To gain metabolic benefits from cold exposure, one must shiver, as resisting the shiver prevents succinate release and thus the increase in brown fat thermogenesis.

“The paper published in nature shows that it is shivering itself that causes the brown fat to increase your burning, your burn rate and your metabolism. And it works like this, when you get into cold and you shiver, the shivering that low level movement of the muscle, those small movements triggers the release of a molecule called succinate. S-U-C-C-I-N-A-T-E succinate. And succinate acts on the brown fat to increase brown fat thermogenesis and fat burning overall. It actually increases body heat through this brown fat thermogenesis pathway. And it also over time can increase the amount of brown fat by converting beige fat into true brown fat.”

“And when you do that, you no longer get the epinephrine, the adrenaline release from the cold and therefore you don't get the succinate release and the shivering and the brown fat thermogenic effect quite as intensely.”

“Remember if you resist the shiver, you are not going to get the increased metabolic effect, because you are not going to get the succinate release. So if you want to get your body heat, your thermogenic level to go up, you need to shiver.”

“because remember the shiver is the source of the succinate release that will trigger brown fat thermogenesis.”

“deliberate cold exposure that evokes shivering from the muscles causes the release of a molecule called succinate from the muscles and that succinate plays a key role in activating brown fat thermogenesis, which you now have heard about and understand as critical to the increases in metabolism caused by deliberate cold exposure.”