Edit: as the comments said, I used the incorrect word. What I mean is “tolerance”
Immunity is a strong word.
You can acclimate to different environments and temperatures. Brown fat tissue can be increased when exposed to cold temperatures over a long period of time, in a form of adaptation. This type of fat helps produce heat, keeping you warmer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_adipose_tissue
There is truth to the jokes of Minnesotans wearing shorts on the same day Floridian’s would wear winter clothes.
Just backing up all of this. I’m from PA and I remember one year we spent Christmas in Tampa. First time I could wear shorts outside on Christmas, while everyone else was sporting pants and at least a hoodie, if not a coat.
Just thought I should add that this was in the 90s, climate change my effect your results.
I grew up in a northern state and used to pride myself as a teen that I could wear a t shirt in the snow or be wearing a hoodie at the busstop while others had winter coats.
After a some years in Southern Florida a slight breeze bringing it to 70 degrees gets me into a sweater lol
The body really acclimates. It used to be so hot the first summer and nowadays it’s not a big deal. But actually this summer has been unusually hot, however that seems a bit anomalous.
I’m also from PA and moved to a southern state. It’s fun when it’s 60 degrees out and everyone is walking around in winter jackets and scarves and I’m in a t-shirt literally dripping sweat. My first winter it was 55 out and someone said “I can’t wait for spring to come, I’m so sick of the cold.” I just looked at them and said “uh… where I come from, this is spring.”
A couple of years ago for Christmas I left my 80°F December to visit my in laws where the highs were 30°F. I had absolutely no resistance, and it was miserable. They kept their house cold because they were acclimated. I was shivering in my jacket next to the fire the whole trip.
An immunity? Fuck no.
A tolerance though? Yes, you totally can!
You’ll never be invulnerable to cold of course, but you will adapt to it if you’re exposed regularly to cold.
The real trick to dealing with extreme cold is layering up with the right gear for the conditions, but being adapted to it definitely helps!
You can build up resistance. I live in WA, when I visited Spain everyone was shocked to see me perfectly fine in just a t-shirt when it was 55 american degrees out
Be careful about the limits of adaptation. You can certainly adjust to temperatures that are colder than you’re used to. You will still die if you are inactive outside without protection below 50 degrees F (10C).
You have to get at it to die from 10°C IMO. Zero for sure, 3h sleep and you won’t wake up.
Funny mental image of man huffing and puffing trying to kill himself in a snowbank thats more mud than snow.
You don’t die from external temperatures, you die from internal temperatures.
You could die in 60° weather sleeping on rocks. Because the rocks are a great conductor of thermal energy and will drain your core temperature. That’s why when you’re camping it’s important to put some insulation between you and the ground.
So people, in the right weather conditions, could go out in freezing temperatures in a t-shirt. But if they’re out too long, or it rains, or they become less active, or if they sit down and take a nap, they’re in danger when they’re core temperature gets low enough.
For the acclimatized people, they’ve got a much bigger buffer than the unacclimatized people.
Yes, you can build tolerance to cold temperatures by slow gradual exposure to them. Using cold water at the end of showering and wearing one Layer of clothes less to feel slightly cool (but not freezing) works well. Aside of cold tolerance, the benefits include boosting your imune system, turning your white fat into Brown fat, which is able to burn calories (and make heat from them, that’s why you feel warmer) and lowering inflammation in your body.
