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Comment by sdwr | Hacker News Reader

I believe the logic is to heat gently through friction, and to promote blood circulation through manipulation.

Warming up cold body parts is painful, so maybe it's about distracting from the pain as well.

Yeah it's extremely painful. I jumped into a frozen lake years ago and ran to a shower afterwards. Turned on the water, just slightly warm and it felt like my fingers and toes got smashed by a hammer.

Some spas have this if you’d like to mimic it mildly. Aire in London has a very cool pool from which you can go to a very hot pool. I really enjoy the pins and needles effect.

A friend was a Vietnamese POW. The first torture done was to tourniquet his upper arms until they colored to black and then loose the bindings (repeatedly).

Returning circulation is much more brutal than it might sound.

ok that is terrible, but note that gently slowing circulation to arms or legs and then returning circulation is a simple theraputic action that has been used for millennia

Trying to understand the relevance of this comment

It was all a big misunderstanding.

What, the Vietnam war?

what in the world

That story reminds me of the Stockdale Paradox:

https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/Stockdale-Concept.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale

Whe sometimes I sleep on my one of my arms and they go numb, when I reposition and I start to feel it it comes with immediate and excruciate pain that luckily dies in intensity after a few moments. I wonder if this is just compressed nerves or it’s the blood supply that was cut off.

Is this an extreme version of the "pins and needles" phenomenon (paresthesia)?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paresthesia

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