Cold Shower Meditation: An Amateur’s Experience and Takeaway

Isaak Hyde
Aug 31, 2018 · 4 min read
Jeff Finley on Unsplash

Today, after finishing taking my normal shower, I decided to play a “game” of sorts to challenge myself. I also simply wanted to pass the time in an engaging way until my bathroom mirror de-fogged itself. So I had the idea of sitting down in the bathtub and using meditation to resist the negative stimuli of a cold shower. Whenever it would stop being challenging, I would make the water just a bit colder.

Now to be clear, I don’t get anything out of pain or suffering in its own right- for me the allure comes from overcoming the sensation. And so as the water gradually got more and more difficult to resist, I had to adapt in a different way. Willpower is a finite thing, and as much as we might like to think we’ll just tune unpleasant things out or endure them, when they come, that’s much easier said than done.

Upon reaching my final “level”, I found it hard to so much as breathe correctly from the initial shock. Additionally having my natural rhythm thrown off like that made it proportionally harder to resist bailing on the experiment. But then, that was largely the point of the exercise; how will I adapt when thinking fails?

After overcoming the level which I felt was the coldest I could handle, I realized that there were three things that made it possible to adapt:

  1. Breathing at a certain rhythm (counting the seconds it took to breathe as well as feeling my stomach move with the inhale and exhale)
  2. As time went on, my body would gradually adjust to the temperature until it felt warmer
  3. Expending willpower to resist my natural inclination to move
Igor Rodrigues on Unsplash

These three things also, upon reflection, seemed to apply to difficult situations in general; focusing on your breathing in difficult situations is an approach recommended by many groups, from monks to special forces operatives. And while this does get progressively more difficult as the stimulus grows stronger, it is ultimately just a matter of building up your ability to concentrate.

The passage of time as a “medicine” isn’t anything new; from lost relationships to lost limbs and lives, the human mind and body simply adapts to things given the time to do so. This also goes for forms of sensory deprivation such as loss of hearing or vision. It takes a bit of the fantastic out of thinking we’ll forever feel or think a certain way, but also works in our favor when things at first seem unbearable. Give it time and it often fades.

And finally, expending willpower to resist engaging in what is almost a knee-jerk reaction is quite beneficial in our daily lives. Since we often feel like doing plenty of things throughout the day that would, shall we say, not be positively received by others. The resistance to acting impulsively under duress from wet and cold is a good tempering experience for other situations that can be just as abrupt and continuously unpleasant.

All in all, meditating beneath a cold shower is a way to switch up the experience from simply sitting in a straight-backed chair and trying not to think, as well as providing and encapsulating certain truths and approaches that can be applied to other things in life.

Pietro Jeng on Unsplash

I find that being able to learn a larger- macro -lesson from an isolated- micro -experience is quite beneficial, as it gives you an inherent level of experience in many areas of life that may go unappreciated, but are still entirely relevant. The terms “soft skills” and“hard skills” come to mind, where hard skills may be what you obviously need to do a job (an athlete being good at their sport; a lawyer with a robust knowledge of cases and laws) but soft skills (perseverance; flexible mind) can be applied to a variety of pursuits. And so focusing on your breathing, letting time help you adapt, and utilizing willpower to resist impulsive responses is learned in a safe situation, yet remains applicable to many experiences in your life.

So long as you can do so comfortably (meaning sit down and stand, as well as without experiencing health issues), I recommend trying this out. You don’t need to do it at a certain temperature and for a certain length of time or anything like that. It’s not an exercise routine. Go as cold as you want for as long as you want. And try to push yourself to some degree. (get it? Degree? Temperature?)

Plus, your vanity mirror won’t be so foggy once you’re done. That’s something a bit more concrete to look forward to.

Tomorrow Today

Isaak Hyde

Written by

Independent musician (ISAAK) and freelance writer. Novels, screenplays, articles… I'm building myself and my audience so that my art can become self-sustaining.

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