Bad blood Circulation and being cold

Poor blood circulation can definitely cause you to feel colder.

A good example might be the blankets you see over the laps of elderly patients in nursing facilities. They experience a similar problem.

I understand that poor circulation can be corrected with proper diet and exercise on a regular basis. The exercise will help to strengthen your heart so that it can pump the blood throughout your body at a more healthier rate. The proper diet will help prevent those bad things from building up in your blood stream that will actually “block” the flow of the blood to the extremities of your body.

There are “other” things that can cause you to feel colder as well, so you may not want to jump to conclusions right away and simply call it “poor circulation”.

One such “other” thing, can be your weight. You will naturally feel “colder” if you are underweight.

Another issue often overlooked is the “thickness” of your blood. As I understand it, a person’s blood is “thicker” in colder climates, and “thinner” in warmer climates. I have been told in the past that if you feel cold all the time and want to “thicken” your blood to stay warmer… that you should add cinnamon to your diet. Drinking more water aids in naturally thinning the blood to some degree…as does aspirin.

If your lifestyle is stressful, or you are very nervous, then your nerves can actually cause your blood vessels to constrict (reducing your blood circulation) and you will feel colder naturally.

If you take a lot of aspirin or other pain killers, you may feel “colder” as a result.

Also, as you get older, the smaller veins in your legs will begin to dysfunction. They turn into what some people call “spider veins” … and that, quite often, will , (in lay terms), mess up the “back flow valves” in your veins and start the condition known as varicose veins. When this happens, there is less blood flow to your extremities and you feel colder. (I understand that applying Vitamin E to those extremities topically will help in aiding the condition).

If you seriously cut back in how much you eat, your body could become unable to produce enough natural heat to keep you warm enough.

If you dress improperly for the weather conditions, you will feel colder.

A woman on her period who has experienced a loss of blood may feel automatically colder.

The blood vessels are very close to the surface of your skin on the top of your head. So, as a result, in colder weather when you don’t wear a hat… your blood will chill at that point in your body and it will actually aid in lowering the temperature of your body overall. So, for example, not wearing a hat in cold weather can cause your feet to feel colder.

On the outskirts of things, there are also environmental, chemical and also drug related conditions that can cause your blood vessels to “restrict” (shrink) at the surface of your skin and cause you to feel colder overall. The symptoms are quite similar to poor circulation, but the cause is totally different and should not be ruled out prior to treating a person for “poor circulation” when the circulatory system of a person’s body is totally normal, but being affected by external sources. For to administer something to increase a persons blood circulation would, in such cases, only be treating the symptoms and not correcting the initial problem at hand.

Finally, although most likely not in your case, when a persons body is faced with a severe disease, injury or is in shock… the body will naturally try to protect itself and it will direct your blood supply to remain centrally located in the main core of your body to protect your life and maintain a body temperature for preservation. … but that is on the outskirts of things.

I hope that this has offered to you a little more insight into your problem. Of course, no one can accurately predict what your individual problem is over the internet. Only your doctor can do that. So, if it really “is” a serious problem, then just get it checked out. It might just be something really simple to correct, but you’ll never know until you have it professionally checked out to begin with.

Have a nice holiday season !

:-)