Life Experiment #13: Take Cold Showers For 30 Days
Sikhs doing Ishnaan Seva in the evening on the marble walkway which surrounds the Golden Temple. | Photo Credits: Gurumustuk Singh (Flickr Creative Commons)
The Indians call it ishnaan or hydrotherapy which is the practice of immersing yourself in sacred pools of cold water first thing in the morning. To them it’s considered your first battle of the day. A time when you muster all your courage to do something challenging to set the tone for the rest of your day.
Most westerners, like myself, think of cold showers as what you do to recover from a rough night of drinking or to tame those unsatisfied sexual desires. Looking into it, I’ve found that cold showers can do more than calm the heart or give you courage…it can do positive things like increase circulation, immunity, fertility, energy and even give you healthy shiny hair. So for the next 30 days I’ll be trying out what it’s like to take a cold shower everyday.
The Problem With Hot Showers
The problem with tap water is the chlorine used to treat the water when it comes to your home. At room temperature it may be harmless, but at a scolding 109-120+ degrees Fahrenheit the water produces a highly-concentrated chorine vapor that we in turn breathe in during our showers.
Dr. Lance Wallace of the Environmental Protection Agency said that “Showering is suspected as the primary cause of elevated levels of chloroform in nearly every home because of the chlorine in the water. Chloroform [a known carcinogen] levels increase up to 100 times during a 10-minute shower in residential water.” And I’ve always heard from various sources that pregnant women should take hot showers because there’s a potential harm to the baby. So what about our own bodies?
The Way Water Temperature Changes Your Blood Flow
Most of us choose to take a warm shower. When that warm water hits your skin it causes your blood to flow inward towards your organs. If you’ve been sleeping all night, then most of your blood is already circulating around these organs as you sleep. Who likes to be cold when they sleep?
The reason most of us don’t feel like getting out of the shower in the morning is the warm blanket of the water maintains this feeling. Cold water does the opposite. It pulls blood from inside our bodies to the little capillaries on the outside of the skins as defense to keep the body’s core temperature warm. The rest of blood throughout our bodies is what causes to get that sudden shock of iciness when we jump into a cold shower.
Seven Ways Cold Showers Can Make You Healthier
Improves Circulation
As I already mentioned above, cold warm can cause your blood to begin rapidly circulating blood to the outside of your body. Most of the time we’re trying to keep our bodies warm, but showering gives us a quick jolt circulation by trying to stay warm.
Relieves Depression
Research at the Department of Radiation Oncology at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine indicates that short cold showers could stimulate the brain’s primary source of noradrenalin, a chemical that could help mitigate depression.
Increases Fertility
The University of California at San Francisco did a study with men who were exposed to 30 minutes of “wet heat” (hot baths) a week. When the men cut this exposure out, their sperm count went up by 491%, and their sperm’s motility improved as well. Great news for anyone trying to conceive.
Strengthens Immunity
A study done in 1993 by the Thrombosis Research Institute in England, people who took daily cold showers saw an increase in the number of virus fighting white blood cells compared to individuals who took hot showers. This is caused by an increase in metabolism when the body attempts to warm itself.
Improves Your Skin
Acne has always been a big struggle for me, but one treatment I’ve always found effective is using ice packs on my face. The cold packs reduce the inflation and swelling caused by acne. It also increases circulation near the skin on the face, which can have an effect on reducing acne and eczema. Cold showers can have the same effect.
My Process For Showering
To ease into it, I going to start off on warm mild water then gradually ease into colder and colder water until it’s as cold as my shower will goal. My prediction is the temperature will get easier to bear as I do it more. I hoping that this experiment will improve my shower habit overall and wake me up more in the morning…I wouldn’t mind all those benefits I mentioned earlier too. We’ll see how it goes.
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Reader Comments
Mr. Experimenter, I’m gonna join you on your thirty day trials. I like the idea of this cold shower thing so I’m gonna give it a shot too. I’ve shown the idea to some of my friends and we’ve been challenging each other. my last is a 30 day no drinking challenge I’ll give you some info about later on.
Regardless,
Thank you for this simple yet great idea