Why People Get Naked Before Freezing To Death
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.
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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