Interesting. Between this and the video on acclimatising to extremely hot weather, it looks like the human body adapts pretty well within a week or so, depending on the individual of course. I would imagine longer term adaptation would still give smaller improvements for quite some time afterwards, and would also be lost less quickly.
I'd agree with that. A week seems to be an adequate time to get used to a different strain on the body.
I think that would depend on the diet and lifestyle you had before you started though. Although the mental aspect must play a role too, the Shaolin monks are supposed to be able to raise their body temperature on demand in cold areas.
It would but generally it does tend to involve a change in diet and energy expenditure IME. I've not heard that about the Shaolin, must investigate. I've been trying to will blood into cold hands for years completely unsuccessfully.
From what i've seen he goes barefoot until there's permanent snow on the ground, then breaks out the woolies.
That makes sense. At temps that snow ceases to melt, the skin on his feet will be melting the snow and thus skin will be losing large amounts of energy changing the state of H2O from solid to liquid.
As a follow up, there have been some studies done on Shaolin monks showing that they can raise their core temperature at will.
During visits to remote monasteries in the 1980s, Benson and his team studied monks living in the Himalayan Mountains who could, by g Tum-mo meditation, raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by as much as 17 degrees. It has yet to be determined how the monks are able to generate such heat.
The researchers also made measurements on practitioners of other forms of advanced meditation in Sikkim, India. They were astonished to find that these monks could lower their metabolism by 64 percent. "It was an astounding, breathtaking [no pun intended] result," Benson exclaims.
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html