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Here’s something for tailgaters, ice skaters, skiers, and all those who love cold weather to remember: While drinking alcohol may make you feel warmer, it doesn’t actually keep your body warm or protect against hypothermia. In fact, alcohol consumption lowers your core body temperature.
Dr. William Haynes, director of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Iowa, states, “Drinking alcohol disrupts several of the body’s natural defense mechanisms, including the ability to maintain a warm core temperature in cold environments.” And it doesn’t take much—just a single alcoholic drink is enough to trigger the process that leads to a decrease in your core temperature.
How exactly does alcohol cause this effect, and why does drinking it make you feel warmer, even though your body temperature is actually dropping?
You Drink, You Lose (Body Heat)
Alcohol acts as a vasodilator, which means it causes blood vessels, especially the capillaries just beneath your skin, to widen. As a result, more blood flows to the surface of your skin, creating a feeling of warmth. (This is why people who are a little or heavily intoxicated often appear flushed.) This effect counteracts one of the body’s natural responses to cold: narrowing the blood vessels to reduce blood flow to the skin in order to preserve core body heat.
A person enjoying a drink in the cold might feel warmer due to the increased blood flow to the skin, but this warmth is short-lived as the blood cools quickly in the chilly air. Additionally, the rush of blood to the skin triggers sweating, further lowering the core temperature. This drop happens rapidly and often without the drinker noticing, as their skin still feels warm, making drinking alcohol in freezing conditions especially risky. (You might also want to lay off the coffee; caffeine has a similar effect.)
The Cold Reality
Drinking alcohol in the cold has more negative effects than just lowering your body temperature. A study conducted by the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine reveals that alcohol also decreases the body’s ability to shiver, taking away another essential mechanism that helps you stay warm in cold conditions.
The conclusion? The long-standing belief that consuming alcohol helps keep you warm in chilly weather is actually completely counterproductive.
