Feeling Cold All The Time

At the very end of last year, we moved up to Scotland. Hills and mountains and rugged beauty now surround us.

At the time of moving, the whole of the UK was experiencing a cold snap. The weather is much more extreme up here and we had temperatures as low as -15 C (that’s 5 F); when we arrived everything was covered in snow.

The house we’ve moved into has an old and a new side. It’s been my first experience of truly understanding how important insulation is.

While the new side of the house could get nice and warm during these frigid temperatures, this wasn’t the case for the old side. I’d go into one of the old side rooms and I could practically see my breath. 

The room I use for my office is on the old side of the house and it was freezing. And it’s actually this experience of working out of it that made me want to write this article. Because I experienced how the cold started to affect me.

Physical and Mental Shifts Because Of The Cold

Each morning, knowing how cold the office would be, I’d come prepared. I was wearing four jumpers layered on top of one another. I was wearing thermals under my trousers. I had on thick socks and a beanie. I’d have a hot cup of tea. And before coming into the office, I have a huge breakfast.

Basically, I’d do my best to prepare for my time working out of the freezer that was my workspace.  

So I’d start my day and, within a short amount of time, I’d notice how cold my hands, feet and nose were. I’d notice that my back and ribcage were starting to tighten up. I’d be peeing more than usual and it was clear. I’d even have times of shivering while trying to type.

But it wasn’t just physical changes, this started to affect my thoughts. 

I’d become more irritable and frustrated. I’d be more rigid in my thinking, and if I got stuck on something with work, I’d find it more difficult to come up with a solution.

Even having a snack in the office didn’t make much of a difference. The coldness of the space was too much for any snack to counteract. 

Starting To Warm Up

Our kitchen is on the new side of the house and of all the rooms, it’s the one that gets the warmest. So, when I’d come down for lunch, there would be a respite from the cold. I’d sit in the warmth, eat a hot meal and thaw out.

But then the fear would rise up and I’m using the word fear as an accurate description, it isn’t hyperbole. As the week went on, I became fearful of returning to the office. The coldness was so unpleasant that I didn’t want to enter the room creating this feeling. 

Thankfully, this was short-lived. The outside temperature increased. The electric heaters that we ordered arrived. So, with a flick of a switch, within 10-20 minutes, the office could go from frosty cold to cosy and warm.

So why am I telling you a story about my cold office? Why should you care?

Feeling Cold Is A Common Eating Disorder Symptom

Well, the experience of being cold is something that affects many clients and possibly affects you as well.

Clients tell me about:

• Needing to wear many more layers than their partner, friends, and work colleagues
• Using a blanket and/or hot water bottle while working to keep warm
• Almost constantly having cold hands and feet
• Experiencing Reynaud’s disease, where they have fingers that turn blue in the cold that are sore or go numb

In my case, my symptoms were being driven purely by an external factor, namely the ambient temperature of the office.

For clients, they are also affected by temperature and things are worse in the winter than in the summer. But there is another factor at play and this is coming internally. Because of the physical state that the body is in, the baseline temperature is much lower. 

So why is this?

How The Body Creates Heat 

The body has many ways of regulating body temperature, so it can warm you up when it is cold and cool you down when it is hot.

The main way the body produces heat is through energy production. When you eat food, this is broken down. Some of this food is turned into energy for all your cells to use, while some is turned into heat. This heat is then sent around the body via the blood and allows you to warm up. 

If less food is coming, less heat is produced.

And this means that even with hot water bottles and many layers of clothes, the coldness can still stick around. The extra layers help but aren’t a remedy. Because while the coldness is affected by what is going on outside, the real issue is what is happening internally.

It can also be the reason that even if a client is ill, they don’t experience a fever. The body mounts a fever to kill the virus or bacteria that is making you ill. But if the body doesn’t have enough energy coming in, it cannot create a fever response.  

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment 

My experience of coldness made me think about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, where for six months 36 men were starved to understand see how famine-like conditions affect the body. This experiment was carried out in Minnesota during the autumn and winter months, a place that can be frigidly cold at this time of year. 

All the men complained about being freezing cold. They would drink copious amounts of hot tea and coffee in an attempt to warm up. They would wear layer upon layer. But no matter what they did, they were cold.

(Note: I have done a detailed podcast on the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, so if you haven’t checked it out, you can do so here. You can either listen or read the transcript).  

The Mandometre Method

It also made me think of the Mandometer Clinics for eating disorder recovery. They take a very behaviourist approach to recovery, focusing on modulating eating speed as a way of normalising eating behaviours.

But it is not just eating speed that is important, there are four pillars to the Mandometre approach:

1. Normalising eating behaviour
2. Heat and rest
3. Decreasing physical activity
4. Social reconstruction

While there can be many reasons someone can feel compelled to move more with an eating disorder, coldness is one of them. Being cold is anxiety provoking and impedes one’s ability to relax. The movement can be an attempt to heat up the body, but it also is a response to the anxiety of feeling cold and the physiological and psychological changes that this creates.

As part of the Mandometre clinics, they have comfortable rooms with beds that patients can relax and sleep in. These rooms can be self-regulated up to 40 C (104 F). Patients can also be provided with heat blankets and warm jackets.

The warm rooms can be most important both before and after meals, the times when the desire for compensatory exercise is most elevated. Also, after eating, more of the blood moves to the digestive tract and away from the periphery, which can be a time when the coldness is even worse.

The warmth helps to lower anxiety and can allow more rest and sleep to occur, something that is impeded by the sensation of feeling cold. And by using less energy, because of the reduced movement, it allows the body to more quickly move out of the depleted state that it’s in.

(Note: In my conversation with Emily Troscianko we spoke about the Mandometre method. You can listen to that podcast here).

Need Help?

Feeling cold is more than just an annoying side effect of an eating disorder. It affects the kind of thoughts that arise and leads to physical discomforts, like the tightening of muscles. Together, these physical and psychological changes increase anxiety. And it makes certain choices, like movement, more likely.   

This is why more food, rest and added external warmth are so important to recovery. No, it doesn’t instantly make things better. But it is the path to getting out of this state, allowing the body to warm up and experience all the benefits that come with this change.    

Is feeling cold something that YOU experience? Would you like this to change?

I’m a leading expert and advocate for full recovery. I’ve been working with clients for over 15 years and understand what needs to happen to recover.

I truly believe that you can reach a place where the eating disorder is a thing of the past and I want to help you get there. If you want to fully recover and drastically increase the quality of your life, I’d love to help.

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