It’s cold where I am. The air outside may seem a torture to some, but it would be as bliss to my aching flesh. Some people believe that keeping people cold keeps them awake, and allowing people to be warm will put them to sleep. This may be the case for some people, but the opposite has always been true for me. When I am in a cold room, I move slower, have trouble concentrating, experienced reduced desire to do anything but get warm, and feel more and more like I should just fall asleep. When I am kept warm, I feel energized, my muscles feel better, my breathing becomes deeper, I can more easily focus on what needs to get done, since I’m not concerned with trying to stay warm.
Many people believe that 76 degrees is “room temperature”, and most of the people I have known to control thermostats in my places of employment and education have preferred to keep the temperature at or below 70 degrees. I personally feel like it is too cold if the temperature drops below 80 degrees for very long. I have been able to convince roommates in the past that 80-82 degrees is not too hot, and thus have been able to live in conditions that are not too cold for me.
Of course, this all applies during the summer months. Where I live, it is summer from May through the second or third week of October. We have normal Spring-like conditions from February through April, and a sort of Autumn in late October through early December, and during these periods I do what I can to acclimate myself to the temperature changes. Then, from mid-December through January, I am usually able to get by at “room temperature” and below by layering. Sure, we don’t get the crazy winter temperatures that drop below zero, but I am not well-suited for even what little “Winter” we get here.
