Let’s talk about cold showers. Yep, they suck, but there appears to be so many benefits to them that it seems worth your while to do it. I heard about cold showers first while listening to the Order of Man podcast. Shortly after hearing about cold showers, cold therapy sort of became a big thing with Wim Hof coming on to the scene.
If you google “Cold Showers” you get “about 106,000,000” results. I spent weeks reading about cold showers before I ever decided to try one. I used to be one of those people who reads and reads but never bothers to take action. I knew it was going to be uncomfortable taking a cold shower and I think I delayed doing it for that reason, but I did it under the guise of not being convinced it’s going to make any difference. Research, research, research, instead of action.
So with all the reading that I did, instead of just taking cold showers to see if they made any difference, I picked out 4 reasons why I wanted to, and eventually did, try cold showers. Here are those 4 reasons
1. Increase Self-Discipline – the idea here was that if I could make myself get in to a cold shower every morning, then I could make myself do anything. It’s a good theory but I’ve found that it makes more sense to have a strong reason to do the things I want to do to improve myself, rather than forcing it.
2. Improved Circulation – Get that heart pumping. There are so many benefits to good circulation that there isn’t room to to list them all on in my little blog but let’s just say they range from health, to longevity, to sexual. There are really NO downsides to increasing your circulation… the next 2 points are both directly related to this one.
3. Increased Immunity – I’ve never been one of those “man flu” kind of guys. I rarely get sick, and when I do I just push through and live my life until I’m over it but increasing your immune system means not getting sick in the first place, and is something EVERYONE should really work towards. I can’t believe the number of people who are sick on a regular basis nowadays and I think the way we’re all living our lives has DRASTICALLY reduced our immunity and caused this problem… well, that and a lot of it is mental (which I could get in trouble for saying in this day and age.)
4. Increased Metabolism – Weight-loss. That’s it. Increased Metabolism helps with weight-loss because a higher metabolism means your body burns more fat while you’re just standing still, breathing. Which means if you’re moving hard or working out you’re burning more fat exponentially.
So what did I find after trying cold showers and did I keep it up?
Honestly I haven’t really found any benefits as far as the ones mentioned above. Maybe my circulation is better but I have no way of measuring it… Maybe my metabolism is better but I haven’t lost any weight (infact I’ve gained weight because I’m building muscle)
So what did I find then?
It’s refreshing. It wakes me up. I still do it, 5 mornings a week after my daily workout at 6am and I love it. I turn it on, I do a 1-2, 1-2 with my fists in to the stream to see just how cold it is, and then I jump directly in to the stream chest first, then bury my face in it. Turns out the health benefits of it have almost nothing to do with it for me, I just enjoy it.
So do I recommend it? I sure do. Most people hate it and don’t continue but there are a few of us weirdos out there who will benefit from it 🙂