I go to the gym during the work day, which means I break into a heavy sweat and then need to cool down in the shower before going back to work. I have limited time, which means I need to go about this in the most efficient way.
I’ve tried taking cold showers, but it seems like I break back into a sweat as soon as I get out. I thought hot showers might work better–the idea being to trick my body into thinking that outside the shower was cool by comparison, so that there was no need to sweat–not sure if this is a valid line of reasoning or not.
Any ideas as to which would be better? maybe split the difference and take a warm shower. Start with cold shower and then increase the temperature? Someone has to have spent some time thinking about this kind of stuff.
A hot shower is almost certainly not going to do you any good. I often try to seek out hot tubs or steam room/saunas while traveling, if the hotel has them (more do in Asia and Europe) because I’m usually super stiff from flying (or from hitting the hotel gym which I often do out of boredom). I continue to sweat and remain flushed for many minutes after getting out of the hot water, even well after I am dressed. YMMV, but what I have found to work is the super cold shower, for several minutes, making sure to soak your head and the back of your neck (either I made this up or I didn’t, but the nerves that alert you that you are losing heat and that thus the body should correct downward its core metabolic activity to reserve your energy, as in a plunge into the ocean, seem to be in that area). It’s kind of hard to force yourself to do it, and you’ll gasp (another automatic reaction) and wince, but if you run cool water over those areas for two or three minutes, you’ll be much less flushed and sweaty when you get out, IME.
It takes me a long time to cool down after aerobic exercise, no matter what kind of shower I take. So I just wait 20 minutes or so until I stop sweating before I shower (I can’t really work out at lunchtime). I suspect that the muscles continue to generate excess heat even after the exercise is done and so even if you could cool your surface down instantaneously, the furnace will still be stoked for a while.
But heat loss is fastest with cold water. There’s no real logic to using hot water to cool off faster (unless you are making ice cubes :))
Wouldn’t an overly-cold shower cause the blood vessels in your skin to reflexively constrict in an effort to preserve your core temp? Seems to me if you’re trying to shed body heat in a hurry, you’re better off going with a lukewarm shower that maybe sloooowly gets colder and as Huerta suggests, make sure the major blood vessels in your head and neck get their share.
I think that’s the best way. Hot shower (for cleanliness) followed by warm followed by cold. That always works for me, and I tend to sweat it up quite a bit when I get exercised.
This is what I’m worried about. If I took a cold shower, wouldn’t my body start trying to conserve/create heat? Maybe the ramping down in temperature is the best way, but would it be best to end with a warm temperature?
I get your point, but would you sweat more if you had the thermostat set low or moderate before you walked out into a hot day? Would your body’s adaptations to the low temperature make you sweat more? If not, I guess my question has been answered.
You’re bodies thermostat doesn’t doesn’t key off your core temp, but rather your surface temp. Rapidly transitioning to too cold is likely to trigger heat conserving mechanisms
A cold shower is a relatively temporary situation; an airconditioned house something you’d be less likely to step into and out of in an attempt to cool off.
When a child has a high fever they throw him in a tub of ice.
I recall once when I had a summer cold and fever, I went to Lake Michigan and sat in the lake and my fever fell right down.
Like most things in life, it is gonna vary from person to person. My only suggestion is take a cold shower, and see. Then the next day take a cold shower and turn handle of the hot water one quarter way on. (Or however you’d work it if the spout only has one turn handle.)
Then report back to us what you find. And don’t forget the camera phone so we can have pictures to verify your data
Trust me. You cool off best with a temperate shower. Not too hot. Not too cold. That’s the kind of stuff we used to learn in Home Economics in the 1950s. Honest.
Body temperature is regulated by a system of sensors and controllers across the body. The brain receives signals regarding body temperature from the nerves in the skin and the blood. These signals go to the hypothalamus, which coordinates thermoregulation in the body. Signals from the hypothalamus control the sympathetic nervous system, which affects vasoconstriction, metabolism, shivering, sweating, and hormonal controls over temperature http://www.biologyreference.com/Ta-Va/Temperature-Regulation.html
Outliern you are completely misunderstanding your references. They are just saying that that the body regulates its temperature primarily via the skin. That’s not surprising since that’s where it has the most contact with the external world. In order to achieve that regulation there are of course temperature sensors in the skin itself.
What they are not saying is that the body’s “thermostat”, ie the primary switch that regulates temperature, is in the skin. In fact one of your own references states explicitly that “The hypothalmus contains … the control mechanisms [and] the key temperature sensors”
In more detail, the first reference is referring strictly to the control of sweating. And it notes that the whole process is under the control of the hypothalamus. The skin sensors control only the amount of sweat produced, not the temperature of the body itself. The second reference merely notes that there are temperature sensors in the skin associated with temperature regulation, but once again it notes the whole process is under the control of the hypothalamus.
I can go into a lot more detail on this subject if you’d like, but for now I just want to stress that the body definitely does not regulate temperature based on skin temperature. Thank Og, since skin temperature routinely fluctuates wildly minute to minute, but your systems will start to crash if the core temperature varies by more than ~3^oC.
There’s a reason why body temperature is taken in the mouth, anus or ear rather than being held between the skin in the fingers: it’s because skin temperature varies widely and rapidly, whereas core temperature is stable except under condition s of ill health. If the body keyed its temperature to skin temperature then you would start shivering when you skin temperature dropped below 37^oC, which occurs at an air temperature of about 22o^C. Similarly when you entered the sun and your skin temperature reached 38o^C you’d start sweating, even tough air temperature was only15o^C.
Just to keep things clear: the overriding control of body temperature is undertaken by the hypothalamus, and the key temperature sensors are all located in the hypothalamus. The skin contains minor sensors that assist in fine regulation heat dispersal/retention when the hypothalamus seems that to be necessary. But in now way s the body’s temperature keyed to the skin temperature. That would be rapidly fatal because skin temperature fluctuates precisely because it is the site of heat dispersal/absorption.
It’s not the nerves, it’s the blood flow. The blood flow from that areas runs straight to the the brain which contains… the hypothalmus. Cool the blood and the brain registers that the core temperature has fallen. Added to that the body can’t restrict blood flow to the brain as it can to other locations, so if you can keep that area cool you will keep losing heat, whereas in other areas the body will simply shut down the blood supply.
This is one of the crucial design points in modern life vests: keeping the head and back of the neck clear of the water. Pre WWII life vests used to basically float people of their backs on the assumption that they were more stable and less prone to drown, but that design caused a lot of deaths from hypothermia.
The sad part is that this fact was discovered by Nazi scientists by immersing human victims in freezing water wearing various deigns of life vests and seeing who died first.
Dude, calm down. I never said that the hypothalamus wasn’t the control center for temp regulation, merely that it uses data from the skin to decide what to do. the skin provides real time information about the significant changes to the environment, and, in fact, increases and decreases the sensitivity of the central sensors in the hypothalamus. Think about it, it would be pretty stupid to have to wait until your core temp was falling to begin heat conserving measures.
stepping into a cold shower can trigger this even before you’ve actually cooled off from your workout, so unless you’re planning on hanging out in the shower for awhile, you’re probably better off with cool water that won’t cause reduced blood flow to the surface.
Err, no. You actually said “You’re bodies thermostat doesn’t doesn’t key off your core temp, but rather your surface temp.”
That is flat out wrong. Your body’s thermostat indisputably does key off your core temp. All your own references state that clearly
And your body’s thermostat doesn’t doesn’t key off your skin temp. Your skin temperature only serves as fine control for hypothalamus dictated temperature regulation.
Once again you have completely failed to understand your own refrerence. the reference is not saying that body temperature is regulated by skin temperature as you claimed. It is saying that body temperature is regulated in a minor way by the temperature of the external environment, and that the senors that detect external environmental conditions are in the skin.
Like I said, I’m happy to explain any of this too you in detail, preferably in another thread, but for the purposes of this thread we need ot clear up the misconceptions you’ve raised:
The overriding control of body temperature is undertaken by the hypothalamus, not the skin.
The key temperature sensors are all located in the hypothalamus, not the skin.
The skin contains minor sensors that assist in fine regulation heat dispersal/retention when the hypothalamus seems that to be necessary, but these are not key sensors and their effect is governed by the hypothalamus.
The skin also contains sensors that detect temperature of the external environment but these operate regardless of skin temperature. Doesn’t matter if the skin is at 39^0C or at at 27o^C. The only information they act upon is external environmental temperature. So once again temperature regulation is not being governed by skin temperature.
I agree with that, but that is radically different form your claims that it is in any way related to skin temperature. It isn’t. It is related solely to water temperature.
Anecdote only: by trial and error, I’ve found that what works best for me is a shower that feels cool to my skin (not cold). As I cool down in the shower, the water that started out feeling cool starts feeling warm, and I turn it down a little cooler.
