Appliance of Science: What makes human beings shiver?

Irish people are great at making the best of any situation, so pandemics and wild weather won’t stop us going to our beaches. Sometimes those sea swims leave us a little too cold and we experience that teeth-chattering, limb-quaking shiver. Why does our body have such an unusual response to the cold? Dr Naomi Lavelle has the answer. 

Shivering acts a bit like a micro-workout for the body

The thermostat 

As warm-blooded creatures, we use our own internal thermostat to keep us at a fairly even 37°C. That thermostat is located in an area of the brain called the hypothalamus and it constantly receives feedback from different areas of the body, with temperature updates.