When a woman I know moved to Canada from England she reacted to central heating for the first few months by keeping the furnace going full blast (delighting in the luxury and comfort of hot air pouring from the registers) and the windows open (combatting the breathless, airless feeling of heat in a confined space). I drive with my car heater on and driver’s window open; tend to turn on the furnace in my home, let it heat up the space, then turn it off. Another friend uses her woodstove as much as possible rather than her furnace because she “feels better” in that environment. We are exhibiting an ancestral mentality to keeping warm. Cavemen would have sat around a fire (once they discovered how to civilize it), later, people gathered in front of fireplaces or stoves. They had to turn to toast all sides. Fresh air would have played a major role. Compare it with heat confined in a box of a room (produced with resultant fumes and whatever else)any fresh air and its cold winter aspects to be avoided with closed doors and windows, hermetically sealed, and the problems that occur are evident. I am glad for the progress from a fire in a cave, glad for the awareness of the effects of that progress, glad for the chance to make choices.
Akin to this is an increasing awareness of how the body can be encouraged to heat itself with clothing that allows space for body heat to insulate between cloth and skin. The Eskimos (as they were called in the books I read which gave me this information) knew about this and combatted cold in this way. Desert people use the same practise against intense heat. I experienced this while living in India when I traded tight-fitting Western clothing for the loose, cool, sari. And more recently with clothes that ‘tent’ the body in both hot and cold weather. Garmentology!