25 ways to stay warm this winter that won’t break the bank | CNN

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As wintry weather whips across the United States, one challenge may be staying warm if you can’t afford or are cutting back on indoor heating.

Staying warm is necessary “for a variety of health reasons” in addition to comfort, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association. For people with arthritis, stiffness “in your back and neck and sore joints do occur more in colder weather. … People who have metabolic conditions can be sensitive to the weather, like diabetes, for example, and heart disease. The more cold you are, the more stress you put on your heart.”

A little savvy based on our warm-blooded bodies, food, appliances, furniture, the outdoor elements and more can go a long way. Here are 25 ways to stay warm this winter — with or without indoor heating — that won’t break the bank.

How to warm your body

1. Warm up with store-bought hand warmers, microwavable heating pads, hot water bottles or heated blankets. Following the manufacturer’s instructions and concentrating on your torso are key, said JohnEric Smith, an associate professor in the department of kinesiology at Mississippi State University. “If you warm the core you can warm the hands and feet. It is harder to warm the core by warming the hands and feet.”

Be careful that you don’t burn yourself, Benjamin said. “They’re very effective on a knee or shoulder or the back of the neck. … You rarely put it directly on your skin. You usually wrap it in something, maybe a thin towel.”

2. Move your body. Physical activities like indoor exercise or dancing can help you warm up, but don’t get to the point where you’re sweating, Smith said. “We sweat to lose heat and sweating will make us colder.”

3. Think twice about taking a warm shower or bath. “While a warm bath or shower will feel good for the minute,” Smith said, “you will be cold after you get out and your wet skin is losing heat more quickly.”

4. Cuddle. Snuggles really can keep you warm. “Each of us produces heat through our metabolic processes. We lose our heat to the environment as we maintain body temperature,” Smith said via email. “Increasing skin contact decreases opportunities for the heat to be lost to the environment around us. If two people are under a blanket both of their heat losses combined can increase the temperature under the blanket more quickly than either could do independently.”

5. Change how you perceive cold. Some people have trained their minds to perceive cold as an objective, acceptable sensation rather than something dreadful to control. The best ways to adapt include wearing clothing in layers then removing it, or gradually lowering the thermostat and putting on a sweater, Benjamin said.

Enjoying warm foods and beverages is a two-in-one solution: You get heat from the appliances when you cook the food, then warmth when you eat it.

6. Enjoy warm beverages and foods, and use the oven and stove to cook them. Since foods higher in fat and protein are metabolized slowly by the body, those could make you feel warmer, Smith said. “Consider hearty soups with beans and meat.” Slow cooking meals can help generate heat throughout the day.

Drinking warm beverages “certainly helps take the chill off,” Benjamin said. Leaving the oven or stove on is “a bad idea because it burns fuel,” Benjamin said, “but more importantly, people fall asleep, they forget and leave the stove on. Sometimes things on the stove can catch on fire. So like any tool, you should use it for the purpose in which it was designed.”

“It only has to go poorly once to be life changing,” Smith said. If you don’t have children or pets, when you’re done cooking and you turn off the oven, what doesn’t hurt is leaving the oven door open to let residual heat escape.

Cozying up underneath layers of clothing or blankets (or both) can help insulate you from the cold.

7. Layer on the clothes. “Layering is critical,” Smith said. “Even thin layers added together to increase one’s ability to retain heat … focus on keeping the torso warm. Often an extra shirt or vest can warm your hands and feet more than an extra pair of socks or gloves.” Inexpensive pairs of tights or long johns can be worn underneath clothes. However, be sure that layering doesn’t make your clothing tight, he added, since that could reduce blood flow and thus your body’s ability to get warm blood to those areas. Wearing a hat, too, can also keep the heat in.

8. Wear thick socks and slippers. Fuzzy socks, slippers or a pair of shoes you reserve for wearing around the house can add extra comfort.

9. Pile on the blankets. “The more layers you put on, the better it helps trap the air between you,” your sheets and your blankets, Benjamin said. Since you lose a lot of heat from your head while you’re under blankets, he added, wearing a skull cap can help also.

10. Embrace less breathable clothing and linens. Breathable linens (such as the cotton-based variety) are often recommended during the summer, but linens with other materials and higher thread counts may be better for winter since higher thread counts have more weaving per square inch.

Optimize your home and appliances

There are multiple ways to make your heating system work better, or to create your own warmth.

11. Work with the weather. Open your curtains or blinds to let the sun in during the day, or when outside is warmer than inside your home.

12. Seal your windows and doors. Even if your windows and doors are totally shut and locked, drafts can seep in through small crevices. You can use caulk or shrink film to seal those cracks. Placing inexpensive, transparent shower curtains over windows can keep the sun in but the cold draft out. For the bottoms of doors, cloth draft stoppers are “very effective,” Benjamin said.

13. Close off unoccupied rooms. By shutting the doors of rooms no one is using, you can create additional barriers between yourself and the cold outdoors. This can also aid preventing heat loss from the room you’re in.

14. Reverse your ceiling fan. If possible, send your ceiling fan in a clockwise direction so that it sends the warm air down.

15. Sit near indoor heaters. You can safely use portable heaters if they are space heaters that have automatic shutoffs and can be plugged into a wall outlet instead of an extension cord. Since space heaters are a common cause of fires, they should be at least 3 feet away from any drapes, bedding or furniture. To prevent high levels of carbon monoxide — which can cause potentially fatal poisoning — ensure you have a carbon monoxide monitor installed and that you don’t “use any type of outdoor gas heater or anything that is not electric,” Benjamin said.

16. Move anything that’s blocking heat vents or radiators. The heat will better circulate throughout your home that way.

17. Spend time and sleep in the upper levels of the house. Heat rises, so moving your working, sleeping and living spaces upward may be more comfortable.

18. After showering, don’t run the bathroom fan or close the door. Unless your bathroom is prone to growing humidity-induced mold, the warm steam from the shower can make the nearby air less dry and cool for a short period of time.

19. Buy magnetic vent covers from home improvement stores. Used to cover vents, they can be inexpensive and help to force heat to exit vents in the occupied rooms only.

20. Put down rugs or carpets. These can be warmer to the touch than bare floors.

21. Insulate your attic. If you can afford to, padding your attic with insulation from hardware stores can help to retain some of the heat you usually lose through the attic since heat rises.

22. Research what your residential area offers. Some locations may be running warming centers set up for safety during the pandemic.

Sitting near a fire is a method that's always reliable.

23. Light a fire. If your fireplace runs on wood instead of gas, a fire is another way to keep a room warm and enjoy a cozy night. “Make sure that your flue is properly opened and clean to make sure that smoke doesn’t come back in the home but goes properly up the flue,” Benjamin said. “When the fire is out, you should of course close the flue because it’s like having an open window.”

24. Keep warm and enjoy s’mores. If your state, city, county or neighborhood allows, have a (moderate-size) backyard bonfire to keep warm for a while.

25. Don’t light candles. Candles can emit a small amount of heat, but using them as a source of warmth can be dangerous. “People will light candles and go to sleep, and they fall over,” Benjamin said. “The cat comes in and kicks it over and starts a fire.”

With these tips in mind and any others you find, be “broadly thoughtful about how to stay warm in the winter,” he added. “If it sounds like it’s a bad idea, it probably is. Look it up and check it out before you do it.”

This story has been updated to reflect recent weather advisories.

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How many times can you wear pajamas, jeans and other clothes without washing them? Experts weigh in | CNN

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The number of times it’s appropriate to wear clothing items without washing them often seems based more on folklore or a person’s upbringing than professional advice.

TikTok user Allison Delperdang started a heated online debate when she posted a video January 10 saying she wears the same pajamas multiple times.

“When I was younger my parents always made us wear pajamas … multiple nights in a row because they weren’t dirty, and I still do that as an adult,” she said. “I need to know if, like, as adults we’re still doing that, or should I be literally making dirty clothes every single night?”

The answer — for pajamas as well as other clothes — technically depends on personal aspects such as sweat level and lifestyle, though for many people other, more abstract factors may come into play, experts say.

Our beliefs about clothing hygiene are largely “societal and cultural,” said Dr. Anthony Rossi, an assistant attending dermatologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology. “People tend to over wash and ‘over hygiene’ themselves, because especially in America, we have a luxury of being able to do all that stuff all the time.”

Rewearing the same clothes — particularly on consecutive days — is “linked to avoiding decision fatigue, hence wearing the same clothes involves less decisions to make and less stress every morning,” said Manal Mohammed, senior lecturer of medical microbiology at the University of Westminster in London.

Not knowing when to wash your clothes can have consequences on both ends of the spectrum. Washing them too seldom could lead to skin problems or infections, and washing them too often could harm your clothing. The latter can also result in unnecessary laundry and use of resources.

Here are some guiding principles to help you determine when a garment can be worn again without washing and when it’s time to toss it in the hamper.

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There’s no hard and fast rule for how many times you can wear clothing again, but experts say there are a few types that should be washed after every use: underwear, socks, tights, leggings and activewear. This advice also applies to any other clothes with stains, sweat, odor or visible dirt, Mohammed said.

These kinds of clothes are “on a part of our body that just has a lot of natural bacteria that lives on our body, like our microbiome, (yeast) and bacteria,” Rossi said. “Then from day-to-day activities, we sweat. That just breeds moisture and an environment where this bacteria can overgrow.”

Bacteria overgrowth can lead to infections, fungus and other skin issues, he added.

In addition to bacteria from sweat, clothes worn in gyms or sports settings can come into contact with bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, resulting in infections common in community and hospital settings. Those infections can become serious if they enter internal tissues or the bloodstream.

Some people might let their workout clothes dry via air or a dryer, intending to make them safe to wear again the next day. But that approach makes the situation worse, Rossi said.

“Heat is going to make the bacteria grow. It’s not hot enough to sterilize them,” he said. “It’s really the washing with soap and water (that you need) — and with hot water, especially, because it’s going to help loosen that dirt and sebum and really get rid of bacteria.”

When it comes to why you shouldn’t wear socks again without washing first, “fungal infections on the feet and toes are just rampant,” said dermatologist Dr. Jeremy Fenton, medical director for Schweiger Dermatology Group in New York City and a clinical instructor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital. “Inside of our shoes is the perfect environment for breeding fungus. It’s warm, it’s humid, it’s dark.”

Because of that, you should wash your shoes or at least the insoles in a washing machine at least once per month, Rossi said.

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For pajamas, outerwear, jeans and other clothes, how many times you can wear them without washing is based on the same principles for undergarments or activewear.

“As far as your pants and your shirts, I think it’s all a level of comfort and how much you’re perspiring throughout the day,” Rossi said. “A lot of people wear undershirts. The undershirt would be something to wash, whereas your top shirt you don’t really need to wash.”

If you don’t wear underwear, you need to wash your clothing before wearing it again since it came into contact with your genital skin, Rossi said.

If you usually shower before bed, wear underwear and sweat little to none when wearing pajamas, you could wear them for a week without washing, experts said. But if you don’t do these things, you’d need to wash them every time.

Outerwear — such as coats or jackets — typically doesn’t need to be washed more than once a month since it doesn’t touch your skin, Rossi said. “If you’re wearing it every day, probably (wash it) every two weeks,” he suggested.

Whether and how often to wash jeans can be a hot topic, since many people want to maintain the integrity of the fabric, which is usually stiffer and more durable than others. If jeans aren’t sweaty, dirty or stained, they don’t have to be washed often, Rossi said. “I personally don’t wash my jeans,” he added.

Mohammed recommended washing jeans monthly but acknowledged it depends on your lifestyle and environment.

“If somebody were to tell me that they were wearing their jeans for months on end and not washing them and they hadn’t had any problems with their skin or problems with odor, I wouldn’t see any problem at all,” Fenton said.

The most important questions you should ask yourself, experts say, when considering whether to wear something again without washing are these: Does it smell? Do I have any skin conditions, such as eczema, a rash or a skin lesion? Is it visibly dirty? Is it sweaty? Did I wear underwear with this?

“The main point is that the answer is going to be very variable,” Fenton said.

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