• Bottom_racer
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    2 months ago

    Since the cold swims the last few years at this time of year have been very confusing body-wise.

    It’s getting to the in between temp where the brown fat activates and deactivates on and off. So you actually feel colder if it warms up a bit but when the temp drops it kicks back in.

    It’s interesting stuff:

    https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24015-brown-fat

    In that article it talks about needing to be cold a few times a week, but I’ve found it still works weeks / months between cold swims.

    Also in light of being told just the other day about whatever genetic problem I might have relating to high cholesterol decided to go down the rabbit hole and it turns out brown fat reduces hypercholesterolaemia.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25754609/

    So there you go. Something that started out as something ‘fun’ to do turns out it’s a big area of research, and might even prolong my time on this god-forsaken rock and I never would’ve known otherwise.