Anemophobia - fear of drafts

I spent my senior year fearing the "Draft". I faced my apprehension and naively volunteered in the Army, spending the next 2 years in Hell, but came out of it alive and partially healthy. My point is not the Nam experience (that's a novel yet to be written), but how I conquered a REAL fear. I was on a Dresden Tram tonight and the temperature was a pleasant 14 Celsius. A few of the upper windows were open, allowing a fresh breeze into the smelly corridor. One of the passengers, a burly, middle-aged man, got up and slammed the window across his aisle, two seats behind him. He did this with such force that I thought surely the window had broken (it didn't). He sits down and after a minute he gets up again and slams the window shut on the opposite side. At this point, I observe that no one even blinks an eye and act as though this was a non-event. I'm standing there thinking 'only in Germany' can this happen with such approval. In the US, someone would have re-opened the window and he would have been deemed a 'psycho'. So, why is it that Germans fear a breeze or 'Draft' so much? I know this has been discussed in Toytown before, but it just astounds me that a culture that are such big fans of fresh air (sleeping with open windows in the middle of Winter and riding bikes everywhere) have such a fear of fresh, clean air? What are they afraid of - Colds? Colds are caused by viruses, not drafts. Are American doctors ignorant? Anyone else out there baffled by this strange behavior?

Matter of fact, I was sitting in the U-Bahn this week underneath an open window with the plexiglass divider behind me. There was a steady current of air rushing down past my ear and it was extremely unpleasant. I cursed and covered my ear but was glad when I could get out. No, I don't think that I will get a cold from sitting in a draft for nine minutes, but I can think of various people I would like to have sitting in that seat for a few hours.

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough...this was a TRAM (think short hops). The tram stops every 5 minutes or so and people come in, people get off, all in city speed. I can understand on a long haul, but that's not this case.

Draft is draft, no matter whence it comes and where it goes.

Then you have to decide if you have totally gone native or are just getting really old ...

I knew I had saw Mothers 'were right' over colds (BBC News) somewhere. So if a cold nose makes you more susceptible to the cold then I think drafts and chills can have an effect.

I'm really surprised that somehow people in Iceland and Siberia have managed to survive the test of cold air.
I leave the house with wet hair in the mornings and never get sick unless one of my boys, after being held hostage in a WARM room for hours on end, comes home and kisses me. I go out with my 5 month old baby and the wind blows and already people around me start telling me to take cover as if a bomb were about to land on our heads. Yet interestingly enough, as mentioned on another thread, some of these same people have no problems smoking with their kids in the same room. Hmmm?

exactly! The Germans have such a fear of all kinds of crap, its funny! It can be 30° in my room and the patient will come in and complain about the slightly tipped window allowing me some fresh air from their extreme body odor, is causing them a chill and they will die because of pneumonia. I look at them and say, then I will not tell you about my last winter trip to Helsinki, I did the sauna, got all sweaty, then ran 100 m to a hole in the ice and jumped in! And low and behold! I did not get sick, pnemonia, flu, cold or die! Its all in your sick little minds!
If you believe you will get sick, you will get sick. If you believe you will not, you will not! My friends that always get sick here are those that are germanized!

Der Teuf-I live in Dresden and I know exactly what you're talking about/ I wouldn't have dared to reopen that window!! The silence on the trams is creepy enough but when accompanied by the GOGS (Good Old German Stare) it is extremely unnerving. Draft/ schmaft- the germs come from everybody's breath being trapped in the tram because no one will open the windows!! It's even worse in the winter when the windows all fog up with the moist germy air.

Jesus I must be lucky because my german girlfriend opens every window in my flat whens she is over. Drives me nuts.

Its not a fear its a German gene, honest it is, really is honest

Fear of getting fired and losing one's health benefits is a strong incentive to not get sick.

That is clearly not operative here ... I have some employees who call in sick an average of one day a week. Lots are clearly one-day weekend extenders and/or cases of the six-pack flu which don't require a doctor's note. And I can't do anything about it.

Fifty two weeks, of which two are holidays and four are vacation leaves 46 weeks or 230 days available for work ... sicking out one day a week means another 20% paid vacation on my dime.

Maybe the current economic conditions will prove a miracle cure.

That is not a scientific link, that is a statistically insignificant observation with poor controls and self reporting hyperchondriacs.

A stupid study!




I am surprised this flawed study was even published.

Every thread that includes something like "It does not happens in [insert your country here]" is normally a waste of time.

Up until recently I worked in an office in Germany with several Germans where practically every day we had what I called Der Krieg der Fenster. I was all for fresh air, but we had one guy who was rather like an old woman, continually worried about getting an Erkaeltung, demanding that the window be shut etc. Really got on my nerves. The funny thing was another colleague who was a mountain climbing enthusiast always wanted the windows kept wide open, even on the coldest days in the depths of winter. So they would battle it out between them day after day.

I think this obsessive fear of air drafts you get in Germany is just one of those funny provincial customs that take hold in a particular region. And once its taken hold over time it becomes self-perpetuating and very hard to dislodge.

I really don't understand it myself. Germany has such extremes when it comes to weather yet the natives seem to have problems with the cold !!.

Just take today for example. I went for a short walk to get some money from the atm and the amount of people I seen in winter coats and scarf's really shocked me. To make it even worse I got strange looks for wearing just a shirt

Perhaps no-one told them its 18 degrees out !!, not minus 10.

Yep, I went out in my tank top and flip flops this morning to discuss car port building, and the [German, in winter coat] guy was shocked. He asked if I was Norwegian.

The thing is, it is not a "German" thing. I'm trying to avoid making sweeping generalizations (except for the staring habit). This same weird phenomenon happened in Mexico as well, where children are practically mummified if temps fall to 18° C. Then you also see people out in down ski jackets. The weird thing is, the Germans would complain about the weird habits of the Mexicans for being afraid of fresh air - go figure. When my mom came to visit us (she's American) it was 18° C every day and she had a slight case of pneumonia and blamed it on the "cold" weather (she lives in Las Vegas). Funny but she always says that it is not healthy being in cold weather but never shies away from Las Vegas buffets. I wonder which is unhealthier.

Perhaps he closed the window because it was a "pleasant" 14 degrees. 14 degrees is not pleasant.

A continuous draft can cause muscle cramp though, ever been in a car with the window slightly down for a long time? Neck cramps the next day for sure.

only some people seem to be affected by this. wierdos.

Have you ever heard of Aberglaube? Oder Glaube kann Berge versetzen?

Pretty difficult sometime to convince people of facts when they 'believe' something else.
My wife spends winters in southern Mexico and she remarked too that they are bundling up.This feeling cold is also noticeble in Hawaii where the locals think the Canadians are crazy to swim when they are staying out of the water when the air temperature is below 70 degree fahrenheit which does not happen very often.

Try a Spanish resort in winter - it's sometimes 20° and the British, Dutch and German expats and holidaymakers are all in shorts and t-shirts. The locals, however, go out on their afternoon paseo in bloody fur coats.

This couldn't be evolution live, proving Darwin correct? It might be worthwhile comparing the average body fat of mid-Europeans with that of, for example, Cancunians.

The annoying prick sitting across me, wanted the windows sealed shut because he thought he was getting a cold and the draft is gonna make it worse. I asked him to move to a different room if he had a problem and opened the window. Annoying bastard, only a matter of time before i punch him on his face!

He aint German, he is latvian though.

My first car had 4x60 AC and I drove all over the states with it. Not a single neck cramp! Well, not from anything that didn't involve making out for long periods of time. Stupid bucket seats!