Feel cold if you dive lot?

[billt4sf]

People had told me that they needed more exposure protection if they dive more often -- at first I didn't believe it, now I am convinced. In fact, I find it to be true if I simply go in the pool several times a day.

Why is this?

Someone said it was because it lowers your body temperature but Im sure this is NOT true. I'm sure the body regulates its temperature very precisely.

Can someone explain the mechanism? My guess is that it's the brain trying to interpret the cold signals (heat loss) of repetitive immersion.

- Bill

 

[northernone]

It's an interesting phenomenon isn't it! I use to think I was simply getting soft or weak... There's more to it...

Here's part of it: As we get more experienced we tend to become more efficient in our motion and core functions. As a result we don't put out as much heat.

On land the dramatic illustration is the amount of warmth experienced in the difference between sitting still with a slow heartbeat and running around breathing heavy. One we'll be cold and the other nearly overheated and our body sweating to cool us.

When we dive alot it's less work and we don't generate as much heat.

Cheers,
Cameron

 

[RainPilot]

If you are referring to multiple dives on a day, it is definitely a real thing.

My understanding is that the body needs to burn energy to maintain the core temperature. When you do a single dive, you replenish the heat of the extremities by sunshine on the surface interval so you don't really use a lot of your bodies reserves. When you do multiple dives, you gradually build up a heat debt so that, while your core is constant, the amount of heat the body pulls from the extremities to compensate increases over time until eventually you are feeling cold.

Thats why it helps to wear a suit on the first dive, even though you wouldn't get cold on it normally, but it reduces your subsequent heat debt. I also find that warm drinks like tea and coffee between dives, as well as unrefrigerated water, help a lot for the cold afterwards.

 

[AJ]

I know the feeling. Started with a wetsuit and almost never got cold. Now wearing drysuit and thick undergarment and almost always cold. Even in summer or the tropics. I dive very frequently, 3 to 5 times a week. Two things come to mind:
1. Better skills: I hardly move at all while being under water. I became a very efficient diver while gaining experience. For 3 to 4 kicks from my best buddy, I hardly need one.
2. Way more relaxed than the beginning: I now love being underwater. It's pure relaxation in contrary to when I started. I found diving then quite stressfull then.

Personally, for me the key in getting colder all the time is being at ease under water. Not stress, almost no effort results in feeling colder. Especially my hands and feet get cold easily. Sometimes I even speed up/flex my muscles just to generate some heat.

 

[Diver0001]

People had told me that they needed more exposure protection if they dive more often -- at first I didn't believe it, now I am convinced. In fact, I find it to be true if I simply go in the pool several times a day.

Why is this?

Someone said it was because it lowers your body temperature but Im sure this is NOT true. I'm sure the body regulates its temperature very precisely.

Can someone explain the mechanism? My guess is that it's the brain trying to interpret the cold signals (heat loss) of repetitive immersion.

- Bill

I think it's simply because you move around less as you get more experience.

 

[DevonDiver]

When I used to visit the tropics for diving vacations, I could happily dive in boarded and a rash guard at any time..

But having lived and acclimatised over a decade, I now get quite cold... especially on long duration dives in wet season. I use a 3mm full suit as standard and uprate to a 5mm suit for when the water gets 'chilly' (26-28c)...

The main factor.. and always has been... for me is whether I am well fuelled for the dive. A good balance of carbs and protein shortly before a dive works wonders for keeping me warm.... even when I dove icy freshwater in the UK winter.

Bodyfat also makes a huge difference in thermal comfort. I lost a lot of weight a few years back...115kg down to ~70kg... and I was always uncomfortably cold when I was a 'skinny' diver.

There were times.. in the Philippines... when I was wearing a 7mm farmer over a 3mm...it was ridiculous... I just couldn't get warm at all.

I lose weight very easily when I'm diving intensively every day... If I don't compensate by increasing my calorific intake, I lose weight and I get cold..

 

[SeaHorse81]

I totally agree with @RainPilot's post above. Every word. Until I started diving dry, repetitive dives meant I had to start working to stay ahead of the heat loss curve from the first dive of the first day and work it very purposefully throughout the trip. By the end of a week on a liveaboard, no matter what I'd done (7 mil suit, stay bundled in fleece between dives, etc--on 80-90 degree days in 82 degree water), I'd lost too much core temp to continue diving even if someone would have offered me a free additional week.

 

[Dan]

I wear 3mm full wetsuit for 77-82F water like in Raja Ampat for the first 3 days of 3-5 dives/day. Then I put 2mm shorty over the 3mm full for the rest of the trip.

For cooler place like in Galápagos or Channel Islands (66-77F) I replace the 3mm to 5mm full wetsuit and add 3mm beanie hood. However, when we went to 100' deep where thermocline dropped the water temperature down to 61F, I wish I were wearing thicker wetsuit.

I now get the 7mm for 55-66F. That's probably the coldest cold water diving I would ever want to go diving in. The colder the water gets, the more I want to pee while diving, so no drysuit or semi drysuit for me.

The key take home message for comfortable multiple day diving of 3-5 dives/day is to layer up on the 3rd or 4th day. I made 40 dives in a 12-day liveaboard once and probably was the only diver that didn't miss any of the dives then. Even the DM needed a break & had the cruise director to take over and guided me in one of the days.

 

[Tool Belt]

If you are in the water long enough only one of two things can happen. The ocean warms up to your temperature, or you cool off to the ocean's temperature.

 

[TMHeimer]

I think it may be one of those examples of everyone's body being different. While diving it is very unusual for my feet to get cold--even in water in the 30's/40's diving wet. I do need the 3 fingered mitts in those temps. though as my hands get cold. Out of water it's the reverse--hands always fine but feet get cold all the time--I rarely am without socks, except in the middle of summer.