cold water and hypothyroidism

To me at least, hot water is much more attractive than cold.  I've said before that i INSTINCTIVELY shun cold showers and similar shocks, but as i was reading Mark's comments about CT, a much more "science-based" reason for avoiding it occurred to me.

Take as a starting-point, Dr. Lustig's view that quality of life parallels the amount of energy we burn.  That concept has always resonated with me.  Some of us have to struggle to burn anywhere near a "normal" amount, let alone enough to experience that vitality-to-spare feeling of younger people..  An awful lot of us don't seem to have a reasonable number of properly-functioning mitochondria, for one thing.  I'm increasingly finding it darned difficult to do the kind of exercise that builds one up, when one's knee tends to rebel unpredictably, and today's wrong movement turns into pain that lasts through next week.  What I have to do is find ways to burn energy by manipulating my metabolism.

Next, add the chronic low body temperature of hypothyroid people, and the fact that a lot of enzymatic processes don't go forward as they should at sub-optimal temperatures.  What we end up is with a recipe for an overweight, fatigued, numb-brained, joyless middle-aged person.  That's what i do all this internet reading to learn to avoid.

I can always tell when i've pushed my limits too far -- the first symptom is an inability to warm up.  It can be the result of too little sleep or food, or too much physical work or stress; no amount of clothing or blankets is enough, because my generator simply isn't producing sufficient heat.  I put the ceramic footwarmer full of hot water at the end of the bed, drink some ginger tea with "real" sweetener, pop some melatonin and try to get as much rest as i can.

For years i've said that i do my best thinking in the bathtub; i've learned that there is a very good reason for that.  Being in a hot tub raises my body temperature and EVERYTHING works better.