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New Trend!: Freezing in Your Own Apartment
By
Jaya Saxena
Published Jan 21, 2010
Modified Jan 21, 2010
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By
Jaya Saxena
Published Jan 21, 2010
Modified Jan 21, 2010
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After a long day bracing yourself from the wind and layering up until you can barely move, isn't it nice to come home to a warm apartment and melt next to your radiator? Not anymore! The Times is calling the newest trend of the season: voluntarily going without heat. It turns out that plenty of New Yorkers have decided to keep their layers on all winter... without even the prompt of a double-dog dare.
The reasons for subjecting oneself to these kinds of extremes vary. Justen Ladda said that insulating his LES ceiling would destroy his apartment's natural acoustic qualities (really?). One woman says the cold (and hauling water from a stream) helps her clear her mind. "When your house is 15 degrees, the only problem you have is getting warm. Focusing on survival is right up there with a Zen retreat when it comes to clearing the mind,” says Winifred Gallagher, who makes winter trips up to an unheated house in Long Eddy, NY. "We didn’t evolve to sit on a chair in a temperature-controlled environment staring at a screen all day.” Brrrrrn. Of course, the U.S. Department of Energy points out that 43% of your utility bill typically goes towards heating or cooling.
The likeliness of freezing to death in your own apartment is pretty low, even though temperatures will stay colder longer indoors. Dr. Peter Hackett tells the Times that our bodies will naturally adapt to the cold, albeit not as fast as they would to heat. “Thyroid function goes up, creating more body heat, and metabolism changes, too, causing you to burn more fuel, fat especially, which generates a bit more heat.” Wait, burning more fat? Newer Trend: Freezing to Lose Weight.
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