Why Cold Weather Is Good For You

Winter is my favorite time of year.

The cold weather makes me feel invigorated.

In America, I seem to be alone in my love for the cold.

Each evening when I go out for a long walk I see absolutely nobody else outside. I don't even see dogs outside.

And every day I hear “I'm getting real tired of this weather.”

I have to say “huh?! I love this weather, it feels great.”

To which they always say “This weather makes my XYZ hurt or my XYZ act up.”

I always have to to say to them “Don't you think your dogshit diet, your complete lack of physical exercise, your complete lack of fresh air, and your complete lack of sunlight has more to do with your ailment than the half-day of cool weather?”

To which they reply with a blank stare and then say “the cold always make me feel bad.”

Sure it does, I say, but I've never actually seen you feel good.

Cool air is always the scapegoat for people who live unnatural lives and want to take no responsibility for their ailments.

“It's not the fault of my own laziness, it's the weather!” they always imply.

The truth is that cold weather doesn't cause problems but it does reveal the existence of disease.

This is from an 1881 edition of the Popular Science magazine:

“The old dyspeptic, with his cupboards full of patent nostrums, can honestly acquit himself of having yielded to any natural impulse; after sweltering all summer behind hermetically closed windows, wearing flannel in the dog-days, abstaining from cold water when his stomach craved it, swallowing drugs till his appetite has given way to chronic nausea, his conscience bears witness that he has done what he could to suppress the original depravity of Nature;

only once the enemy got a chance at him: in rummaging his garret for a warming-pan he stood half a minute before a broken window—to that half-minute, accordingly, he attributes his rheumatism.

There is a stereotyped explanation: “Catched cold.” That settles it. The invalid is quite sure that her cough came on an hour after returning from that sleigh-ride. She felt a pain in the chest the moment her brother opened that window. There is no doubt of it—it's all the night-air's fault.”

Cool air begins the reconstructive process, it attempts to heal you.

The text below can be difficult to understand, as our modern education is very poor, so below each line of quoted text I will provide you with “Vic's Notes” and give you the EZ meaning.

The vital energy of a person breathing the stagnant air of an unventilated stove-room is often inadequate to the task of undertaking a restorative process—though the respiratory organs, clogged with phlegm and all kinds of impurities, may be sadly in need of relief.”

The air inside your house is too stale to heal your weak lungs and organs. Your lungs are weak and clogged with phlegm because you don't get fresh air. This is especially true of apartment dwellers.

But, during a sleigh-ride, or a few hours' sleep before a window left open by accident, the bracing influence of the fresh air revives the drooping vitality, and Nature avails herself of the chance to begin repairs, the lungs reveal their diseased condition, i. e., they proceed to rid themselves of the accumulated impurities.”

Going out into the cool air begins to heal your weary body and organs. Cool, natural, fresh air is what your body craves and when it gets it, it begins the healing process and begins to rid impurities from your lungs.

Persistent in-door life would have aggravated the evil by postponing the crisis, or by turning a temporary affection into a chronic disease.”

If you keep living inside and breathing stale air your health crisis will not be healed, the ailment will simply be prolonged and become a chronic disease.

But in a plurality of cases Nature will seize even upon a transient improvement of the external circumstances: a cold night that disinfects the atmosphere of the bedroom in spite of closed windows, a draught of cool air from an adjoining room, or one of those accidental exposures to wind and weather which the veriest slave of the cold-air superstition can not always avoid.”

Even if you go outside in the cool air for a brief moment, nature will seize upon this moment to begin your healing process.

For, rightly understood, the external symptoms of a disease constitute a restorative process that can not be brought to a satisfactory issue till the cause of the evil is removed. So that, in fact, the air-hater confounds the cause of his recovery with the cause of his disease.”

Nature cannot begin to heal you until you remove the cause of disease, in this case the cause is a stuffy room completely void of fresh air.

Among nations who pass their lives outdoors, catarrh and scrofula are almost unknown; not fresh air, but the want of it, is the cause of countless diseases, of fatal diseases where people are in the habit of nailing down their windows every winter to keep their children from opening them.”

Lung disease and excess mucus is unheard of among peoples who live outside (American Indians, indigenous peoples etc.). It is not fresh air that causes any disease or ailment, it is the lack of fresh air that causes it. Fatal and chronic diseases are created by keeping yourself away from fresh air.

Cold is a disinfectant, and under the pressure of a high wind a modicum of oxygen will penetrate a house in spite of closed windows. This circumstance alone has preserved the lives of thousands whom no cough-sirup or cod-liver oil could have saved.”

A cool wind will rush into your house sometimes even without the windows open. It is these rushes of cool air into your house that serve to “disinfect” you and keep you well.

“An influx of fresh air into a fusty sick-room is a ray of light into darkness, a messenger of Vishnu visiting an abode of the damned.” -Dr. Felix Oswald

Now that you know the important of fresh air, and especially cool air, here are some suggestions to renew your life…

Go outside often

Always spend time outside, even when it is cold or when it is hot.

Your body needs fresh air to rejuvenate itself.

If you stay inside all day you will always be a degenerate weakling like most of the Americans who complain about the cold weather.

Nature wants you to be outside breathing the fresh, cool air.

This is why health sanatoriums of the past were always built in cool mountain towns.

Let your children be outside often

If they don't want to go outside, make them go.

Get them off of the computers games and get them out into the real world of nature.

They will always be weaklings if they are kept from the cool air outside.

Keep your windows open

A stuffy room is a root cause of many diseases and ailments.

Always try to keep some of your windows open so that fresh air may circulate through your home.

Stale air kills and fresh air heals.

Move out of the apartment

The worst place you can live in is an apartment. Live in a house if you can.

Apartments are the stuffiest living conditions known to man and they are only fit for slaves.

To have fresh natural air it is better to live in a house with ample doors and windows.

(Tents and yurts are actually far better for health, but we'll try to keep it civilized.)

Go camping and hiking often

Camping and hiking will give you ample time outdoors to breathe fresh and natural air.

Sleeping in the natural air is the best thing you can do.

Sleeping in a cool cabin in the mountains with all windows open will be the best sleep of your life.

Crack a window at night

If you can crack a window each night, do it.

Even if it's frosty cold, you can keep warm with clothing and blankets.

Your lungs will thank you for the fresh air they were able to breathe all night.

On cool nights, your lungs will hurt and your breathing will be labored.

This is a sign that you desperately need to breathe cool and fresh air.

Walk to the local stores

Rather than driving everywhere, and keeping yourself stuck in stale air inside the vehicle, walk to as many places as you can.

Exercise promotes deep breathing so walk to do your errands and you will get to breathe fresh air (assuming your city isn't too polluted.)

Embrace the cold

Instead of hiding inside from the cold, you must embrace it. It is the cold that attempts to regenerate your body. Let it.

Your lungs desperately need the fresh air. It may feel like the cool air hurts your lungs at first, but this is your very first sign of healing.

Do not run away from nature.

After a certain amount of time you will no longer hurt from the cold weather.

Actually, you will become invigorated, rejuvenated, and refreshed.

In fact…

If you spend time in the cool air you will feel better every day of your life.

Guaranteed.