Or warmer, as the case may be.
Many years ago I went for a consultation with an endocrinologist, and had to answer a very lengthy questionnaire, which he read to me. This was one of the questions. I answered, “I don’t know. How cold do other people get?”
I wasn’t even trying to be a smartass, although that’s how he took it. I just thought it was a dumb question. He looked at me, sighed, and said, “If most people want the window to be open, do you want the window to be closed?” That made sense to me, and the answer at the time was no. There wasn’t any difference, as far as I could tell, between my sense of temperature and that of other people. But that has changed.
At the time, what they were looking for was a disorder of the pituitary gland or maybe a pituitary tumor, because somehow the pituitary plays a role in how you sense temperature.
But now, yes, I get colder than other people. When they want the window open, I want it closed. When they want the air conditioning on, I want it off. And it causes a problem at work, because when I’m comfortable, other people are hot. What to do?
It turns out the owners have a rule about where thermostats have to be set. 74 degrees plus or minus 2 degrees in the summer; 68 degrees plus or minus 2 degrees in the winter. Those temps in the winter will probably kill me, but…I’ll cross that bridge.
I already wear sweaters and jackets in my office, and always in restaurants and stores.
I will live with it.
How about you? Do you get colder (or warmer) than other people?
Do You Get Colder Than Other People?
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged endocrinology, temperature sense, work. Bookmark the permalink.
Fakename2's Weblog 
I’m generally colder than other people. I have pretty low blood pressure and I’ve always wondered if that has something to do with it because when I ask other people who are generally colder than others, they often say they have low blood pressure too. What about you? It may be nothing to do with it of course, just a random theory of mine! 🙂
Um, no…blood pressure has nothing to do with it, sorry 🙂 I have high blood pressure and take two medications for it, so that isn’t it. If you Google it, your sense of how warm or cold it is is regulated by the hypothalamus, but the pituitary has something to do with it too. Even now, the whole endocrine system is like a big giant mystery that no one wants to tackle. (Here There Be Dragons.)
I just Googled it now, and I saw other people speculating about whether there was a link between low blood pressure and feeling cold too (I don’t mean proper medical people, I mean just people like me!), you can see why some of us might think that, there’s a sort of logic to it, even if it isn’t grounded in fact, hehe.
I always have to remember to come back and check comments on here to see if you’ve replied because I never subscribe to comments on blogs, I do everything through the WordPress notifications, so as you don’t do your replies as a direct reply to a comment, I don’t get a notification. I know you explained before why you do that, but I’m just mentioning it because I know a lot of people are like me – we read and comment on a lot of blogs and so don’t ever subscribe to comments, just rely on the WordPress notifications thing, so if you have someone new commenting on your blog who doesn’t know that you do it this way, they may miss seeing that you’ve replied. (Not trying to tell you how to run your blog, just pointing out that it would be a shame if people didn’t see that you had replied to their comment!).
Well…I just know that when I comment on other people’s blogs, I always check the box that says “Notify me of follow-up comments via email”, and that works for me. Not sure if that’s the same thing as “subscribing” because it only applies to that individual post.
Yes that box that you mentioned is what I meant about subscribing to comments – I was just making the point that a lot of us deliberately don’t click that box because we comment on so many blogs that our inbox would just get filled particularly from the blogs that get hundreds of comments, and we only really want to know when our own comment has been replied to, not all the other comments coming in, so we rely on the notifications thing on wordpress to see that. I wonder if this comment will go to spam now, if it does I’ll have to let you know via my blog like last time!
You would probably have to wear long johns in my house. My wife often says we can hang meat in here. I think people with extra weight on them like myself are just hotter than svelte folks like you. But I have always liked it cold even when I was in good shape. .As a kid in North Florida I slept with the windows open in the winter. That was a problem my first year at FSU when I stayed in Kellum Hall. It is within 100 feet of Tennessee Street and before the Interstates were built every tractor trailer driving in Florida used Highway 90 (Tennessee) and they shifted through about 150 gears because of all the traffic stops and hills. The noise level was quite a challenge. , except for the alcohol induced stupors on weekends.
Ah, I see what you mean, Vanessa. Because sometimes when I check the box, my inbox is absolutely blown up by comments I’m not really interested in. So you’re saying that if you “reply” to a specific comment, you’ll be notified of that and only that? That would be cool. And obviously, your latest comment was not spammed so you are apparently out of jail.
Yes, if you comment on someone’s blog but don’t click the box for notifications, then when that comment is replied to you get notified via the orange box thing at the top of wordpress when you’re logged in (not via email).
Hey, apparently there’s a wordpress spamming problem today, somebody else (from the USA) posted that comments coming from people in the UK and Europe are sometimes going to spam at the moment, so thankfully it sounds like it wasn’t anything I said!
pt, is it possible your wife is trying to tell you something? 🙂 It seems to me that when it’s so frigid inside, it makes it feel even hotter when you go outside. I want to say to my employees, walk outside and stay there for 3 minutes. Then walk back inside and you’ll see how cool it really is.
Also, I appreciate your choice of the word “svelte”. I think “skinny” is probably more accurate, and not as glamorous.
I think women in general are colder than guys. Susie is always colder than me, especially her hands and feet.
There may be some truth to that, except in the case of women who are undergoing menopause (as is my primary office complainer). Most of the time she feels blazing hot, but then occasionally she feels as if it’s freezing. There’s no way to make her happy.