If you have the chills, the fastest relief comes from warming your body: layer on blankets, put on warm clothes, and drink something hot. Chills are your body’s way of generating heat through rapid muscle contractions, and in most cases they pass on their own once you warm up or your fever breaks. But what you do next depends on whether your chills come with a fever, how high that fever is, and whether you notice any warning signs that something more serious is going on.
Why Your Body Shivers
Chills happen when a temperature-control center deep in your brain decides your body needs to be warmer. It sends signals to your muscles telling them to contract rapidly and repeatedly. That involuntary shaking is shivering, and it produces heat the same way exercise does. Your brain triggers this response in two situations: when you’re exposed to cold, and when you’re fighting an infection. During an infection, your brain deliberately raises your body’s target temperature to create a fever, and shivering is how it gets there. That’s why you can feel freezing cold even when your actual body temperature is climbing.
Immediate Steps for Relief
Start with layers. Blankets, warm socks, a sweatshirt. Layers work better than one heavy coat because you can peel them off as you warm up. Getting too hot and sweating can actually backfire, since sweat cooling on your skin can drop your body temperature too low and trigger another round of chills.
Drink something warm. Hot tea, coffee, broth, or hot chocolate all raise your internal body temperature from the inside. This is also a good opportunity to stay hydrated, which matters especially if you have a fever. Fever increases fluid loss through sweat and faster breathing, so keep sipping even after the chills subside. Water, diluted juice, and electrolyte drinks all count.
Adjust your environment. Turn up the thermostat, close windows, or move to a warmer room. If you’re outdoors, get inside. These seem obvious, but when you’re shivering and foggy, it helps to think through the basics.
When Chills Come With a Fever
Take your temperature. For adults, a reading of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher taken by mouth counts as a moderate fever. If you’re using a forehead thermometer, expect readings about 0.5 to 1°F lower than an oral thermometer, so adjust accordingly. A fever of 104°F (40°C) or higher is considered high and needs prompt attention.
Over-the-counter fever reducers like acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) can bring down a fever and ease the chills that come with it. Follow the dosing instructions on the package. Ibuprofen tends to keep a fever down slightly longer than acetaminophen, but both are effective. Don’t take both at once unless a healthcare provider has told you to alternate them on a specific schedule.
Rest matters more than you think. Your body is spending real energy on that immune response. Lying down under warm covers, staying hydrated, and letting yourself sleep is genuinely productive, not lazy.
Chills Without a Fever
Not all chills mean you’re sick. Cold exposure is the most straightforward cause: your brain detects that your skin temperature has dropped and fires up the shivering response. This is normal and stops once you warm up. Low blood sugar can also trigger chills, especially if you haven’t eaten in a while or you’ve been exercising hard. A snack or a sugary drink usually resolves it quickly.
Intense physical exertion sometimes causes chills afterward, particularly if you’ve been sweating in cool air. Your wet skin loses heat fast, and your body overcompensates with shivering. Changing into dry clothes and warming up fixes it. Emotional stress, anxiety, and sleep deprivation can also bring on chills without any change in body temperature. If you keep getting unexplained chills with no clear trigger, conditions like thyroid problems or anemia could be involved, and a blood test can sort that out.
What to Watch for in Children
Children handle chills differently than adults, and one piece of advice flips entirely for kids with fevers: do not bundle them up in extra blankets. In adults, layering helps with comfort. In children, piling on covers can trap heat and push a fever higher. Dress a feverish child in light, comfortable clothing and use a single light blanket if they’re shivering.
Temperature thresholds for concern are lower and more specific in kids. A baby under 3 months old with a rectal temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher needs medical evaluation right away, even if the baby seems fine otherwise. For infants 3 to 12 months, a fever of 102.2°F (39°C) or above is the threshold. For children under 2, any fever lasting more than 48 hours warrants a call to the pediatrician, and any child with a temperature above 105°F (40.5°C) needs prompt care.
Febrile seizures (brief convulsions triggered by a rapid rise in temperature) can happen in young children during a fever. They look frightening, but most are over within a minute or two and don’t cause lasting harm or mean your child has epilepsy. If one happens, lay the child on their side, don’t put anything in their mouth, and time the episode. Call your pediatrician afterward.
Signs That Need Urgent Attention
Most chills resolve with warmth, fluids, and time. But certain combinations of symptoms point to something more dangerous, particularly sepsis, which is the body’s overwhelming response to an infection. Watch for confusion or a sudden change in mental clarity, fast and shallow breathing, sweating for no clear reason, feeling lightheaded, or extreme sleepiness where you can’t stay awake. If chills come with any of these symptoms, that’s an emergency.
A fever above 104°F (40°C) that doesn’t come down with fever-reducing medication also needs urgent care. The same goes for chills that keep returning over several days alongside worsening symptoms like a spreading rash, increasing pain, or a wound that looks red and swollen. Infections that aren’t improving on their own can escalate, and earlier treatment consistently leads to better outcomes.
Cold Exposure and Hypothermia
If your chills started after being outside in cold weather, pay attention to whether the shivering stops on its own before you’ve actually warmed up. Shivering is a good sign. It means your body is still actively generating heat and your core temperature is likely above 95°F (35°C). At that stage, getting inside, changing into dry clothes, and drinking warm fluids is usually enough.
The danger point is when shivering stops but you’re still cold. That can happen when core temperature drops below roughly 86°F (30°C), though it varies. At that point, the body has essentially exhausted its ability to warm itself. Confusion, slurred speech, clumsiness, and drowsiness are warning signs of worsening hypothermia. If someone has stopped shivering and is acting confused or unusually sleepy after cold exposure, they need emergency help immediately.