Someone made a study, according to which listening to audio books has almost all of the benefits of reading, but only if you concentrate on it as you would to reading a book - multitasking easily takes your mind partly or totally off it.

Our sense of perception of heat is "hard-wired" to warn us about an environment that's going to suck out our body heat (unpleasant feeling --> avoid when possible), but not to warn us about drinking cold water, as it would have been a bad idea to skip an opportunity to rehydrate when water is available.