I just watched a rerun of an episode of "Bang Goes the Theory", where
they explain many people who fall into cold water drown long before
they freeze to death, due to what they call the cold shock response.
This involves increased heart rate, hyperventilation and strong
discomfort.
Then, they go on to explain that it is possible to "train" your body
to better handle the cold shock, so that the responses are much less
pronounced. They even demonstrate the effect by repeatedly dunking one
of the presenters in the show, Liz Bonnin, in cold-ish (13C) water.
After 5 times of one minute each, her response is greatly reduced.
Here in the south of Norway, 13C is summer temperature for a diver, so
I'm thinking it could be useful to able to avoid hyperventilating and
avoid panic due to extreme discomfort in case of a big drysuit
failure.
The program does not, however, mention how long this "immunisation"
lasts. Is this for life, or does it have to be repeated again and
again?
--
RoRo
