Cold Showers
 

I recently heard about intentionally taking cold showers for improved quality of life on Melissa Urban's Do the Thing Podcast. Have you guys heard of this? Apparently, it's a thing.

Personally, I have always avoided cold showers as much as possible, because I have a strong desire to ALWAYS be comfortable.

But in this podcast, she says that putting yourself in a stressful situation and then controlling that situation by refusing to be stressed helps your body deal with stress better in other situations. It improves mental health & helps with anxiety, according to the research.

I've been trying it for the last couple of weeks, (though to be fair, my showers are more "not warm" than actually "cold" due to my location on the equator) and I definitely feel better. The key is to play music and sing while you're subjecting your body to the cold, so it could just be that singing in the shower is what's really making me feel better. :D

Anyway, I thought I'd pop in here and see if anyone else has heard about this & share it with those that haven't.

Kellie, I've definitely heard this, but have never actually (intentionally) taken one! I might have to try it. I can understand why it might be invigorating. I'm such a cold-water wimp! My kids and husband make fun of my super low threshold for anything remotely cool!

I'm with you Sheri, as soon as winter even hints at arriving my husband is already preparing for my whinging, lol. BUT, this sortaaaaa makes sense. maybe I'll try it... maybe ;)

The only cold shower I've taken was on our trip to Malawi and I nearly died (totally overdramatic)! It was SO COLD! But maybe if I just lessened the hot water, it'd be better? Haha!

No cold showers for me. I've already had enough stress in my life to toughen me up, so I'm good. lol

We only have 1 bathroom for the 6 of us, so every once in a while one of us gets a cold shower. Can't say it has any stress relieving factors associated with it. Usually, it's a much quicker shower. In the summer we will take lukewarm showers to cool off, but again, not as a stress reliever. I'd rather handle stress in other ways- praying, reading my Bible, etc.

I feel like this could work but I'm not willing to try haha
I'm one of those that likes it really hot.

I too prefer my showers super hot but have tried to take a cooler one after working out or being in the heat...not a huge fan. We have enter the heat of summer here in southern Texas SO there is NO cold water really. I tried to take a shower the other night and had the water turned down as cold as you can go and it was still burning hot. Temps are over 100 with heat index in 105+ range so water doesn't get cold around here...LOL I have heard it has great benefits esp for muscle healing as well. Isn't that why athletes do the ice bathes? I will stick to my warm showers LOL

My parents used to do this... was told by their doctor to do it - helps with building up the immune system, too. They would also go into a pool, then the hot tub and back into the pool. That would be a no for me... I like to destress with a hotter than hot shower. :)

Nope. I'm a weenie. I like my shower water to burn. :D

Also, how do you shave your legs in cold water? The goosebumps!

YES! It's actually Wim Hoff's method and there is a breathing sequence you do with it. Go look him up He's awesome! My son practices this & we even went out in the dead of winter in shorts and tanks and sat on the bare freezing icy snow & did the breathing. This method of building your immune system by exposing yourself to stress by cold showers & ice baths is very real & it works. He has an amazing app that you can download to help you with your breathing.

HOORAY, CHARITY! She actually did a follow up podcast with the author of the book that she calls her "Cold Shower Bible," What Doesn't Kill Us, Scott Carney, and he talks about Wim Hoff and hsi method.
I am SO impressed with you! I'll check out the app. I just bought a bag of ice to put in a bucket for a cold water bucket bath, since I can't get cold water to come out of the faucet. It's SUCH a far stretch from when we first moved overseas & my greatest fear was running out of hot water, lol.

For real, right! She says in the podcast that she takes her cold shower first thing in the morning & takes a not cold shower after her workout and shaves her legs then.

I take cold shower when I am in Indonesia (my home country), so I grow up showering with cold water. I do take hot/warm shower in 4 seasons countries, though, because the water is definitely noticeably colder, especially in the winter.
In Beijing, there are times I take cold shower when summer gets way too scorching.
Cold shower definitely keeps your skin pores smaller though.

I heard about cold showers being good for you but...not sure if I could do it. If my life depended on it, I would but now...not sure. I do have to say that I dislike hot showers...I tend to shower with luke warm water which my husband describes as cold. LOL (he takes incredibly hot showers...he sometimes looks like a lobster when he comes out of the shower) I might have to try to shower with even colder water and see if I like it :)

Does jumping in a cool pool count? I'd much rather do that!

I like my showers warm, they don't need to be hot.

Heck no! Having a nice very hot shower is a simple luxery I will continue to enjoy.

I'm not a cold shower person at all!! I don't take super hot showers, but need the warmth. We have 6 people in our house now, and have to make sure we "schedule" our showers, because cold showers suck! LOL!

I've been wanting to get more into Wim Hoff... he just keeps popping up in my circles. Thanks for sharing your experience :)

No, thanks! I love my HOT showers too much! They soothe me, lol!

The only cold shower I took was absolutely freezing, since our water heater broke in the middle of the winter, and we were living where it was well water. It was absolutely freezing. I think my teeth were chattering for at least a 1/2 hour afterwards.

With the message being about handling stress better. That could very well be, but I'm comfortable with my current stress handling ability.;)

As a teenager we went to this camporee in South Dakota. We all slept in tents and showered in this big tent rigged up with showers (think M.A.S.H.) the water was absolutely freezing. It was also no more than a trickle. We certainly didn't stand under it long. It is an interesting concept. It wouldn't have to be every shower to benefit you, I'm sure. I typically take HOT showers, but I like to switch it up at the very end of the shower and cool down the temperature. I don't go icy though. I do better if I can have warm water first for some reason.

I was thinking that too!!! :D

I don't take hot or even warm showers, but I also don't take cold showers. I like my water to be a little on the chilly side, but not completely chilly that I'm coming out of the shower shaking. I used to always think people took cool showers until I got married and saw my husband steam up the bathroom. I was like "what is this sorcery?" and continued to write all over the mirrors like you see in tv as I never experienced this growing up!

Oh my goodness, I forgot this being a thing when we lived in GA!!! We had no ice maker and in the summer we had NO cold water! It killed me how warm the water came out on "cold"

It has been in the 100s this week...104 yesterday with heat index near 110...no cold water. We have ice but it melts fast. I have memories of giving my youngest a bath when he was a baby and having to put ice in the water bc it was too hot for him. We have lived here for 17 yrs now so I am used to it now but hot is hot. :D:cool:

If my skin isnt near melting point in a shower, then it isn't a shower for me. hahaha. My husband jokes that I like to boil instead of shower. :-) However, the thought is super interesting to me!! I might have to give a try.

I'm thankful we don't have that here in KY. I remember buying ice just so I could have cold water. I also remember having to give the girls their bath in the morning because by evening, the water was too hot to give them baths--and yeah, we did the ice in the water too if we got stuck and had to give them a bath in the evening.

A nice hot shower is a stress reliever for me, so I will stick to that.

It is an interesting concept, but to me it is on the level of training your hair not to need washed as often. Why? I have nice healthy hair that I wash every day. I'm good with it.

Maybe if I didn't have access to the resources I do it would make sense. But I have worked too hard, as did my parents and grandparents before me, to improve our situations to take cold showers now.

Let me qualify that by saying that I come from a very poor family - both sets of my grandparents lived in homes with dirt floors and no running water in the house until their grown children got together and paid to have it installed in 1978! I grew up in a small two bedroom house sharing a room with both my brother and sister until I was 12. When we moved to the three bedroom house, it was like we were moving to a castle. I remember all those houses, and the outhouses, very well, so it would seem almost disrespectful not to use and appreciate the "luxuries" we have now.

We didn't know how to work the hot water in our camper in one of our first nights of our drive to Alaska & I had to take a cold shower. It was my shortest shower ever. (Later in the trip, I cut waaaay down on shower days because it was SO SO cold when I got out!)

In this practice, can you get out of the shower into a cozy warm bathroom??