Face the cold in the daily life

[MK Scarlett]

At first, I could be wrong by putting this subject in the What's on your mind section and if I am, please, Mods do not hesitate to move it in the appropriate one.

I just wanted to share with you what we are experimenting from the beginning of the week: No more heating and no more hot water. We did not choose this situation, but we have to face it because the boiler of our building is down. We already had some issues with the heating from several weeks (as for each year) but things became worst this time. We were informed on yesterday that the small part allowing to fix it should arrive today, but as in the Blue Beard story: Ann, my sister Ann, do not you see anything coming?, nothing is coming. At this point we wish it will be fix for Christmas!

It would be nice for other people in the building who have babies, little children or are elderly or sicks (cancer) to get back the hot water and heating because I presume they are not prepared for facing this issue. For my part, I even find something fun and as a way to get ready for what is coming in the nearly future.

So the main thing here is to share how we deal with that. The first thing I told to my daughter was that maybe it was a cosmic sign to give us the opportunity to have an idea of how complicated things become in a such situation. So we try and we do deal with it with a good sense of humor, what else could we do?

Taking showers is very hard, so we do as I used to do when I was a little girl, and we cleanup ourselves with a wash glove and by making warm some water on the gas. Fortunately, we still have cold water and gas. :P

But, if water was also missing, we have a stock of water for this kind of use on the terrace. You know, be ready for most of things which could happen, especially in a city...

My husband is at work and my daughter is at her high school both of them for all the day, so I am the only one to have to stand up with this issue by the daylight; I multiply the layers of clothes and I wear mitts on my hands and cap on my head. And it reminds me the winter I spent when I was 17 years old when I was living with my father's eldest daughter in mountain without fuel to have heat or hot water. I was young and I obviously could stand up with it. Well, things being what they are today, it looks I also can manage with the issue. Thanks to the KD diet, because I am pretty sure it would be more complicated to stand up the cold environment in which we live from four days now. And for the night, I always feel too warm even without add any layer of anything. Another effect of the KD diet.

The most annoying is that making usual things take more time! When you have to type on your computer with mitts, you are fastless. The same for cooking or washing dishes. I also make warm some water on gas to do that. For the moment, I decided to wait for cleaning clothes with washing-machine, because clothes would need at least three days for drying and it would not help us to feel warmer. But I will have to do something in the next few days about that if nothing come back to the normal situation. I also increased my consumption of tea in which I put large part of butter. One of my cats use to come sit on my legs when I am behind my computer, so this little gentle animal play the game of the interaction between two bodies to feel warmer. How clever, isn't it? My other cat has a fur full of hairs and does not need to be warmer.

I do know that if a such thing had happened several years ago, I would have became a bit crazy because of the negligence of the management agent of the co-ownership who works in slow motion. Today, I take it with patience and good mood.

 

[Thomas Alan]

I am glad you are handling the situation well, MK Scarlett. Such situations help adapt us to living without the conveniences we have become use to.

Some years ago, due to snow storm, we were without electrical power for 6 days. It taught me how dependent we are on such things and how much we take for granted that it will always be there.

Circumstances nudge us to ask "What if.." What if the power stops and never comes back on? How will we adapt to it? Courage and perseverance are bolstered by knowledge and thinking ahead.

I have talked to several people around me about such possibilities. They seem content to believe that they need not be concerned about it.

I hope the get your boiler back on soon and you and your family are well.

Mac

 

[Ollie]

Hi MK Scarlett,

I'm glad that you are managing with the situation, the longer you practice it, the more 'acclimatised' you'll become to the cold, and cold water, eventually the number of layers of clothes, mitts etc, will reduce, and, believe it or not, cold becomes you friend. Cold is accepted, and interestingly, it is often just a passing awareness as you get on with what you are doing. I found, and still do to an extent, that mid afternoon feels the coldest - so keep moving during this time. :)

When I was a child growing up, the cold was accepted in the winter with ice on the single glazed windows, no heating in the bedrooms, and only a fire in the evenings in the lounge (the family room). Then central heating came along and took us out of our 'comfort zone' - from being cold adapted to 'warm adapted'. It is now a process of going back to that earlier state. :)

 

[Lilou]

I hope the part arrives as scheduled and heat and hot water return for you soon. At least the electricity is still on and you have the internet! For me, that would probably be more troubling than not having heat. I imagine such an inconvenience is a good test for preparedness in the future and it seems you are handling the situation well and with good humor. :)

 

[SovereignDove]

I can relate to your situation. About seven years ago, I lived in an apartment without heat for one winter, but like you, still had electricity. This experience was part of the reason why I moved to a warmer area several years later. As others have mentioned, it is a good 'preparedness test'. A few things that helped to keep me warm were;

1) space heaters(because they were electric, and could warm up an enclosed room),
2) layers of blankets for sleeping (but you had stated that you were warm enough at night,
3) cooking on the stove/oven,
4) layers of clothing,
5) working (I had two jobs at the time, so was at work much of the time).

 

[Skyalmian]

These are other existing threads I know of, on the general subject.

Seems the abilities this guy has developed through meditation and breathing exercises might be very useful during the looming pandemics and ice-age:

Wim Hof has broken many records for enduring burial in ice, an ability he attributes to learning to control his "uncontrollable" (so we're taught) autonomic nervous system via meditation/breathing exercises. On his website, he says his method is designed to help people "take back the power of the mind and body."

He explains (3rd video) "we are able to go deeply into the autonomic nervous system, related to the immune system which could be a way to prevent disease by your will alone (by going) much deeper than thought possible, even scientifically". In one hospital-based demonstration (2nd video), he exhibits no symptoms after being injected with a virus.

He explains (2nd video) that he's able to close off peripheral blood flow to keep his blood warm while buried in ice.

Have you heard of Wim Hof ( _http://icemanwimhof.com/en-home )? He has a training method for building tolerance against the cold, and also, with a fan / trainee of his, wrote a book called "Becoming the Iceman".
One of the simplest ways to start developing cold conditioning is cold showers ( _https://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/showers2.html#RF ), barefoot walking (in the cold), etc.

I'm interested in this after reading a few articles about it along with some of the findings of Dr. Jack Kruse, who is introduced here: https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,26988.0.html

Has anybody else tried it and can we find places where it is done that are relatively close by? So far, it looks like I would have to go to Poland, Germany or Austria and to get a series of treatments, that would entail about a two week stay.

For barefoot & barehand winter activities, there is "Cold-Induced Vasodilation":

No, it's not some obscure sexual disease. It's a human physiological response that allows us, in many cases, to go out barefoot for longer and in colder temperatures than we might have thought possible.

CIVD stands for "Cold-Induced Vasodilation", and it describes what the body does when your extremities get cold. What happens is that, when exposed to cold, the body restricts blood flow to your extremities. However, if your body core temperature is maintained (that is, you are otherwise dressed warmly), your body, after a bit of time, will send extra blood to those extremities to warm them back up. It dilates (opens) the blood vessels, hence the term "vasodilation". This automatic response is of course very important to the Inuit, who need to be able to, for instance, thread hooks for fishing in pretty extreme conditions.

It takes about 8-10 minutes for this warming to happen. The body then cycles this cooling/warming. After a while in the warm state, it will restrict the vessels again and your extremities will get cold again. My guess is that the body is testing to see if core body temperature really can be maintained. But then, after a bit, vasodilation occurs again, and the extremities warm up again. This cycle can happen a few times before a steady-state is arrived at.

This response can be conditioned. Practicing in the cold can speed up the vasodilation response. You can see that in this graph: "Onset of CIVD" from "Effect of chronic local cold exposure on finger temperature responses". The control shows that, in unconditioned people, it can take 10 minutes for vasodilation to occur. However, for this particular person, training (or conditioning) reduced that to 2 minutes, and the (in this case) finger never got as cold as for the unconditioned control.

[...]

Finally, another word of warning. Be aware of what you are doing, and do not stretch beyond your limits. If you foolishly go out in zero degree weather and wait 10 minutes for CIVD to kick in, you will have frozen your feet long before it has a chance to. Worse than that, if you damage your feet that way, you won't be able to enjoy regular barefooting, and you'll never be able to train your feet to enjoy cooler temperatures.

A similar post is _https://ahcuah.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/keeping-your-feet-warm .

 

[Mrs.Tigersoap]

I'm sorry to read about your situation, MK Scarlett. Even if you're taking it with philosophy, the fact that it is due to the negligence of the management agent of the co-ownership is appalling.

As Belibaste was saying in this post: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,32547.msg444846.html#msg444846
layering is the key. Also, if you have some at home, lighting a few candles provide some comfort, I found, when we were once in a similar situation: you can put your hands over the flame (obviously, not too close! ;) ) to give you some warmth during the day, etc.

 

[MK Scarlett]

Thank you all for the answers, warm words and links that I did not have the time yet to read but I will!

Strangely or not, heating and warm water came back after I had posted this thread, maybe 30 minutes after, without have seen anyone coming for fix the whole thing. A message?

Let's see, but without know why exactly, I feel this will happen again... By the way, I could took a warm shower, which was so good, even by taking all this with philosophy. ;)