7 Ways Cold-Showers Will Make You Mentally Strong
If there’s one habit that’ll help you develop mental strength fast, it’s taking cold showers. Each and every time I take a shower, I make sure I turn the shower all-the-way cold for at least one minute — and it makes me feel unstoppable every single time. That’s for a reason, as cold showers have many incredible benefits for your health and mental strength.
Honestly, the mental strength benefits are the primary reason why I take cold showers daily, even though the health benefits are great too. Because after you’ve conquered the cold water, you feel like you can conquer anything. No wonder why many high performers such as Tony Robbins, Aubrey Marcus and Wim Hof (of course) take cold showers daily.
So, let’s dive into the 7 biggest mental strength benefits that I’ve experienced from taking cold showers consistently for the past few months.
Mental Strenght Benefit #1: Increased Discipline
It’s not particularly fun as soon as the cold water hits your skin. Your mind will definitely try to convince you to get out. But by overriding this limiting voice, again and again, you’ll start to develop strong discipline — fast.
By continuously not taking the easy way out, you tell yourself that you are someone who does what’s necessary, whether you like it or not. You reinforce that you’re someone who gets the job done, even though you might not feel like it. This is what’ll build strong self-discipline very rapidly.
This increased self-discipline will become a very useful mental tool that’ll help you significantly in business, health and personal finance — areas where you’ll regularly have to do things that you don’t look forward to.
Mental Strenght Benefit #2: Become ‘Fearless’
In all honesty, there’s no such thing as being fearless. In fact, fear is an essential emotion necessary for survival. However, fear is also the single biggest limiting factor that keeps people from reaching their full potential and achieving their goals & dreams.
Almost all of us fear the cold water, especially when you’re just starting with this habit. We fear it because it makes us feel very uncomfortable, both physically and mentally. But as soon as you override your internal dialogue, step under the cold water, control your breath and silence your mind, you’ve conquered fear. You looked fear in the face and you gave it a clear no.
When you do this over and over again, you’ll start to develop the mental habit of overcoming fear. The stronger this habit becomes, the easier it’ll be for you to do intimidating things more often. Whether that’s public speaking, starting a new business venture, talking in front of the camera, making new investments, approaching a stranger or anything else you fear doing — it’ll become a lot easier.
Mental Strenght Benefit #3: Performing Under Stress
What happens as soon as the cold water hits your skin? Your mind will go crazy, telling you to go out of the shower right away. Your breath will feel uncontrollable as you’re gasping for air. And every muscle in your body will tense up. In other words, you’re under a lot of stress. (Good stress though.. The kind that’ll actually help you reduce chronic stress. But nevertheless, it’s still a stressful situation you’re in)
When you’re taking cold showers consistently, you’ll start to learn exactly how to navigate through stressful situations. Not only in cold water situations, but in any aspect of life. You’ll be trained to silence the chaos in your mind a lot quicker, control your breath and develop greater presence to solve the situation ahead. In fact, the people around you will think that you’re like some sort of James Bond 2.0 as you’re performing very well under stress
Keep in mind, every time you’re taking a cold shower, you’re literally strengthening the mental habit of performing well under stress. You never know when it’ll come handy.
Mental Strenght Benefit #4: Better Focus
As the cold water hits your skin, your mind starts to race and your breath will go crazy. So what do you have to do in order to gain back control? Focus. You must focus on controlling your breath and silencing your mind.
During your cold shower, you must be able to fight all the mental distractions that your mind will be throwing at you. You must maintain focus, because as soon as you lose focus, your mind will start to take over, telling you to get out.
So, when you’re taking cold showers consistently, you’ll start to be better able to focus. Not only during your cold shower but also during the rest of the day. You’ll be better able to fight distractions, decrease the mental clutter in your mind and simply focus on your tasks at hand.
Mental Strenght Benefit #5: You’ll Get Comfortable With The Uncomfortable
Cold showers are uncomfortable, to say the least. But by taking cold showers over and over again, you’ll start to develop a sense of comfort around them. You’ll start to get used to them a bit. In fact, I enjoy them quite a lot by this point in time.
Essentially, you’ve gotten comfortable with the uncomfortable — and that’s an incredible mental skill that’ll improve your entire life. Because let’s be honest, the comfort zone is not where growth and success manifest. It’s outside the comfort zone where all the fastest moments of growth, the biggest life improvements and the most fulfilling achievements can be found.
Cold showers will help you navigate the ‘uncomfortable’ a lot easier as it primed you to be more courageous. You’ll start to seek the uncomfortable instead of avoiding it. You’ll start to feel comfortable in the uncomfortable.
I can’t tell you enough: the best moments of my life came from stepping outside my comfort zone, no matter how scary it felt. But over time, it felt a lot more comfortable to go into the uncomfortable — and cold showers have definitely played a big part in this process.
Mental Strenght Benefit #6: Develop Presence
Taking cold showers will help you become much more present to the moment. And this, in turn, will make you feel mentally stronger. I believe that mental weakness is (mostly) caused by the negative internal voice that dominates our thinking. It’s that little voice that tells us we’re not good enough and that we might fail. It’s the little voice that’s holding us back in life. It’s the same one that tells us we don’t have to take a cold shower this time. When that voice dominates our thinking, it lowers our confidence & self-discipline, and it makes us more fearful (aka we’re mentally weaker).
However, by taking cold showers, you override, control and silence this negative internal voice. And when that is accomplished, you’ll find yourself in a state of no-thought — something which can also be achieved by meditation or yoga for example. In this space of no-thought, we’re fully present to the moment. In these moments, we’re able to see the situation as it really is, not as how our negative internal voice wants it to look like.
Personally, I’ve experienced that this state of presence is one of the keys to high performance in business and life in general. By being present instead of having my mind filled with (negative) thoughts, I’m able to perform much better in front of the camera for my videos, I have better social interactions and I simply feel happier and more in control over life.
Mental Strenght Benefit #7: Develop A ‘Just Do It’ Mindset (Mental Override)
Lastly, you’ll start to develop a strong ‘Just Do It’ mindset as you’re taking cold showers regularly. As you’re better able to override fear, perform under stress and have higher levels of self-discipline, you’ll start to grab life with both hands. You’ll jump on opportunities much quicker and you’ll be able to tackle challenges with greater impact. You’ll literally feel unstoppable.
When you conquer that cold water time and time again, you’ll feel like you can conquer anything. And that’s a very useful mindset to have if you want to succeed in life and business.
Now Do It
I truly hope that after reading this article you’re inspired and motivated to start taking your first cold shower. If you do so, let me know in the comments how it went and what benefits you’ve noticed during the day! Yes, it’ll be hard in the beginning, but it’s so worth it. Remember to control your breath and silence your mind. You’ll come out mentally stronger, ready to tackle your goals for the day.
To Your Personal Growth,
Jari Roomer
Founder Personal Growth Lab
Ps. Check out my YouTube Channel or the PGL website for weekly tips on money mastery, personal development and building an online business.
