The effects of enviromental temperature on human respiration Lab Report

The effects of enviromental temperature on human respiration - Lab Report Example Hypertensive patients should be extremely careful in cold weather and people should take care such that the amount or degree of exposure to cold is reduced and also adopt measures to keep the body warm. It is important to expose the body to the cold stress. However the instant impact is quite drastic. After the initial brief seconds, the rate of metabolism seems to fall as the body now adjusts itself gradually to the stimuli. Adaptation is important for human being and degree of adaptation depends upon the habituation. The term acclimatization refers to the physiological adaptation of the body to a fall in temperature. In order to make the patient adaptable to the surrounding cold, it is important first for the person to come in contact with the stimuli. Escaping or protecting oneself from the cold by wearing heavy warm clothes is not the permanent solution. The study carried out by Young, Muza, Sawka, Gonzalez, and Pandolf (1985) shows the impact of repeated immersion in cold water, a program designed for adaptation. However it was observed that only under light stressful a condition a person is able to show adaptation but not under strict conditions. It has also been observed that cold presor test (CPT) revealed that with the increase in cardiac sympathetic activity, the heart rate increases too during the first 30 seconds of the test. In this case results also reveal â€Å"Arterial pressure, heart rate, and MSNA all increased significantly during the CPT† (Victor, Leimbach, Jr., Seals, W alljn, and Mark, 2008, 431) According to Fleisher and Krieger (2007) cardiac arrest brings about halt in respiratory activities or apnea. Therefore, we can infer that an increase in cardiac activity will bring about an increase in respiration rate. It may be hypothesized that the environmental temperature will affect human respiration. At colder temperature, the