gaman = endure

[Acorn]

The variables in different cultures and lifestyles are so interesting:

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2009/01/how-to-cut-out.html

[JaneV2.0]

I liked that a lot. I under-heat my house due to a defunct furnace, and I'm an old hand at gaman!

[herbgeek]

That article made me shiver. I am such a baby about heat, or lack thereof. When my house gets cold, I just want to huddle under some blankets and not DO anything. The komatsu makes dinnertime tolerable, but I'd still hate sleeping in an unheated bedroom. I am spoiled.

[JaneV2.0]

It seems one adjusts, if the blogger is to be believed. I like to be warm in my sleep, but I NEVER heat my bedroom. I adjust the temperature with bedding and ventilation from the window. We had several days of power outage a few winters ago, with temperatures in the twenties, and I was still comfortable in bed.

[loosechickens]

I love it.....and am a huge fan of gaman. That ability to step outside one's narrow range of comfort, and keep pushing at the edges of our comfort zones has the effect of enlarging that comfort zone, and making one able to deal comfortably with whatever is encountered with fortitude.

We have never heated our bedroom....back when we had a house in northern PA, our upstairs bedrooms had no heat at all, and there was no plumbing on the second floor to worry about freezing, as the bathroom was downstairs. Even in the 20 below zero weather, we slept up there with the windows cracked open for fresh air, and under homemade wool quilts, with a soapstone heated in the woodstove oven at night and wrapped in a towel and put under the covers to keep our feet warm.

In this lifestyle, in the RV, while we don't experience hard winters anymore, regularly at night the temps in winter approach freezing, and we have no heat in the bedroom and sleep all seasons with the windows open.

I look around me at relatives and friends, and see so many of them who live carefully climate controlled lives, to the point where if it's below 72 they are "too cold", and if it gets over 74 degrees, they are "too hot". We've always tried to accustom our bodies and minds to wide varieties of temperatures and comfort levels, to the point where we are comfortable under a wide variety of circumstances.

Plus, it's not why we do it, but I remember reading that if you learn to be comfortable at much lower temperatures in the winter, you won't get colds, and I don't know if that is what it is, but it's been years since either of us had a cold.

One of the things I've loved most about living for periods in other countries are those "eureka" moments when you realize, not only that the rest of the world, or much of the world thinks differently from you, but that often our ways are NOT the "one correct way" to do things, and that many things are out there to learn from. Seeing your own culture for the first time, from within another culture really changes you, and I think, changes you for the better. Certainly knocks you out of the old "USA #1" mentality, for sure.

Neat.........

[Zoebird]

So, NZ houses are not insulated, and our house has single-paned glass. We are in the shadows from 3 pm on in the winter, and around 4:30/5 in the summer (we aren't in summer yet, so i don't know). And we have a small gas heater.

It gets down to about frost point in winter at night, plus wind. We will use our heater for several hours in the evening (2-3) and then our bed is: wool underlay, sheepskin (for the kid), cotton sheets, winter weight quilt, two wool blankets on top, and wearing a hat and socks to bed, plus thermals and pjs. and everyone in one bed.

This is warm and toasty, as the house is COLD about 1.5 hrs after the little gas fireplace is off. :)

You do get tougher. And apparently, people further south than us (where it is colder) do ok, but in the mountains and stuff, most everyone has wood burning stoves that they damper to embers at night, but still keeps it's heat until the Am when they stir it up again.

[razz]

While i may not want to be that cold, it is true that having others in the same situation makes it endurable. As long as there are warm enough covers for sleeping, I can be active enough to stay warm, most of the time.

[rosarugosa]

I thought it was a fascinating article, but count me in with the cold-blooded sissies; I hate being cold! I do pretty well in the hot weather though.