Alcohol And Nose Myths
Surely you've ever heard someone say, “Are you cold? Take this drink, it'll warm you up. ” Well, it's really something that has a lot of logic, isn't it? Because, at first, we feel that alcohol burns inside.
Drinking alcohol does convey a sensation of heat throughout the body and, because of this, many people believe that drinking alcohol can warm them. But this is not so. In addition to the logic of the feeling we have, this belief is supported by a very nice story of the St. Bernard dogs. Historically, they are known for rescuing lost travelers in the Swiss mountains. Edwin Landseer (1820), in a portrait of one of those scenes, painted a dog with a barrel of liquor hanging around his neck. The popularity of that painting began to associate dogs with alcohol in their collars, apparently, as to help the freezing men and even to cure the common cold. Since then, the idea has leaked into popular culture. The dog's story also helped the myth spread, but this story is far from reality.
Attention, this is something that rangers, ice skaters, skiers and other fans of cold weather should keep in mind: drinking alcoholic beverages will make you feel hotter, but in reality it will not keep you warm or prevent hypothermia. Instead, drinking alcohol reduces the core temperature of the body. How is this?. Well, alcohol is a vasodilator. It causes the blood vessels to dilate, especially the capillaries, just below the surface of the skin. When you drink an alcoholic beverage, it increases the volume of blood that reaches the surface of your skin, which makes you feel hot. That dilation is the reason why slightly intoxicated people are flushed. This cancels one of the body's defenses against cold temperatures.
Someone who enjoys a cold drink may feel warmer because of the extra blood that heats their skin, but that blood will quickly cool down thanks to the cold air around. In addition to the heat caused by the blood under the skin, it will also make you sweat, lowering the core temperature even more. The rapid fall often occurs without the drinker noticing, because the skin will still feel quite hot, which makes it doubly dangerous to drink alcohol in extremely cold weather. Drinking alcohol in cold weather also reduces your body's ability and tendency to tremble, eliminating another method it uses to help keep warm when it's cold. Yes, now you know, the ancient practice of drinking alcoholic beverages to keep your body warm is the exact opposite of what you should do. It is an illusion. Actually, while you can feel warm outside, you are cooling inside. That does not seem logical to us because it is the first thing we feel, but we have already seen how our logic can deceive us sometimes.
Another example, is summer and you feel very hot ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), what do you do to cool off? Jump into the fridge? Not exactly, you get yourself a nice cold drink, obviously. Well, maybe it's not the right thing to do, although it depends. Yes, I know that the last thing you want to do on a stifling day is to have hot tea, but science says that in some cases this is the best way to cool off. It seems contradictory but the explanation makes sense.
It all has to do with sweat. Drinking a hot drink increases the heat load of your body and the body responds to those by sweating. Sweat production is greater than internal heat gain and this is where it all starts to make sense. When sweat evaporates, the skin cools. Increases heat loss and reduces body heat storage. Our bodies sweat when we drink something hot due to the nerve receptors in our tongue. When the tongue receives information that a hot drink is being consumed, it sends that information to the brain, which then activates mechanisms such as sweating.
But there are other conditions that you must take into account. Because, well, it doesn't always work. If you are drinking a hot drink in an environment where sweat does not evaporate, as in a warm and humid place, that drink is probably useless. In this case, yes, you better drink a cold drink. Let's say when you are in the jungle. But, on a hot day in the desert, a cup of hot tea could be the trick to help you cool off.
Okay, so hot drinks sometimes produce an unexpected effect, but what about cold drinks, do they cool you? That's also a bit complicated. To understand this we need to know a little more about how the body controls temperature in different environments. The process of maintaining an optimal body temperature is called thermoregulation, which implies a delicate balance between producing and losing heat. Human beings are warm-blooded or endothermic, that also means that we can control the temperature of our body regardless of the environment. We can do this because our bodies produce heat constantly due to the internal chemical processes that occur inside us. Something that is known as metabolism.
Metabolism is necessary for our bodies to function properly. It helps break down food nutrients; It helps with the absorption and transport of these nutrients to the cells and converts the basic energy components necessary for you to do your exercise routine. The heat that this generates is beneficial when it is cold, but when external temperatures rise we must avoid overheating. While it may seem logical that eating something cold, such as ice cream, helps reduce the temperature, the initial cooling effect you have will quickly be replaced by the heat generated by the digestive processes necessary to break down the nutrients in the ice cream. Digestion of high-calorie foods leads to an increase in body temperature. Beverages with a high caloric content, such as soft drinks, will have an effect similar to ice cream, which will activate our metabolism shortly after ingestion.
But then, why do we feel that an ice cold drink refreshes us? Well, first, because our minds create the logic of: "I'm feeling hot, I must drink something cold". Then we say: "ah, this cold has to be refreshing". Second, because your body really rehydrates with any drink, and the rehydration of your body produces this cooling effect. But it is only temporary, mate.
Do you know that it is temporary too? The feeling that we're breathing well through both nostrils. You've probably met someone who says: “Oh, I have a defect, because I can't breathe well through both nostrils. There's always one that's kind of obstructed. ” Well, if that someone thought it was something special, nope, it is not. This is not uncommon, it is perfectly normal. We all experience that. We always breathe better through one nostril than the other. Normally, during the day the sides change and one other nostril enters the work mode, while the other doesn't.
But why is this happening? This process is regulated by the autonomic nervous system, which acts without us noticing. It is the same system that controls many things that our bodies do for themselves, such as digestion and your heart rate. For the nose, this system controls what can be considered as a nasal cycle, so that each nostril works effectively. This cycle occurs several times during the day and only you realize, if your nose is more clogged than usual.
To open one side of your nose and close the other, the body inflates the tissue with blood in the same way that a man experiences an erection. (Yep, a stiffy, in your nose. Science!) Increased blood flow causes congestion in a nostril for approximately three to six hours before switching to another side. There is also an increase in congestion when one is lying down. Surely you have noticed this in your bed throughout the night.
This cycle is not only to benefit breathing, but also helps complete your sense of smell. Some odors are better captured with the rapid flow of air through the nose while others take longer and are better detected when the air moves slowly. If one side of the nose is wide open and the other side is slightly closed, you will get all the smells.
This process also gives each side of your nose a rest, since a constant flow of air can dry it, damaging the small hairs that protect it from foreign contaminants. Yes, the tiny hairs on your nose also die and you don't give them a proper burial.
When you get sick, the whole process can become unbearable because the nostril that is reduced feels much more clogged than the other. So the next time you feel that you are only breathing through one side of your nose, remember that it is a natural and automatic system that works so that you smell properly, and so that your nose does not dry out by a constant attack of dirty air.
Sources:
Why alcohol makes you feel warm – and other strange effects it has on the brain
Does Drinking Alcohol Really Keep You Warm When It's Cold Out?
A Hot Drink on a Hot Day Can Cool You Down
Hot Peppers Really Do Bring The Heat
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a23922/the-science-of-sweat/
Effects of drinking hot water, cold water, and chicken soup on nasal mucus velocity and nasal airflow resistance.
Here's The Frustrating Reason Only One Side of Your Nose Gets Blocked at a Time
Drinking alcohol does convey a sensation of heat throughout the body and, because of this, many people believe that drinking alcohol can warm them. But this is not so. In addition to the logic of the feeling we have, this belief is supported by a very nice story of the St. Bernard dogs. Historically, they are known for rescuing lost travelers in the Swiss mountains. Edwin Landseer (1820), in a portrait of one of those scenes, painted a dog with a barrel of liquor hanging around his neck. The popularity of that painting began to associate dogs with alcohol in their collars, apparently, as to help the freezing men and even to cure the common cold. Since then, the idea has leaked into popular culture. The dog's story also helped the myth spread, but this story is far from reality.
Attention, this is something that rangers, ice skaters, skiers and other fans of cold weather should keep in mind: drinking alcoholic beverages will make you feel hotter, but in reality it will not keep you warm or prevent hypothermia. Instead, drinking alcohol reduces the core temperature of the body. How is this?. Well, alcohol is a vasodilator. It causes the blood vessels to dilate, especially the capillaries, just below the surface of the skin. When you drink an alcoholic beverage, it increases the volume of blood that reaches the surface of your skin, which makes you feel hot. That dilation is the reason why slightly intoxicated people are flushed. This cancels one of the body's defenses against cold temperatures.
Someone who enjoys a cold drink may feel warmer because of the extra blood that heats their skin, but that blood will quickly cool down thanks to the cold air around. In addition to the heat caused by the blood under the skin, it will also make you sweat, lowering the core temperature even more. The rapid fall often occurs without the drinker noticing, because the skin will still feel quite hot, which makes it doubly dangerous to drink alcohol in extremely cold weather. Drinking alcohol in cold weather also reduces your body's ability and tendency to tremble, eliminating another method it uses to help keep warm when it's cold. Yes, now you know, the ancient practice of drinking alcoholic beverages to keep your body warm is the exact opposite of what you should do. It is an illusion. Actually, while you can feel warm outside, you are cooling inside. That does not seem logical to us because it is the first thing we feel, but we have already seen how our logic can deceive us sometimes.
It all has to do with sweat. Drinking a hot drink increases the heat load of your body and the body responds to those by sweating. Sweat production is greater than internal heat gain and this is where it all starts to make sense. When sweat evaporates, the skin cools. Increases heat loss and reduces body heat storage. Our bodies sweat when we drink something hot due to the nerve receptors in our tongue. When the tongue receives information that a hot drink is being consumed, it sends that information to the brain, which then activates mechanisms such as sweating.
But there are other conditions that you must take into account. Because, well, it doesn't always work. If you are drinking a hot drink in an environment where sweat does not evaporate, as in a warm and humid place, that drink is probably useless. In this case, yes, you better drink a cold drink. Let's say when you are in the jungle. But, on a hot day in the desert, a cup of hot tea could be the trick to help you cool off.
Okay, so hot drinks sometimes produce an unexpected effect, but what about cold drinks, do they cool you? That's also a bit complicated. To understand this we need to know a little more about how the body controls temperature in different environments. The process of maintaining an optimal body temperature is called thermoregulation, which implies a delicate balance between producing and losing heat. Human beings are warm-blooded or endothermic, that also means that we can control the temperature of our body regardless of the environment. We can do this because our bodies produce heat constantly due to the internal chemical processes that occur inside us. Something that is known as metabolism.
Metabolism is necessary for our bodies to function properly. It helps break down food nutrients; It helps with the absorption and transport of these nutrients to the cells and converts the basic energy components necessary for you to do your exercise routine. The heat that this generates is beneficial when it is cold, but when external temperatures rise we must avoid overheating. While it may seem logical that eating something cold, such as ice cream, helps reduce the temperature, the initial cooling effect you have will quickly be replaced by the heat generated by the digestive processes necessary to break down the nutrients in the ice cream. Digestion of high-calorie foods leads to an increase in body temperature. Beverages with a high caloric content, such as soft drinks, will have an effect similar to ice cream, which will activate our metabolism shortly after ingestion.But then, why do we feel that an ice cold drink refreshes us? Well, first, because our minds create the logic of: "I'm feeling hot, I must drink something cold". Then we say: "ah, this cold has to be refreshing". Second, because your body really rehydrates with any drink, and the rehydration of your body produces this cooling effect. But it is only temporary, mate.
Do you know that it is temporary too? The feeling that we're breathing well through both nostrils. You've probably met someone who says: “Oh, I have a defect, because I can't breathe well through both nostrils. There's always one that's kind of obstructed. ” Well, if that someone thought it was something special, nope, it is not. This is not uncommon, it is perfectly normal. We all experience that. We always breathe better through one nostril than the other. Normally, during the day the sides change and one other nostril enters the work mode, while the other doesn't.But why is this happening? This process is regulated by the autonomic nervous system, which acts without us noticing. It is the same system that controls many things that our bodies do for themselves, such as digestion and your heart rate. For the nose, this system controls what can be considered as a nasal cycle, so that each nostril works effectively. This cycle occurs several times during the day and only you realize, if your nose is more clogged than usual.
To open one side of your nose and close the other, the body inflates the tissue with blood in the same way that a man experiences an erection. (Yep, a stiffy, in your nose. Science!) Increased blood flow causes congestion in a nostril for approximately three to six hours before switching to another side. There is also an increase in congestion when one is lying down. Surely you have noticed this in your bed throughout the night.
This cycle is not only to benefit breathing, but also helps complete your sense of smell. Some odors are better captured with the rapid flow of air through the nose while others take longer and are better detected when the air moves slowly. If one side of the nose is wide open and the other side is slightly closed, you will get all the smells.This process also gives each side of your nose a rest, since a constant flow of air can dry it, damaging the small hairs that protect it from foreign contaminants. Yes, the tiny hairs on your nose also die and you don't give them a proper burial.
When you get sick, the whole process can become unbearable because the nostril that is reduced feels much more clogged than the other. So the next time you feel that you are only breathing through one side of your nose, remember that it is a natural and automatic system that works so that you smell properly, and so that your nose does not dry out by a constant attack of dirty air.
Sources:
Why alcohol makes you feel warm – and other strange effects it has on the brain
Does Drinking Alcohol Really Keep You Warm When It's Cold Out?
A Hot Drink on a Hot Day Can Cool You Down
Hot Peppers Really Do Bring The Heat
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a23922/the-science-of-sweat/
Effects of drinking hot water, cold water, and chicken soup on nasal mucus velocity and nasal airflow resistance.
Here's The Frustrating Reason Only One Side of Your Nose Gets Blocked at a Time
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