The Power of A Cold Shower
An instant technique to improve the quality of your life.
For the past 24 hours, I lay enveloped in a warm fleece blanket, hoping to replenish the warmth lost from a fallen relationship. My once reason to leap out of bed had suddenly disappeared into thin air and I was left with a painful ordeal: moving on.
After grudgingly managing to step into the shower, I faced a critical decision: Should I flood my body with warmth or be indifferent to the lack of it?
Looking back, that choice to tremble in the cold not only helped me get on with the day but opened me up to a supremely beneficial practice.
Before modern science uncovered the plethora of benefits offered by cold showers, the ancient stoics recognized its power in emotional healing. The philosophy of Stoicism is a potent remedy to dealing with negative emotions(more on this, here).
Scientifically Proven Benefits:
- Helps lose fat
Exposure to cold activates the body’s response to generating heat. This is the same response activated when you work out. This helps burn calories.
2. Improves Immunity
The trigger of a high metabolic rate during a cold shower increases the production of our white blood cells — the powerhouse of our immune system.
3. Faster muscle recovery
Exposing muscles to the cold reduces inflammation, aiding recovery.
Other speculative benefits:
- Improves Sleep
2. Improves Skin and Hair
3. Increases testosterone levels.
Emotional benefits I personally experienced:
- By instantly rinsing the laziness off your body and sharpening your mind, a cold shower acts as a powerful cue to start the day productively. Also, willingly stepping into a cascade of shivering cold right after leaving the warmth of your bed requires some serious will power, setting you up nicely for the day. I naturally feel inclined to work out after a cold shower.
- Most of us greatly overestimate what we think we need versus what we actually need. Cold showers help shatter our‘heightened’ aversion to discomfort.
- Feeling your body adapt to the cold makes you realize how strong you are. This realization can help us overcome fluctuations in motivation.
- Once we can tame the mind’s tendency to detest, our emotional state stabilizes for it’s no longer tightly grasped by external stimuli. Cold showers help provide a glimpse into inner fulfillment that is unperturbed by the noise of the outside world. I’m not saying cold showers will drive all your problems away. But it is definitely a key technique if you want to develop a calmer mind.
- Lastly, if you practice meditation, colds showers will complement your practice.
If you are beginner mediator, a cold shower will help you overcome the initial feeling of resistance before you sit to mediate. This resistance being similar to the one faced before stepping into a cold shower grows weaker the more you expose it.
If you have been mediating for a while, cold showers can help immerse you into a meditative state and set you up for a session.
The only thing standing in your way to experiencing these amazing benefits is that first step. It’s one goddamn hard step, though. Slowly building from mild to cold water might help make it easier.
But remember this: You are always a step away from changing your life. All that matters is the direction you take. In my experience, it’s always the more daunting direction that leads you closer to the right place.