Why do women feel the cold more than men, and old people more than the young?

Sex, age and muscle mass influence the way people’s bodies respond to heat and cold, and evolutionary history is involved

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Women generally feel cold quicker than men do, as they typically have less muscle mass. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 7:15pm, 20 Feb 2025

What for some of us is a comfortable temperature is too chilly for others. People’s heat perception varies, and their sex plays a role. Women feel cold quicker than men do, as the many thermostat battles in homes and offices can attest.

“They typically have less muscle mass and therefore a lower metabolic rate, and generate less heat,” says Dr Ralf Brandes, professor of physiology at the Goethe University of Frankfurt and board member of the German Physiological Society.

Having more muscle mass increases your rate of metabolism even at rest, meaning you burn food faster to fuel your body, a process that heats your body up. And contractions of skeletal muscles, whether voluntarily or involuntarily through shivering, are a primary source of heat production.

The reason men typically have more muscle mass probably lies in evolutionary history. While prehistoric men hunted – moving around and generating heat – women and children often stayed behind in their dwellings, says Dr Rüdiger Köhling, director of the Oscar Langendorff Institut für Physiologie at the Rostock University Medical Centre in Germany.

Women often feel the cold more than men because they have less muscle mass, a product of evolution. Photo: Shutterstock

However, “women are better at centralising heat”, he adds, by directing more blood carrying heat to their body’s core in response to cold. “Meanwhile, blood circulation to the extremities – such as hands, feet, nose and lips – is restricted,” Brandes says.