Manage your body heat when outside in the cold by learning how to layer winter clothes effectively.
Trapped! You’ve had enough of being indoors, but it’s winter and you hate to be cold. Learn to be comfortable even at zero degrees Fahrenheit, and understand one of the most important ways to stay warm is to keep from getting too hot.
Since you’re a warm-blooded creature, you make your own heat. Your core contains the organs that keep you alive, including your head with its precious brain, and it needs to be a specific temperature – 98.6 degrees. If it gets too hot, over 105 degrees, or too cold, below 93 degrees, your life is threatened.
Body Temperature Regulation
When your core gets too warm, you sweat, and evaporation cools you down. Blood vessels dilate to bring more blood to your skin in order to carry heat away from the core. If you get too cold, the blood vessels constrict so more blood within the core can stay as warm as possible. This is similar to shutting doors and turning off heat in unused rooms to make it easier and more economical to heat the most important rooms. Exercise makes you warmer, so if you get cold enough, you shiver: Shivering is involuntary exercise.
To stay safe out in winter’s chill, use what you know about your body’s ability to regulate temperature. Don layers of clothing that will serve as insulation, trapping small pockets of air that are then warmed by the body. The colder the temperature, the more insulation required. A tightly woven layer on the outside, such as windproof pants, jacket or coveralls, keeps the wind from stealing away the trapped warm air.
Because your head has lots of blood vessels, and it’s often exposed, it can be a source of considerable heat loss in cold weather. If your hands or feet are cold, wearing a hat or balaclava can help “push” more warm blood to those other extremities. Add a windproof hood to your hat, and you can keep the wind from robbing head heat. Windproof mittens are necessary when it’s really cold. If you work with gloves instead of mittens, an extra layer or two on your core will help keep your fingers toasty warm.Â
Fuel Your Body With Food and Water
Metabolic heat is fueled by the calories you consume. Thus it’s important to eat often when active outside in the cold. Small, high energy snacks that don’t require much cool-down time to consume can keep you warm for as long as you care to stay outside. And as important as it is to manage calories, you will need liquids, too.
Even if you are a master at managing the layers, your body will perspire during cold-weather activities. And since the air is usually drier in winter, you will also lose a good deal of moisture as you exhale. So remember to drink plenty of water (a flask inside your outer layer keeps it from freezing) or other liquids to stay hydrated. Consuming fluids at body temperature or warmer will keep your rehydration efforts from giving you a chill.
Avoid Sweating With Appropriate Layers
If you’re going to be active outside even on cold days, the layers of clothing that made your first moments outdoors bearable may amount to too much insulation. Before you know it, you’re sweating inside all those layers. As you feel the warmth build, it’s time to peel off some of the clothes. Don’t neglect this because when most clothing gets wet, it loses its insulating value and can actually pull the heat right out of you.
A few tips to keep you from overheating: first, take off your hat. If you’re still too warm, replace your mittens with a pair of gloves. Next, lower the zippers on your coveralls or windproof parka. If you are still too warm, remove an inside layer. If you anticipate a substantial variation in exertion and outdoor temperature, it is wise to dress with several thin clothing layers (as opposed to a couple heavier layers) for maximum adjustment.
If you start to cool down, put layers back on: first your hat, then mittens, then an inside layer. You can fine-tune your comfort most easily by adding or subtracting a hat or mittens, and zipping or unzipping your parka.Â
Cold Weather Foot Care
Your feet are the most difficult area to regulate because it’s generally not practical to stop and adjust layers. Cold, dry feet can be cared for like cold fingers by adding insulation to the core and head. But eventually, almost invariably, feet seem to perspire, which causes those nice, thick, warm socks and felt boot insulation to get wet. To help alleviate this problem, you can wear a light pair of socks or specially coated vapor barrier socks next to your feet to help keep moisture from wetting heavier insulating socks and boot liners. Your feet may still feel too hot, but the perspiration won’t get to the insulation, and your toes will stay warmer longer.
How to Layer Winter Clothes
The material your clothes are made of makes a difference. Stay away from cotton in cold weather. There is an expression among experienced outdoor people that “cotton kills.” This is because cotton fibers soak up lots of water and lose their ability to insulate.
Skin Layer
Long underwear should be close-fitting and made of silk, polyester, acrylic or polypropylene. These fibers tend to carry moisture away from the skin and can be good insulators. Wool also works, but it can be itchy and is a little slower to dry than other fibers.
Middle Layer
Several loose-fitting middle layers of fleece will keep you warm and allow you to adjust your insulation easily. Use layers made from the same fibers as long underwear in varying thicknesses.
Outer Layer
Tightly woven nylon or other synthetic fabric protects you from the wind, and it’s best when the jacket has a zipper with two sliders that can be opened from the top or bottom. It should have a hood with a drawstring to protect your head and neck. Breathable fabrics that are waterproof and still let moisture evaporate are ideal.
Hands
Thick, knitted or pile mittens are good insulation until the wind blows. Keep handy nylon or leather shells to go over the mittens. If you’re going to be outside for a long time, bring extra pairs of mittens to replace ones that become damp from sweat. Leather or knitted gloves are useful when temperatures are too cold for bare hands but too warm for mittens.
Feet
The kind of boot you wear depends on what you are doing outside. The rising snowmobile industry has made warm boots commonly available. Unless you need a specialized boot for a particular sport, a boot with an inner felt bootie for insulation, a waterproof foot and a wind-proof nylon or leather upper works well. Remember to protect the felt booties from sweaty feet.
Head
Your hat needs to cover your ears and be thick enough to provide warmth. One type of hat, called a balaclava, rolls down to form a knitted hood with an oval hole to show as much of the face as you want. The material around the oval can be pulled up to protect your forehead, nose and neck with just your eyes showing or pulled down under your chin to protect your head, ears and neck while leaving your face exposed. It can also be rolled up to look like a typical winter cap. The hood of your parka provides the wind-proofing.
Priscilla “Penny” Markley is well acquainted with snow. She and her husband, Reed, have climbed in New England, Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, Canada and the Swiss Alps. They also owned an 8,000-tree apple orchard, all needing winter pruning.
