If you’re working from home all or part of the time, the chances are that your home working space is getting chillier as winter sets in. But with heating so expensive right now, having it on all day isn’t really an affordable option. So what can we do to stay warm?
In evolutionary terms, we are tropical animals: when naked and at rest, we’re most comfortable in air around 28°C, with an average skin surface temperature of 33°C. But to survive and function normally, we must also maintain our deep body (core) temperature close to 37°C. The process of doing so (thermoregulation) involves our body “sensing” its temperature – we have sensors just beneath the skin’s surface as well as in deeper tissues like the brain – then adjusting our heat production, gain and loss accordingly.
In a cold room, the skin’s cold receptors are the first to be stimulated and cause the skin’s blood vessels to constrict, redirecting warm blood beneath the insulating fat layer we have just beneath the skin. Because hands and feet require blood flow to keep them warm and functional and have little fat coverage, they cool quickly. So, in a cold room, the first parts of us to feel the cold are the extremities: our fingers and toes.
