Medical Mysteries BRRRR: BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE AND MY TEETH ARE CHATTERING

WRITER: FRED HILTON

Like many residents of Florida, I spent much of my life north of here, where the winters were brutal and featured numbing cold, complete with shivering and teeth chattering. Back then, we were sure that a Florida winter meant eternal warmth, bright sunshine, and happy flamingos. When we learned there was a February conference in Orlando, most of our office crew happily boarded a southbound plane.

We were ready for fun in the sun. We’d packed our shorts, Hawaiian shirts, and flip-flops. One of our coworkers, who came from Florida, tried to warn us. “They have winter in Florida, too, you know,” she said. We ignored her.

Sure enough, the minute we got off the plane we were smacked in the face with a blast of arctic-like air. The flip-flops stayed in the suitcase. We shivered and our teeth chattered. This brings us to the question of the day: why do our teeth chatter when we’re cold?

As medical mysteries go, this one has a pretty simple and straight-forward answer. Our teeth chatter because our body is trying to warm us up.

Teeth chattering, according to Dr. Harold Katz, is “a mechanism the body uses to keep its core temperature of

98 degrees Fahrenheit. This is similar to the reason humans shiver. Any time skin gets too cold, receptors tell the muscles to expand and contract in quick bursts in order to produce heat.” If your teeth are chattering and you’re shivering, it “might be a sign that you need to warm up in the near future,” Dr. Katz says at TheraBreath.com.

The formal name for this process is homeostasis. “The human body does not like to get cold any more than it likes to get hot, and so uses a form of homeostasis to maintain a comfortable temperature of 98 degrees,” Dana Dovey says in MedicalDaily.com. “The hypothalamus in our brains is the general of our body’s temperature control, and when the outer temperature begins to drop our hypothalamus instructs our body to go into ‘heat conservation’ mode.” When your hypothalamus is in this mode, your whole body shakes. As the muscles in your jaw begin to shake, your teeth clash, resulting in the sound we know as “teeth chattering.”

Shivering also boosts your metabolism in a similar way to exercise. To stay physically fit, you can choose between push-ups and freezing. On the other hand, you may also consider staying inside on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate.