Staying warm is one of the single most important problems facing a human being. If it were not for the need to stay warm, I believe few people would fear homelessness. There are only a limited number of strategies available to keep the cold at bay. You can dress warmly. Wear lots of layers. Wear thermal underwear during winter. Wear more than one pair of socks at a time. If you are in a place that gets down to 30 or 40 degrees fahrenheit, wear earmuffs and wear warm gloves. The thermals are available in department stores. Try Target or Walmart first, Sears, JC Penney, and others after, to get them at the lowest available prices. Gloves and fleece earmuffs will be there too. For other layers at a discount price, try wearing multiple undershirts or check with Goodwill and Salvation Army for cheap, warm clothing. If even that is out of budget, an old hobo trick is to stuff your clothes with crumpled newspaper. I always had three blankets in my car during winter, and one was always a Mexican, loosely woven blanket.
The loose weave leaves air spaces that make for good insulation. The other two can be any inexpensive cotton, fleece, or poly blend you like. I avoid wool, because although it is an exceptional insulator, itchiness is simply unacceptable. You may disagree, particularly in freezing climates. An astronaut's mylar blanket is always handy, too. They only cost a couple of dollars and can usually be found in army surplus stores and sporting goods stores in the camping section. Wrapped around you, they retain 95% of your body heat by reflecting it back at you. You can save less heat, but be more comfortable, if you simply place the mylar between a couple of other blankets. One of the problems with mylar is it can get slick with condensation from your body's sweat, and that is unpleasant and can cause a chill. If they're thin blankets, I recommend you fold the mylar sandwich all together, to make it easier to get ready for bed the following evening. The slickest way is to fold the blankets in half once and roll it like a sleeping bag.
Stores supplying camping gear will also have hand warmers. These chemical pouches run a couple of dollars a piece, but it is handy to have a few for particularly cold moments. You can optimize their value by using them under a mylar blanket. Another great source of heat is a hot water bottle (usually available in drugstores). Buy a propane stove, again available in camping supplies for under thirty dollars. You are going to want one to cook with anyway. Propane bottles are about two dollars each and last quite a while. Boil some water and fill the water bottle before you find your final parking spot for the evening, so that neighborhood busybodies are not tipped off to your presence. Wrap the bottle in a towel to avoid leaks, or at least place a towel under it. Leaks will happen without warning. Boiling water is hotter than the rubber bottle is designed to take, but for the bottle to work most of the night, it has to be boiling. The leak will happen as it cools, and it will be slow.
I never got burned by a leak, but caution is in order while filling the bottle. Scalding is a hazard. I usually went through two bottles per winter. When all else fails, you can make sure the exhaust pipe of your car is not under the car cover, and run the engine and heater for a while. It is a giveaway that you are there, of course, but there are few people about on a cold night. I took the chance quite a lot some winters. That is about the whole list, unless you want to get a steel barrel and start a fire in it. Best to do that on the outskirts of town.If you’re interested in reading more on ideas presented in the article below, I suggest reading Move Your DNA. If you’d like movement instruction via video, start with Daily Movement Multivitamin. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about transitioning out of a mattress, so here are some potentially helpful steps. Step 1: Start transitioning out of your mattress by staying on it. Sleep on the other side. Flip the mattress over.
Flip it over and sleep on the other side’s other side. Because your mattress has a particular shape created by how you (and anyone else) have slept on it over time. If you put your body on it differently, that alone will change the loads to your body. (And consider swapping sides weekly, no matter what you’ve been sleeping on.) Step 2: If you have foam over the top of your mattress or a bulky mattress pad, get rid of it and sleep on your de-cushioned bed. Step 3: If you have a guest bed, de-cushion that one too (sorry guests), and log some nights on a different mattress. Mattresses are so different, just sleeping in one that’s not your regular bed will change the loads to your body. Step 4: Put your mattress on the ground and list your box springs and bed frame on Craigslist for $200.00. Step 5: Answer three emails from those responding to your Craigslist ad. Surprisingly, they’re all college students moving in to your area from Kansas who want to put money directly into your bank account because they’re currently awaiting their financial aid package of $35,000, but only have their parent’s money to pay you with today, if you can just send your account information.
Step 6: Don’t send them your account information. Step 7: Meet with the one person who answered your ad on Craigslist to let them see the frame and box springs, only to have them offer you $25.00 because they wanted something larger (than the Queen size you listed in your ad). Step 8: Sleep on your mattress (both sides of it) on the ground for awhile. Step 9: Create a bedroll with sleeping bags, blankets, sheets, on the ground, and sleep on that for a while. Step 10: List your mattress, box springs, and bedframe on Craigslist for $400.00 (you paid $1000 three years ago…). Step 11: Repeat Steps 4 through 7. Step 12: Keep it all in your garage for 3 years and then list in on Free! section of Craigslist and have someone text you 3 minutes after you’ve listed it. Load it into their truck 25 minutes after you listed it. Step 13: Stop using Craigslist with the exception of reading “Missed Connections” for entertainment. And, because, you never know.
For what it’s worth, it took me 18 months to go from my mattress of 5 years to what I sleep on now: a 3″ foam mattress pad I got from Costco. In addition to the steps I’ve listed here, the corrective exercises I suggest on this blog and in my books, are to make your neglected joints more mobile head-to-toe. Immobility will be challenged by gradually changing what you’re sleeping on, but the more you work on your mobility in the form of specific exercises, moving more, and changing your sleep environment, the more each facilitates the others. Q: Why the heck would I want to sleep on a mattress? A: It’s about natural loads and reducing repetitive/unnatural loading to (i.e. deforming of) your cellular bodies. Read Move Your DNA for a more detailed explanation or at least start by reading “Instinctive sleeping and resting postures: an anthropological and zoological approach to treatment of low back and joint pain“ from the British Medical Journal. Q: What about pillows?