Cold Showers- A Story of East Meets West?

Ice baths. We have all seen them, those athletes who slide sadistically into a metal bath filled to the brim. The water sloshes, the athlete shivers, and we shiver in sympathy.

So why would anybody submit themselves to this experience? Surely, for somebody to commit such an act of self-flagellation, there must be some benefits?

Well, of course there are, many in fact. A quick google search reveals some of the common suspects –

• Improves Immunity & Circulation
• Improves Hair and Skin Condition
• Increase Alertness (Keep your mind on this one)
• Eases Stress & Depression
• Speeds Up Muscle Soreness and Recovery

Just look at him. Doesn’t he look happy?

Now these all sound great, but when I am butt-naked and shivering before the shower in the morning, it just seems easier to do it another day.

Now this is a problem for me - because I really want those benefits. So, I sat down and pondered: how do I force myself to do this? How do I toughen up?

And then-completely at random-something fantastic happened: My mum gave me a book: And I actually read it.

Cave In The Snow is a book about Tenzin Palmo, born Vicki Mackenzie, who back in 1964 at the age of twenty moved from England to India, to commit her life to Buddhism (And to later spend 12 years living in isolation inside a mountain cave).

While living in the hills of Dalhousie in Northern India, she taught English to Tibetan refugees and their children, while also pursuing her own spiritual enlightenment.

Now, as great as her story is, I found my attention grabbed mostly by the appearance of these Tibetan monks, and their spiritually profound approach to life.

These Tibetans have passed down through their culture for thousands of years methods of practice to develop the self. To us, they seem superhuman.

And one practice stands above them all:

Look at this image, and tell me what you see. Men, sat cross-legged in the snow on what appears to be a mountain, correct? Thankfully, they have those blankets to keep themselves warm, right? Well, those blankets are not actually designed to keep the monks warm. It’s the other way around. Look to the left of the photo and you will those same blankets being plunged into a metal bucket full of water. The monks drape themselves in these blankets and remain seated until they have dried them using only the power of their own body heat.

This is the practice of Tummo- which translates into “Inner Fire”- the ability to measurably raise your body temperature so sharply that steam can actually be seen rising from the practitioner. It might sound like some hippy gobblygook, but in a real event that sounds completely made up, Tibetan monks were actually measured while conducting this practice, at a place called Harvard University. You might have heard of it.

Now, meet the boffin who oversaw these experiments, Doctor Herbert Benson

One look, and you already know he is smart.

For over 20 years this associate professor of medicine conducted research into the beneficial effects of this practice, and found himself to be an ardent believer in its benefits. He saw the potential in using this method to reduce stress, and coined the term “the relaxation response”. I think you can see where I am going from here.

Now, obviously this is extreme, and you should definitely not begin taking your clothes off right this moment. But this practice and its benefits recently relit my interest in the benefits of cold exposure, and so, newly motivated, I waited for the coming morning.

I woke at dawn, and immediately walked my cold and achy joints downstairs and outside. I planted myself before my swimming pool and glared at it, almost daring it to make the first move. I waged an inner battle for some time, a battle that I seemed to be losing, until suddenly I remembered that I was stood outside in nothing but my underwear, and I had better jump in before the neighbors called the police.

I threw myself into the water, and it was freezing. I felt my heart abruptly slow, and every pore in my body snap shut. But after just a few frenzied seconds the pain faded and was replaced by a calm focus; I allowed myself to sink to the bottom of the pool and sat cross-legged, momentarily content to just float about and observe how different the world appears from underwater. The beautiful silence.

Once my lungs failed, I marched to the shallow end of the pool and draped my arms over its side. All worries of the coming day were gone, they had fled the moment I hit the water. It was as if these small, nagging stresses had been chased off by one sudden and bigger stressor. I knew with certainty that I was going to have a great day. How could I not, after starting off so strongly.

I remained for a few more minutes, contemplatively watching my icy breath float away on the breeze. I no longer cared what the people next door thought of their wacky neighbor, and for the first time in years, I felt truly awake.

I clambered out of the pool, dried, and threw on all of my warmest clothes. Then, riding a wave of focus and euphoria that I had not felt in years, I plonked myself down and in a half-frenzy wrote this article, desperate to express the way it made me feel before the ideas left me.

I had never before felt this productive. In fact, for the past few years I had been followed around by a constant sluggishness that made me suspect something must be wrong with my sleep, or maybe even just with myself as a whole. I never woke up full of energy, and this feeling would stalk me throughout the day. More than anything this experience taught me that maybe my sleep is just fine, maybe what I was missing all along was a better way of waking up.

So, this is where I am now: sat before my laptop at 9:45 in the morning, on my third day straight of my morning cold exposure and productivity, completely sold on the practice of periodically freezing your butt off and kicking myself for not having started sooner.

So, lets assume my middling ability to convey ideas has managed to persuade you, and you are willing to give it a try. How to begin?

Well, as always, the best way to start is to start small. Most of us own a shower, so the next time you are beneath it just look for that fiddly little thing we call a handle, and set the water to lukewarm. Then, slowly begin to drop the temperature to a level you can tolerate. Then, you can either close your eyes and hum, take deep breathes, or raise your arms overhead and growl like a lunatic. I find myself doing all of them, but it does not matter. What does matter is that you are under the water, so you are doing it right just by turning up.

And that is basically it. Just turn up, (ideally in the morning, but any hour works), and get yourself some cold. An ice bath, cold shower, or even just sitting outside in the early morning. Its an instant focus booster.

Now, please be sensible with this. Start slow and easy, then increase the intensity and duration. Listen to your body. And for my sake, if you are an old person with sky-high blood pressure, please don’t throw yourself into the nearest glacial water, and then have your grieving relatives sue me. Sincerely, somebody who does not want to be sued.

If you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it, or thought it was useful in any way, then I am happy that you are happy. If you hated it and believe me to be a menace to society, feel free to yell at me in the comment section below.

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