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I'm looking for a word that illustrates this particular action. Like, you know how you kind of hunch your shoulder to avoid the cold in winter. Especially if you are wearing a scarf and you just maybe shrink(?) more into it to avoid as much wind as possible. I don't really know how else to describe it, but I think we all do it unconsciously at some points.
I try to search words that I think may be correct but none of them even sound appropriate and right.
You already described it well - the person hunched their shoulders, shrunk into themselves, bowed their head, tightened their body, and braced themselves gingerly against the cold.
There is probably no specific verb for “tensing the body in the face of exposure to the cold” but you can describe it in physical and mental terms, which you did.
The first word I thought of was huddled:
1a : to gather in a close-packed group.
They huddled around the campfire.
b : to curl up : CROUCH.
Students huddled over their desks.
An example from a travel article in Tatler
Stockholm in winter: a cold wind whips around the streets, cajoling people huddled in coats to move briskly along the broad pavements.
And here is an image described as "man huddled outside cold"
