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I've been told hot showers are better. Opens your pores allowing your body to cool itself. I don't know if it is "true", but from personal experience, it works

I've been told hot showers are better. Opens your pores allowing your body to cool itself. I don't know if it is "true", but from personal experience, it works.

cgb223 9y ago
I'll just hedge my bets and take an awkward lukewarm shower
blackguardx 9y ago
Take this advice from a person that has lived with no A/C in hot and humid north east summers: cold showers at night go a long way to helping you get to sleep on hot nights.
pizza 9y ago
A hot shower would dilate your blood vessels and thereby bring your blood vessels's walls closer to your skin to enhance dissipation of heat. But if you're coated in water that's warmer than you, you're going to heat up.
- JohnBooty 9y ago
  That's why the key is a fast hot shower. Get the vasodilation effect going, then park in front of a fan for some sweet evaporative cooling.
KirinDave 9y ago
I'm sorry, but please think very carefully about this. Exactly how would "closed pores" change thermal regulation? You don't need a biology degree to work out that this is at best a minor effect compared to evaporation. You're bathing yourself in hot water which will raise your body temperature. Afterwards it'll evaporate and remove some of that energy and by compariosn, yeah it'll be cooler. But you can get the exact same effect by taking a cold shower.
- vacri 9y ago
  > Exactly how would "closed pores" change thermal regulation? Less sweat, where the cooling mechanism is evaporation.
  - jerkstate 9y ago
    It doesn't matter at all if the water evaporating from your skin is sweat or from the shower, the phase change is what transfers thermal energy from your body. So, cold water will remove slightly more heat warming to the point of evaporation (about 4 joules per gram per degree Celsius difference) but the latent heat of evaporation of water is about 2000 joules per gram, which is much more than the difference between hot and cold water. So it doesn't matter that much whether the water is cold or hot, just that it evaporates off your skin and takes the heat with it.
usefulcat 9y ago
Umm, no. If you are hot, the last thing you want to do is add more heat.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
JohnBooty 9y ago
Yeah! Although, I don't know how well that would work when the ambient temp exceeds normal body temps. Anecdotally a really, really fast hot shower is great for cooling. Like less than a minute, probably more like 30 seconds. Then park your butt in front of a fan to get some evaporative cooling and relax for as long as it takes. Opens your pores I don't know about that. I've always figured the key here is vasodilation, which helps the body shed heat. Opposite of vasoconstriction obviously. A cold shower causes vasoconstriction, while simultaneously not providing enough surface area contact between you and the water to effectively change your body temp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasodilation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasodilation It's pretty well accepted, isn't it? http://theconversation.com/health-check-do-cold-showers-cool-you-down-71004 http://theconversation.com/health-check-do-cold-showers-cool... Of course, if you really want to change your body temp, there's no substitute for total immersion in a bathtub or swimming pool. There's a reason why this is how it's done in a medical setting.

I've been told hot showers are better. Opens your pores allowing your body to cool itself. I don't know if it is "true", but from personal experience, it works.

cgb223 9y ago

I'll just hedge my bets and take an awkward lukewarm shower

blackguardx 9y ago

Take this advice from a person that has lived with no A/C in hot and humid north east summers: cold showers at night go a long way to helping you get to sleep on hot nights.

pizza 9y ago

A hot shower would dilate your blood vessels and thereby bring your blood vessels's walls closer to your skin to enhance dissipation of heat. But if you're coated in water that's warmer than you, you're going to heat up.

JohnBooty 9y ago
That's why the key is a fast hot shower. Get the vasodilation effect going, then park in front of a fan for some sweet evaporative cooling.

KirinDave 9y ago

I'm sorry, but please think very carefully about this. Exactly how would "closed pores" change thermal regulation? You don't need a biology degree to work out that this is at best a minor effect compared to evaporation. You're bathing yourself in hot water which will raise your body temperature. Afterwards it'll evaporate and remove some of that energy and by compariosn, yeah it'll be cooler. But you can get the exact same effect by taking a cold shower.

vacri 9y ago
> Exactly how would "closed pores" change thermal regulation? Less sweat, where the cooling mechanism is evaporation.
- jerkstate 9y ago
  It doesn't matter at all if the water evaporating from your skin is sweat or from the shower, the phase change is what transfers thermal energy from your body. So, cold water will remove slightly more heat warming to the point of evaporation (about 4 joules per gram per degree Celsius difference) but the latent heat of evaporation of water is about 2000 joules per gram, which is much more than the difference between hot and cold water. So it doesn't matter that much whether the water is cold or hot, just that it evaporates off your skin and takes the heat with it.

usefulcat 9y ago

Umm, no. If you are hot, the last thing you want to do is add more heat.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

JohnBooty 9y ago

Yeah! Although, I don't know how well that would work when the ambient temp exceeds normal body temps. Anecdotally a really, really fast hot shower is great for cooling. Like less than a minute, probably more like 30 seconds. Then park your butt in front of a fan to get some evaporative cooling and relax for as long as it takes. Opens your pores I don't know about that. I've always figured the key here is vasodilation, which helps the body shed heat. Opposite of vasoconstriction obviously. A cold shower causes vasoconstriction, while simultaneously not providing enough surface area contact between you and the water to effectively change your body temp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasodilation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasodilation It's pretty well accepted, isn't it? http://theconversation.com/health-check-do-cold-showers-cool-you-down-71004 http://theconversation.com/health-check-do-cold-showers-cool... Of course, if you really want to change your body temp, there's no substitute for total immersion in a bathtub or swimming pool. There's a reason why this is how it's done in a medical setting.