The effect of extreme cold on the work of the heart

Remember a movie where someone got stranded in Antarctica? The film "Arctic", starring Mads Mikelsen, tells of a person who struggles to survive in facing various conditions on an icy continent where one of the biggest challenges is extreme cold weather. In fact, when you are in extreme cold temperatures, there are many changes that occur in the body, including the work of the heart. Then, what are the effects of cold temperatures on the body and heart?

Signs of the body having a severe cold

In general, extreme cold weather causes the body to experience hypothermia . Hypothermia is a condition in which the body temperature decreases due to the loss of the body's ability to balance the temperature inside.

Symptoms of hypothermia that are easily recognized include:

Shivering
Tends to be sleepy
Difficulty doing body movements that require balance, such as buttoning a shirt or removing gloves.
Confused and hard to concentrate
The tips of your fingers will be sore
The joints are stiff and painful, making it harder to move.
Experience frostbite, that is, the sensation of the finger being pricked by a small needle until it is numb or numb to the touch

Effect of cold temperature on the heart

To maintain body temperature, the heart will pump more blood so that the heart rate will be faster and blood pressure will increase.

People who have had heart problems before must be aware of extreme weather like this. The reason is, the influence of cold temperatures is quite bad for the heart. The heart works harder and the blood vessels shrink, reducing blood flow to the heart muscle.

In fact, the blood that goes to the heart muscle is full of oxygen and nutrients for the muscle cells. Well, if the flow is obstructed, the muscle cells are unable to carry out their functions properly.

In people who have narrowed heart arteries, the effect of this cold temperature can cause a heart attack. Now, this can happen in winter in European countries, imagine if the weather becomes extreme cold like in Antarctica in the "arctic" film.

Effects of cold weather on blood vessels

In cold weather, especially in extreme cold conditions the blood vessels will tighten or narrow (vasoconstriction). This is done so that blood flow is prioritized to the chest and head only, so that these parts of the body will have a warmer temperature.

Unfortunately, this causes less blood flow to other parts of the body such as the tips of the fingers. That's why in cold weather the hands, especially the fingers, feel colder and freeze.

In smokers whose blood vessels are already inflamed, the tips of the fingers will be increasingly difficult to get blood flow. This condition causes the smoker's fingers to turn black like rotting, a sign that the cells are dead.

While this can also occur in people with certain diseases, such as in patients with autoimmune diseases. Their fingertips tend to turn blue quickly when they are cold because they are not getting enough blood.

In the relatively rare condition of "Raynaud's disease", cold weather can cause an overreaction of sudden narrowing of the blood vessels at the fingertips for a few minutes to several hours.

This condition also makes blood pressure increase, so the body naturally tries to reduce this pressure by reducing blood volume through urine. That is the reason why you will always feel like urinating when you are cold.

The movie "Arctic" really does well to describe the troubles of humans stranded on the continent of Antarctica, in particular depicting the effects on the body when it comes to extreme cold weather.

The way the body stays warm in extreme cold weather

If you are traveling in a country with extreme cold weather, you should do some of these tips to keep your body warm.

Wear layers, loose and dry clothes so as to keep warm air around the body.
Use a scarf and hat to protect from the wind which can carry our body heat
Enough activity to warm the body is fine, just remember not to sweat excessively because it will further lower our body temperature, especially if our clothes get wet.
Remember to always drink, dehydration or lack of body fluids can occur in cold weather and is just as dangerous as hot weather.