I feel like starting from early childhood until the present 78 my tolerance for hot weather has gradually and slowly increased, while my tolerance for cold weather has decreased. Is there anything to this?
I thought you were wanting the science behind heat perception because it’s a surprisingly complicated subject with some aspects still unknown.
But you’re just asking if we’re heat people or cold.people. I grew up in a cold wet windy miserable region, akin to Scotland, or Maine/Washington. I moved to Australia to get away from that but though it’s far warmer here, Climate Change has rendered the weather less predictable than it used to be, and it’s a lot wetter and colder than when I first moved here.
I definitely prefer the warmth, even more so as I age. Spring and Summer are my favourite seasons.
It’s common for older people to actually feel colder. There are several body changes that contribute to this, such as slower metabolism, weakened circulation system, and loss of insulating fat. As such, they may feel cold at normal room temperature and feel uncomfortably cold when the weather is cold.
There are a lot of reasons for feeling the cold more as you age.
*Poorer circulation
*Less muscle mass
*Loss of subcutaneous fat
*Decreased insulation
I always felt the cold more than average and didn’t mind heat like people around me … until I hit menopause. Actually, I never really had hot flashes or anything like that, but I noticed that my temperature perception had changed. Suddenly, I was no longer cold in situations that previously would have felt cold to me, and I was perceiving situations as too hot the same way most people around me were.
I didn’t like it! It just didn’t feel like me any more. Then, I fell ill with a high fever that lasted days (can’t remember for sure now, but that may have been my second bout with dengue fever).
When I was well again, lo and behold my personal “normal” perceptions of heat and cold had been restored!
My tolerance for heat or cold is directly related to my body weight. At 220 I braved water temps in the low 50s. At 185 I wear a 4 mm wetsuit year-round. I also find hot weather far more tolerable than I did when I was heavier.
Yep to all that.
Some people are born cold and never warm up. Others are born hot & never cool down. I’m the former. My favorite month here in SoFL is August. Which was also my favorite month in Las Vegas. Back in Vegas I used to say I only bitch about the weather when the temps get down into the double-digits. 
I’ve been scrawny most of my life and heavy some of it. Heavy and winter get along a lot better than scrawny & winter do.
As we age, we all eventually get colder-natured. I’m starting on that road now. On top of everything else, I’ll be wearing a parka, mukluks, & a wool cap everywhere indoors when I’m 80.
I definitely agree. Forty years ago, I was happy to set the thermostat at 68-70 (didn’t have air conditioning). Now I have it set at 75 for the winter and 79 in the summer. And my wife continually asks me if I am feeling cold (I tell her to put a sweater on).
During a recent heat wave, indoor temps hovered at 100 degrees, and humidity was about 60%. I was only slightly uncomfortable. Up to about 90 degrees, it really didn’t even get my attention. I respond to cold much differently outside than I do inside. Inside, I feel cold at about 66 degrees. Outside doesn’t seem to mattter much.
The way being cold bothers me has changed through the years. As a kid, I disliked my extremities and ears stinging from the cold. As an elderly adult, I dislike the whole body shivering feeling down to my core.
Being hot isn’t fun, but I know how to deal with being hot. Being cold, though, just makes me miserable. It’s like it sucks away my will to live.
There is a big flip side: if it is cold, you can put on a jumper, coat, and scarf and not be cold any more. When it is hot, you can… sweat.
PS I feel colder when I am in bed, asleep as opposed to up and physically active. Something to do with metabolism.
How do you deal with being hot? Because i feel exactly the same, only swap hot and cold.
If I’m cold , i can put on more clothing, or move more. If I’m hot, i just feel gross and icky and uncomfortable, and there’s nothing i can do about it. “Doing” will make it worse. (Except seeking shelter from the heat, which is also harder than selling shelter from the cold, because it’s easier to make heat than to remove heat. But AC is good.)
I do feel cold more. It’s started quite suddenly this year, although i assume it’s age related. My guess is that i just generally have a lower metabolism. It’s certainly not because i have less fat. I have less energy, too. I used to say that if i feel cold, either 90% of everyone in the room feels cold, or i am coming down with a bug. Because I’ve always felt cold when I’m sick. (Having a “cold” . Checks.) But now… I may feel cold when only 60% or 70% if the room feels cold. That’s a big change. And when i go to a dance, i used to offer to warm other people’s hands, because mine were always warm. Now my hands get cold.
Jack Kerouac mentioned smoking cannabis to cool off, IIRC. No idea how well that is supposed to work.
Also, I think tolerance is a real thing, though I do not know the technical details off the top of my head: if you live in, say, Rio de Janeiro, it never gets cold (or hot, for that matter), and you might pull on a jacket whenever the temperature goes below 25°C… Whereas if you live in Eastern Siberia in one of those towns where public buildings are heated to… above freezing in the winter, or in Northern Canada, you have to get used to that to some extent.
My cold tolerance disappeared when my thyroid quit. It was the very first symptom I noticed.
See, I’m the other way around, because you can only remove so many layers but you can bundle up as much as you want.
The only exception is when it’s a really cold day and you have to take a dump. That’s miserable. Bundling can’t save you then.
Yeah, exactly. Except for the aforementioned situation, where no matter how bundled your top half and legs are, all the heat will escape right out your bum.
I have a heated toilet seat. It’s really nice.
(It’s Japanese. I gather that in Japan, the style is to warm people, not spaces, and they have a lot of things that warm feet, etc.)
I’ve been overweight since early childhood so lots of blubber insulation. I’d say I endure cold almost as well as I ever have while I’m much less tolerant of heat. When I was a kid in Georgia it had to be 90° or more to be “hot”, now I’m suffering if it’s over 80.
I have a little stick-on liquid crystal thermometer attached to my credit card case.
Last night I went out to dinner. Nice place with a multi-course style of service. Walked in at about 5:45 to a nearly empty restaurant with space for a couple hundred diners. It was frigid in there. I was wearing long pants, a long sleeve dress shirt, and carrying a fleece zip-up sweatshirt and a windbreaker.
I put both extra layers on immediately. My thermometer sitting on the table settled on 70F after a few minutes. My body is uncomfortably cool, and my hands are downright cold and stiff. Ears & nose too, but at least they aren’t feeling stiff.
Meanwhile every bit of food is made cold the moment it hits a 70F plate. The only part of the meal that was warm was the soup. And even that had to be ladled into a 70F bowl, so the first half was warm but the second was not.
By the time I left 90 minutes later the crowd had arrived and there were maybe 100 people in there. And it had “warmed” up to 72F.
Yes, you can dress for walking outside in the 40s and 50s. You can’t dress warm enough to sit and eat in the low 70s. At least not to keep your hands and food warm enough to enjoy the meal.
Sadly, that’s typical around here. Eating outside is pleasant for the hottest 9 months. Eating indoors any day of the year is like eating in the beer cooler at the convenience mart.