Getting naked is usually great .. But not this time
What’s up guys I’m Sapna here for DNews.
In the movie Everest that came out in 2015.. kind of a spoiler alert but not really and
the movie is based on a true story... but anyway…
so towards the end of the movie .. one of the guys who was stuck at the top of Mount
Everest overnight in the bitter cold starts to rip off his coat and outer layers.
That might seem super weird but it’s actually a documented phenomenon unofficially called
paradoxical undressing.
The reason it’s called “paradoxical undressing” is because stripping down while you’re freezing
to death is the exact opposite of what we should instinctively do to protect ourselves
from the cold!
But it happens to some people during extreme stages of hypothermia.
Hypothermia is when the body temperature dips to dangerously low levels-- below 95 degrees
Fahrenheit
A study by German researchers in the International Journal of Legal Medicine looked at 69 cases
of death caused by hypothermia.
They found that 25% of those victims were partially or completely naked.
And an article in New Scientist suggests that 20 to 50% of people who die from hypothermia
may exhibit signs of this bizarre behavior.
A study in Sweden looked at 33 cases of people who fit the description based on police reports..
And they found it was pretty much even across the board in terms of men and women and age
range.
During the later stages of hypothermia…
people are really out of it.
They’re disoriented.
If they were drinking or doing drugs, that of course may factor into the confused behavior
and bad judgement.
But beyond that … there is another reason why extremely hypothermic people may take
off all their clothes.
They do it because they actually feel hot.
There are a couple of physiological theories behind this.
According to a study published back in 1979 in the Journal of Forensic Science... one
possible explanation for paradoxical undressing is peripheral vasoconstriction.
Peripheral vasoconstriction refers to tight constricted blood vessels in the outer parts
of the body...like the arms and the legs.
That’s a good thing in extreme cold because it keeps blood flowing inward to the core
organs.
But the theory is that when the body becomes so exhausted from fighting the cold.. the
tiny muscles that keep peripheral blood vessels constricted tire out.
So the blood vessels open up..
The blood rushes back to the skin.. and creates a really hot flushed feeling.
Another theory is that extreme cold messes with the brain-- the hypothalamus region in
particular, which is the central command for body temperature regulation.
If the cold causes the hypothalamus to malfunction…
it may alter signals to the body.. making you think you’re really hot when you’re
not.
So taking off clothing may seem like a great idea... even though it’s not.
There’s one more part to this wacky phenomenon that I want to tell you.
Just before freezing to death.. humans also tend to burrow or wedge themselves into a
tight space.
Some call it terminal burrowing behavior.
That German study we talked about earlier discovered that the hypothermic people who
were found partially or completely naked were also found in a tight space..
Like underneath a bed, behind a wardrobe or on a shelf.
A tight space can help minimize heat loss so unlike getting undressed, this burrowing
behavior actually makes sense.
It’s not fully understood but those German researchers say it’s thought to be triggered
by the brain stem..as a protective measure..
Kind of like how warm-blooded hibernating animals burrow into a small, enclosed den
for the winter.
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Long before you get to extreme hypothermia, frostbite is concern.
… Trace explains what frostbite really does to your body in this video
What other bizarre human behaviors do you want to know more about?
Tell us down in the comments and don’t forget to like and subscribe for more DNews every
day.