Thermoregulation in women works differently than in men
Almost every woman who has ever worked in an open-plan office knows the feeling: while the colleague next to her contentedly takes off his jacket and sets a fan on his desk, she pulls her cardigan over her shoulders and quietly wonders whether it would be strange to bring a blanket to work. This isn't oversensitivity or a matter of psychology – real biology and decades of ignored scientific research lie behind this everyday phenomenon.
Differences in how men and women perceive temperature are well documented. Yet air conditioning systems in offices around the world are still set according to standards developed in the 1960s, which were based exclusively on the metabolism of an average forty-year-old man weighing approximately seventy kilograms. Women simply weren't part of those equations. As a result, millions of women sit in their offices every day battling cold that their colleagues don't even notice.
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How thermoregulation works and why sex matters
The human body is a perfect thermostat. The brain continuously monitors body temperature and adjusts it as needed – dilating or constricting blood vessels, triggering sweating or, conversely, muscle shivering. This process is called thermoregulation, and it works slightly differently in every person. Between women and men, there are systematic differences with deeply rooted physiological causes.
The basal metabolic rate – meaning the amount of energy the body burns at rest – is on average 20 to 30 percent higher in men than in women. Men generally have more muscle mass, and because muscles are metabolically very active tissue, they produce more heat. Women, by contrast, have a higher proportion of fatty tissue, which insulates heat better but doesn't produce much of it on its own. The result is that the female body simply generates less of its own heat, making it more susceptible to feeling cold in air-conditioned spaces.
There is also a lesser-known factor at play: blood flow to the extremities. The female body tends to prioritise blood supply to vital organs – the heart, brain, and lungs – in cooler environments, and to reduce blood flow to the hands and feet. This is why women so often suffer from cold hands in the office, even when the room temperature seems acceptable. This mechanism is evolutionarily advantageous for survival, but in a modern office with the air conditioning set to eighteen degrees, it causes chronic discomfort.
The hormonal cycle also plays a significant role in all of this. Research shows that women's perception of temperature changes depending on the phase of the menstrual cycle. In the luteal phase – the second half of the cycle after ovulation – basal body temperature rises by approximately half a degree Celsius, while the threshold for sensing heat and cold shifts. Women in menopause, meanwhile, experience the opposite extreme: hot flushes alternating with chills, which can be particularly unpleasant in an air-conditioned office.
An interesting perspective comes from a study published in the academic journal Nature Climate Change, which directly highlighted that standards for office air conditioning are systematically set in favour of men. The study's authors, Boris Kingma and Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt from Maastricht University, pointed out that the optimal temperature for the female metabolism is approximately 2.5 degrees higher than for the male metabolism. In practice, this means that if an office thermostat is set to 21 degrees Celsius, men are comfortable while their female colleagues would need closer to 23.5 degrees.
Office air conditioning as a gender issue
It would be easy to dismiss the whole thing as a minor inconvenience, but the effects are actually more serious. Chronic cold reduces productivity, concentration, and physical wellbeing. A Cornell University study found that raising office temperature from 20 to 25 degrees Celsius reduced typing errors by 44 percent and increased overall productivity by 150 percent. Thermal comfort is therefore not merely a question of convenience – it directly affects performance.
Consider a real-world example: Markéta works as a project manager at a Prague technology company. Every summer she brings an extra cardigan to work, wears warm socks, and keeps a small electric heater on her desk. Her colleague Martin sits two metres away and regularly comes to work in a T-shirt during summer. Both work in the same room, both are professionals – yet they experience completely different environments. Markéta estimates that thinking about how to warm up costs her a non-trivial amount of mental energy every day.
This story is not an exception. A survey by the British organisation TUC (Trades Union Congress) found that approximately half of working women regularly experience discomfort in the office caused by excessive cold. Yet the energy costs of over-cooling office buildings are enormous – it is estimated that offices in the United States spend over 10 billion dollars annually on unnecessary cooling to temperatures lower than most workers find comfortable.
The problem also has an environmental dimension. Excessive building cooling is energy-intensive and needlessly increases companies' carbon footprints. From a sustainability perspective, raising thermostat settings by one or two degrees could significantly reduce energy consumption without any impact on the comfort of the majority of employees. As German physicist Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker once noted: "Efficiency doesn't mean less – it means more with less." This applies equally to air conditioning.
What you can do – as an individual and as a company
Changing the settings of an entire office building is not always within an individual's power, but there are ways to improve the situation – whether through a personal approach or company culture.
On a personal level, layering clothing helps. Natural materials such as merino wool or organic cotton regulate body temperature more naturally than synthetics – they retain warmth without overheating during movement. Functional merino wool vests worn under a shirt, or a jumper made from recycled fibres, are unobtrusive but effective solutions. Warm socks and closed shoes deserve a mention of their own, because the body loses heat through the feet faster than most people realise.
Hydration and diet also matter. Hot drinks – whether herbal tea or hot water with lemon – help maintain body temperature from the inside. Regular movement breaks, such as a short walk down the corridor or some stretching, kick-start muscle metabolism and naturally warm the body. Meals rich in protein and healthy fats support metabolism and help the body produce more heat.
At the company level, open communication is key. Employers and facility managers should take thermal comfort seriously as part of overall workplace wellbeing. Flexible air conditioning settings across different office zones, the option to use personal heaters, or natural ventilation instead of mechanical cooling – these are all measures that require no major investment but can significantly improve the environment for everyone.
A number of progressive companies in Northern Europe and Japan have already switched to so-called zoned air conditioning, where employees in different parts of the office can set the temperature according to their own needs. The results are unambiguous: employee satisfaction increases, sick days decrease, and productivity improves. This is not a utopia – it is a practical solution to a problem that has been overlooked for decades.
It is worth noting that the topic of thermal comfort in the workplace is beginning to enter the broader discussion about inclusivity and diversity in the working environment. Just as companies are learning to adapt workplaces for people with different physical needs, they should also take into account the physiological differences between the sexes. An office that systematically over-cools the majority of its female employees is not a neutral environment – it is an environment designed around one very specific type of person.
There are also natural ways to support your own thermoregulation over the long term. Regular exercise and building muscle mass increase basal metabolism and help the body produce more heat. Adaptogenic herbs such as ashwagandha or ginseng are used in traditional medicine to improve resilience to stress and temperature fluctuations, although the scientific evidence in this area remains mixed. Quality sleep and a balanced diet rich in iron – a deficiency that is very common in women and directly worsens the sensation of cold – are the foundations of good thermoregulation.
The whole problem of office cold actually reflects a broader issue: how public and working spaces are designed with regard to the diversity of the people who inhabit them. Standards from the 1960s have long since ceased to reflect the reality of modern workplaces, where women make up nearly half of the workforce. Science clearly states that thermoregulation in women works differently from that in men – and it is long past time for office thermostats around the world to reflect this. The next time you reach for your cardigan at work while the colleague next to you simultaneously removes their jacket, know that it is not a matter of your sensitivity. It is a matter of physics, biology, and a system that simply never took you into account.
