Why You Need to Stay Warm This Winter
As we enter November in earnest, it’s getting colder. And although you may or may not have turned the heating on, keeping an eye on the temperature of your house to make sure it’s not too cold is a good idea.
Around this time of year, there’s often a battle going on in homes across the country about when is the right time to turn the heating on. While heating your house is important in the winter, during the cost-of-living crisis, you might be tempted to wait it out a little longer. Although it might be easier on your bank balance, having a house that’s too cold can cause or exacerbate a number of issues. General guidelines state that the temperature of your house should be between 18-21° and it’s important to heed them especially if you have elderly people, pets and babies living in the house. Keeping the temperature lower, even as little as a couple of degrees, can have an impact on your health, increasing blood pressure and the risk of heart attacks and stroke.
If your anyone else in your house suffers from respiratory issues, cold air can and it often trigger conditions like asthma because it inflames lungs and hinders circulation. this can increase symptoms and cause a worsening of chronic diseases and infection. Even keeping your home around 14-15° could be enough to reduce your resistance to respiratory diseases.
It's not just your chest that can suffer. If your bedroom is too cold, you’ll struggle to fall asleep as the body tries to maintain its core temperature, leaving you exhausted and grumpy the next morning. And although being cold won’t cause to you catch a cold, there is evidence that shows that exposure to cold temperatures can reduce your defence against infections like colds and flu. Being cold constricts blood vessels everywhere but importantly in the nose, which prevents antibodies from being able to mount a counterattack against viruses.
To safeguard your health this winter aim to turn your heating on when the outside temperature starts becoming consistently colder or falls below around 15ºC. To keep your house comfortably warm, set the heating to come on around half an hour before you get up and go off again around half an hour before you go to bed.
