I've Done The Research

Oh my God I am overwhelmed.

My plan was to draw some correlation between warm weather and longer life spans.

I Googled the topic and...........................

"When cold-blooded animals are exposed to a cold environment, their metabolisms slow and they live longer. When warm-blooded animals are exposed to a cold environment, their metabolisms speed up and they live longer."

It is highly debatable whether humans are warm-blooded or cold-blooded, but either way this data does me no good.

The study then went on to factor income into the equation because higher income people tend to live longer. In fact the study noted that life expectancy has a much stronger relationship to income than to temperature.

This pisses me off too because my paycheck is obviously reducing my lifespan.

I wasn't happy with those results so I read an article in The Atlantic titled "Why People Born In Winter Might Live Longer."

My birthday is January 1.

The opening sentence was: "Extreme cold kills more people than extreme heat, and it does so in a variety of ways."

BOOM!

The author, Olga Khazan, makes some banal points and then points out this insidious fact:"Cold weather causes arteries to constrict and blood to become thicker, increasing chances of having a heart attack or stroke."

Carol will be shovelling alone this winter.

The focus of the article is this: "There's evidence that your risk of dying of heart disease in the cold could depend on the temperature at which you experienced life as a fetus."

And:"A forthcoming study in social science and medicine shows that people who were in utero during the warmer months were more likely to die from this type of wintertime heart disease during cold periods."

The only cold months I lounged in the womb were October, November and December.

What does this mean? What the hell should I think?

I went on to read other stuff and the bottom line is that the data is contradictory and inconclusive.

Scientists don't know. Nobody knows.

This is a traditional result when you attempt to discover conclusive scientific evidence.

Ironic, no?

I gotta go with my gut here. I feel better when it is warm. My body feels better and my mood is much better.

You must live longer when you are happy, right? Gotta live longer when you feel better?

The sweat trickling down my chest right now is obviously a sweet life extender.