Paradoxical Undressing
This article explains why some hypothermia victims undress themselves even as they freeze to death.
Shunting blood to your core and away from your extremities is accomplished through vasoconstriction of your peripheral circulation. This allows the outer portions of your body to become better at insulating your core, since it is losing less heat to the outside world.
And now the key to what causes paradoxical undressing. Vasoconstriction occurs when the smooth muscles within the vasculature contract. This effort requires a steady input of energy in the form of glucose from the body’s energy stores. However, due to a lack of blood now traveling to these muscles, they eventually tire. As the muscles of the constricted blood vessels run out of energy, they fatigue, relax, and open up. This is known as vasodilation.
With vasodilation of the blood vessels, an infusion of warm blood from the core of the body rushes into the peripheral extremities. This causes the hypothermia victim to feel overly warm and to start shedding layers of clothing, contrary to the reality that their body temperature is continuing to drop.
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