10 Hot and Cold Weather Survival myths

Everyone has probably heard about a trick to surviving or how to start a fire that simply doesn’t make sense, like rubbing two sticks together or eating snow as a way to stay hydrated, but in reality do things like this even work and more importantly are they safe?

Rub frostbitten skin to heat it up

When suffering from frostbite you should never attempt to warm up the affected area until you have the ability to keep it warm. Partially defrosting and then re-freezing skin will be considerably more damageing than if it were left frozen and only thawed out once, not that rubbing the area will heat it up much in the first place. Rubbing your hands together when its cold is not the same as gently thawing out frozen layers of skin and fat.

The faster you warm someone up who has hypothermia, the better

Warming someone up to fast may put them into shock which can cause a whole new range of problems. The other danger of heating someone up to quickly is the heat source may be burning the skin without the victim even realizing. When a part of your body is cold enough it’s difficult to detect heat until its actually burning, and using something too hot will only serve to scorch the skin and cause even more damage. The best method is to heat someone up slowly with body heat or being placed in a warm room and wrapped in dry clothing. Hot water bottles under the arms and under the back is the warmest thing you should expose a person suffering from frostbite to.

Alcohol warms you up

The correct wording would be that alcohol makes you “feel” warmer because it brings the blood closer to the skin while numbing your sense of feeling, giving an overall sense of feeling warmer. Just because this is how you feel, it doesn’t mean you actually become warmer, and feeling as if your ok can cause you to risk a little more cold weather exposure.

Let someone with hypothermia sleep it off

This is ok if it’s a mild case affecting the fingers and toes, but severe cases can cause a person to go into shock and falling asleep is a very bad idea. With the most severe cases it’s important to keep the person awake for as long as possible to keep the brain active and give the body a chance to recover slightly before it switches off for a while.

Don’t waste your time with space blankets

People think these thin foil-like sheets are a waste of time, how can something so thin actually keep a person warm? They may look a bit flimsy but the material they are made out off is specially designed to reflect heat, a task they do quite well. Space blankets can make a huge difference and are included in so many survival kits for a reason.

If your fire is big enough, you won’t need a shelter

If you fire is big enough, it isn’t raining, the wind won’t change direction, there isn’t anything close that will catch fire, there won’t be any weather effects during the night and you’re ok with sleeping on the floor, then you won’t need a shelter. This one is just silly and should never be considered an actual survival technique as a huge bonfire that’s so hot you can’t get within 10 feet of it won’t stop you from getting wet if it rains.

Rubbing sticks together will start a fire

Friction does indeed cause flame, but only if its done correctly and by someone who knows what they are doing. There are many ways to start a fire using friction, but picking up two sticks and rubbing them against each other isn’t one of them. It takes a good amount of practice to master something like a bow drill or fire plow and simply rubbing them to start a fire is wishful thinking.

Eat snow to stay Hydrated

Snow is about 90% air and contains very little water for its volume. You would have to eat a large quantity of snow to be able to get a decent amount of water from it, but the loss in body temperature from the doing this wouldn’t be worth it. Eating snow lowers the core temperature of your body and even though it may slightly reduce your thirst, it will help you to succumb to the cold much faster. Snow should always be melted before drinking whenever in a cold environment.

Drink your own pee to stay hydrated

When stranded in the desert or at sea, one of the most common tips would be to drink your own urine, but does this work and is it even safe? Well the answer is yes and no to both questions because urine is almost entirely water, and there’s a good chance that you’ll be fine after drinking it once or twice, but this doesn’t make it a good idea. You can benefit slightly from the extra water gained from drinking it a second time, but you also greatly increase your chances of getting sick. Urine contains all the things your body tried to get rid of as waste and reintroducing it into your system isn’t a good idea. Think of drinking your own urine the same as drinking straight from a still water source, you might be fine doing it several times, or it might make you sick enough to end your survival journey in a single gulp.

Some peoples bodies are more resistant to the hot/ cold

The bodies themselves aren’t more resistant, but their minds are. If you’ve lived in the middle of the desert your entire life then you’ll be much more used to the heat than someone from an arctic country. Extreme weather simply doesn’t bother people as much if they are used to it which can effect a whole range of things like energy levels, motivation and attitude, some of the most important things to have in a survival situation. In terms of the physical body itself, a person from the Sahara will freeze just as fast as someone from Iceland.

An interesting fact about resisting weather comes from dark skin colors which are created by a pigment in the skin called Melanin. This pigment is very dark in color and has the job of blocking ultraviolet light and protecting the skin, so if a black person and a white person stood in the middle of the desert for a day, there would be significantly more UV damage done to the lighter skinned person. Ultimately direct heat or cold, like a blizzard or contact with flame is just as damaging to everyone.