Cold Showers and Anxiety
8 months is what it took me to start to understand why cold showers are valuable to struggle through.
I often experience anxiety for certain event. Events that can be fun for most, can be terrifying for me. Social anxiety is what has held me back for most of my life. For some reason, I can just shut down with the thought of some social situations. Like a party where I knew a few people or a presentation for school or work. Even just going out for dinner has caused me to shut down. Another thing that scares me is failing. Combine those two and you have the perfect poison for me.
This is where the value of cold showers come into play. Cold showers are a safe playground to experience stress on a daily basis. After all those months I realized how anxiety and the cold are connected. When you are in a cold shower you can do one of three things: flight, fight or embrace it.
This is how the process went for me. In the first couple of weeks, I hated it and wanted to run away from them. I would stand under the shower for a couple of seconds and get out. With time this window of stress-exposure expanded naturally.
Then I started to fight it. I would tighten my muscles, started breathing heavily and went in there with a mindset of fighting the water. It worked, but the process wasn’t natural and took a lot of energy.
Finally, one day, something special happened. I stopped caring about the cold. I embraced it. I realized that you can’t fight the cold. You need to accept it.
A couple of months later I was able to use this concept of embracing the stress of an event I couldn’t control. It was the same stress that came from cold exposure. The same process I could apply to this feeling of shutting down.
It also showed me that some concepts can only be explained by experience. Some experiences can take months to be understood.
This article is part of my 168 series
Each week has 168 hours. I have the ability to choose to make the most out of these hours. However, I often regret how I spend my time. How can I give more to those things I value and less to those I don’t?
