2. Exposure: Cold
That's heat, at the other end of the spectrum we have freezing to death, which is fun. Some people who live in extreme environments have special adaptations to allow them to work bare-handed at sub-zero temperatures in relative comfort. However, your lifestyle of eating pizza and playing video games has afforded you no such protection. Let's pretend that you're going for that same trek as in the previous entry, but now it's winter and snow lies thick on the ground. You get halfway through your hike and suddenly there's a whiteout, you can't see a thing and the temperature is dropping. Not to worry though, because you're wrapped up all nice and warm ... too warm, perhaps, as the sweat begins to soak through your t-shirt. That sweat wicks heat away from your body too quickly and your core temperature begins to drop. At 36°C, your muscles begin to tighten as your body readies itself for some pretty intense uncontrollable shivering. The blood vessels in your extremities constrict, causing your fingers and toes to throb. You hit 35°C and are now entering the early stages of hypothermia. You can't control your shivering, which is more violent that you have previously experienced. Your muscles are stiff and you're finding it difficult to move. Your body is exhausting itself just trying to keep you warm and you will eventually collapse to the floor, unable to keep moving. Now, everything hour or so, your body temperature drops by a degree. With each drop, your brain function gets more impaired, you begin to lose interest in moving or getting out of the situation and will just lie, exhausted in the snow. The last thing you will probably do is take all your clothes off. This is known as
paradoxical undressing, which is a phenomenon that causes people with severe hypothermia to strip off. This is probably the last nail in your coffin as you are now naked in the snow.