The HIV+ body in cold weather

The weather in Sydney has been terrible the last few days. A couple of days ago we had massively strong winds that peaked at 115kmph/70mph on Botany Bay (not far from here). A cold southerly wind that blew roofs off and trees over in various parts of Sydney. I was a bit worried here as I every time the wind blew harder I was waiting for something to happen.

It's a solid old place though, double brick, we were OK. It was pretty freaky though. 115kph is at the high end of a tropical storm, and just under a category 1 hurricane. Since then the last two days have been less windy but still very cold.

I've noticed I've been even more tired than usual in this cold. Been going to bed at ridiculously early hours, and couple of days ago slept for about 12 hours. In fact it was such a long sleep, that even though I don't normally eat a lot of breakfast I had to heat up a big meal as I was so hungry. Waking during the night I'd have liked to maybe get up and have a sandwich or something, but the bed was warm with the electric blanket and heater in the room, and it's so fuckin cold in the kitchen during the night with no heating on in there I'd just go back to sleep.

Was wondering if all this extra sleeping had to do with cold, or just the fact of it being winter. Turns out that your body does need more energy and food to stay warm in the winter, so it's likely the reason I've been so exhausted at the end of the day as my body has been using more energy.

Since the body doesn’t want to adjust to the cold very well, behavioral responses become the most important factors. Shelter and clothing protect from the cold. Eating high-energy food will increase the heat production, as will exercise – active muscles produce up to three-quarters of the total body heat, which stimulates the metabolism and further heat production. In fact, intense exercise and work can produce enough heat to maintain the desired body temperature under very cold conditions. Unfortunately, you can’t sustain heavy physical activity for long periods and you will eventually lose heat. Link 

There's also the thing that there's a lot less daylight and that has some sort of sleeping effect on your body too, quite apart from the energy expended through the day in keeping warm.

Humans' sleep and wake cycles are regulated by light. Light suppresses the production of melatonin by the brain's pineal gland. As daylight fades, the pineal gland produces more melatonin, which causes us to feel sleepy. In the morning, the gland is instructed to stop producing the hormone, which aids in waking up. We feel sleepier in the winter because there's less daylight, hence more melatonin. We wake up when it's still dark outside, before the pineal gland has been instructed to shut down, and it starts up again long before we're actually ready to go to bed. That adds up to many lethargic mornings and evenings. Link

Sometimes I find I'm blaming the HIV for everything. Yes, 12 hours is a lot of sleep, but it's only a couple more than what seems to be the regular 10 hour thing now. And those two extra hours could easily be put down to the above, especially as my recent CD4 count and viral load were improving.