling to maintain your core tempreture , one of the first signs is mental confusion , people may appear to be drunk , or simpy tired , if you are in a group you must look out for these signs among your friends , if you are alone , then you are already in big trouble , as the confusion may mean you fail to take the steps needed to save your life , quite often people will do things like discard spare warm clothing , and even remove some of the clothes they are wearing... If you are shivering , this is your bodies attempt to make your body move enough to get some heat going , when you stop shivering you are in trouble...you will become tired , your pulse will slow , you will lie down and go into deep sleep...you won,t wake up....!
In order to avoid death its best not to let yourself get that cold...if you must go out in such low tempretures the answer is layers of warm clothes that can be removed , or put back on to keep your body at a comfortable tempreture...we will devide it into three layers...the base layer , the warm layer , and the outer layer...
BASE LAYER...nylon or polypropylene tee shirts and long johns , there are a few good makers of themal clothes for this purpose...
WARM LAYER... lumberjack type shirt , with a good fleece over the top , on your bottom half , polycotton or fleece trousers . or any good military trousers , forget jeans , they are useless when wet , and are no good at retaining heat...
OUTER LAYER...this is where it gets a bit expensive if you want to be warm...Ideally you need something thats going to let the sweat escape , but keep the wind and rain out , and such stuff does not come cheap....Its easy enough to get a jacket and trousers that are waterproof and windproof , any plastic clothes will do that , but you will sweat inside them , and sweat reduces your body tempreture , thats what its there for , but its not what you want on a very cold day....My advice is to go to a good camping shop and buy the very best you can afford , it might save your life some time...
Make sure you are well fed before going out , and if you are going a bit out in the wilds you should have the means to survive a few hours out there if you say fell and broke a leg...you should not have to wait for too long of course...oh , hang on , you did tell somebody where you were going didn,t you , what route you were taking , and what time you expect to be back...? You didn,t , oh dear...do you know how to dig a snow hole....?
