Life-changing event of 2015: cold showers. As of the day I write this post, it has been one year since I’ve been taking cold showers. I take a cold shower in the mornings before I go to work and at night before I go to bed. Each shower is between 4 to 7 minutes long depending on how dirty I am, how cold the water is or how much I need the revitalizing effects of the cold water on my body.
Cold therapy in general has been associated with a number of health benefits. For years athletes have soaked their swelling joints into ice baths to reduce swelling, and recently, cryotherapy chambers (rooms that are cooled to as low as -100 °C) have gained popularity for a tissue repair and a host of other medical miracles. A simple search on the Internet will show websites claiming that cold therapy in various forms from submerged ice baths and cold showers improves testosterone, repairs muscle tissue, cures depression, promotes weight loss, induces sleep, increases circulation, boosts the immune system, etc. It’s claimed by many to be a miracle therapy.
Unfortunately, a few of those claims are just not true or not definitely proven. As with most research into human physiology, there is much uncertainty and many contradicting opinions. Alex Ferrari from the website TheBroscientist.com has a two great articles that attempt to sort the real benefits from the fakes ones. According to the posts, the real benefits are: body-hardening, mood improvement, immune system boost, after workout muscle recovery, and fat burning. The fake benefits are: increased testosterone, better sleep, and curing depression. But with all the contradicting research why should we believe him? Who should we believe for that matter?
I believe me.
For one year, my body was a lab rat in my personal experiment on the effects of cold showers, and the results have been folkloric. Take cold showers and you’ll stop getting colds and cold sores, lose unhealthy weight, get toned, be a morning person, be more positive, learn perseverance, stop whining about the cold, and be a better you. I know it sounds like an old wives tale like saying if you sleep with the fan on you’ll die, or eating carrots will improve your eyesight. The action is so simply, but my results have been incredible.
Maybe the changes that have happened to be are a result of an year long placebo effect; maybe I’m secretly the bastard-child of the abominable snowman whose true strength manifests from cold showers…maybe. One thing I’m certain of is that I’m healthier than I have ever been in my 41 years of life, I’m fit and active, and I’m stoked…just stoked. And I’m not the only one to see the changes. My best friends have noticed it, my climbing partner has noticed it, my jiujitsu school has noticed it, and my family have seen it.
My initial foray into the cold started started normally enough with simple curiosity. I was listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast with his guest Wim Hof (Rogan podcast 1, Rogan podcast 2, Wim Hof at TedX). Wim Hof’s supernatural feats of swimming under ice in the Arctic and climbing Kilimanjaro (5,895m) in only shorts and boots got me doing more research on his cold exposure and breathing routine. To prove that he wasn’t a hoax, Wim let his body and techniques be scrutinized by scientific method. The kicker for me was that he trains average normal people from all backgrounds and all ages and has them doing the same incredible things. Wim’s philosophy that we, as humans, have incredible natural abilities waiting within us motivated me to start my own personal experiment. That’s when I decided to step into the cold.
Lots of people say it’s not for them; that I’m different. Sure I’m a little eccentric, but physiologically, I’m pretty average. I’ve also got 2 normal friends that were fascinated by my change and tried it themselves. One swears he has more power and stamina, and the other has cured his tick-like cough. I’m convinced it will work for most if not all people. If you’re someone who’s looking to get healthier or is curious about the whole affair, I offer the following report on my personal experiment. I hope through my experience you can better decide if cold showers are something you’d like to try. I’m not trying to sell you anything. There’s no web seminar or course you have to opt into. What I’m about to explain is free and readily available, but the changes I’ve experienced are remarkable.
The Human Experiment
I’ll take you way back to the start…I was born a premature baby with health complications early in his life. My immune-system has alway been on the fritz and I was constantly getting sick. I also started getting cold-sores when I was 6 (not a happy thing especially in my teens), a sure sign that my immunity was weak. I’ve always been active playing on school teams in high school and university. Over the years, I continued to stay active and busy. Before cold showers, I could be described as a night owl who revels in late night alcohol-fueled festivities about three times a week, gets an average of 6 hours of sleep a night, climbs, mountain bikes, paddles, camps, hikes and spars in jiujitsu throughout the week.
I demanded a lot from my body. It worked hard repairing injuries from all my activities and filtering out the toxins from my bloodstream. Often it would falter, and I’d get colds four to five times a year, especially during seasonal changes. The colds usually started as a scratch at the back of my throat making it uncomfortable to swallow. Then it would eventually creep up into my sinuses, and I’d get runny noses. Once it got there, it would be less than 24hrs before full-on flu symptoms. And it would linger and linger at least a month before I stopped coughing.
Then I began taking cold showers and things changed. Firstly, my body stayed healthier. Not being sick let me train harder and for longer periods of time. I was getting more fit and ripped than when I in my mid-thirties. I didn’t need any down time to recover from being sick.
I liked staying healthy and I started doing routines that kept me that way. It was about 3 months into my daily cold showers that I started a morning routine of yoga, high intensity workouts and meditation. I was doing things with determination and a level of intensity that mimicked the commitment needed to expose my naked body to a rush of freezing water. I started this experiment just wanting to be physically healthier but the mental effects have been the most profound in my life. It sounds so juvenile, but my life got better.
Over the year my routine has changed a little bit as I learned more about the process and developed it to fit my busy schedule. But here’s my basic approach:
1) Get naked.
2) Turn on the faucet all the way to cold.
3) Wash your hands with soap and get your toes wet. This is kind of like dipping your toes in to the pool before diving in.
4) Turn the shower head on. Feel the cold spray on your naked body and listen to the water.
5) Take deep long breathes forcefully filling your lungs and belly with air around 3 times.
6) Hold your last deep inhalation and jump in.
7) With the water blasting on you, take deep breathes filling your lungs and belly, but only exhale 30%. So you’re taking many successive breathes quickly keeping the lungs and belly filled.
8) Manage your breathing to a point you can focus on your shower (i.e. shampooing and soaping up).
9) Rinse and take a couple of more deep breathes, enjoy the refreshing water spilling over your body energizing you.
10) Dry off and enjoy the day.
As I continued my investigation into cold showers, a breathing/meditation routine began to evolve with it; however, I never started with it. During my first shower I reacted like we all probably do when cold water hits us; I was breathing very fast and loudly and was slightly swearing. After a few sessions, I learned to control the breath and used it to manage the cold.
I use cold showers like medication now. I’ve found it to be especially effective for hangovers. When I feel tired or worn out, or when I get an itch in the back of my throat, I jump in the shower and stay a little longer focusing on the breathing, willing my body to activate my immune system and attack the little baddies infecting my body. And this another thing I’ve learned from cold showers and breathing…listening to my body. Feeling changes, spikes of adrenaline, anxiety and calmness.
Pushing Through
Now as much I believe that our bodies are capable of unbelievable feats, I’m also a realist. I’m eventually going to continue to get sick, and I have. I think it’s important to mention these instances as the information on wha to do when you get sick is lacking.
I’ve been noticeable sick twice in the last 365 days. That’s huge for me considering I used to get sick for about 4 months out of the year. The one time I got sick was from food poisoning, and it was about 3 months into my new cold shower routine. I was travelling around Korea a lot at that time. I was driving four to five hours a day, and was not very active. I was sleeping in hotels, eating out, and being very festive. On the last night of my road trip, I ate a questionable seafood dish (seafood and chicken stew) at a questionable restaurant that was not very busy. I should have heeded my dad’s warning that a quiet restaurant is a questionable restaurant, but I was pretty hungry and this dish was supposed to be unique to the area. So my friend and I gulped it down quick. Pretty much right after the meal, my partner and I started feeling nauseous. By the time we made it to our hotel room, I had already gone to the bathroom twice for runny butt, and in the hotel bathroom, I threw up, defecated, vomited and repeated.
Feeling gross, I wanted to clean up so I decided to shower. As usual, I turned on the cold water and breathed, but I was feeling terrible and unfocused. About two minutes into the shower I noticed something wrong within my body. It felt like my blood and and organs were drawing into my core. I cold feel the blood leaving the surface of my skin leaving me freezing. I decided to cut my shower short and huddled under the covers of the bed. I started shivering; the first time since I started cold showers. I made some hot tea and sipped it, and dozed off. The next morning after a slow meal sipping hot rice porridge, I slowly eased back in to a lukewarm shower. I paid attention to my body, and slowly made the shower colder when it was ready. Soon I was at full cold. I didn’t stay as long as I normally did, but I felt the same refreshing sensation. It felt so good to feel good. I immediately got under the covers but didn’t shiver. I could feel myself recovering. It took 2 days in total before I could eat solid food, and thankfully, I haven’t been that sick since.
The second time I got sick, I felt my old usual cold symptoms. I was 6 months into my cold showers at this time and was sort of surprised. I shouldn’t have been so shocked to be honest considering I went on a week-long training/party bender. I would train jiujitsu until 11pm after a full day’s work, and thought I deserved a good night out for my efforts.
It was spring and I was developing my kimura game for the Pan-Asian Jiujitsu Open in Manila. My jiujitsu was developing and was confident that I’d do well. And as usual, when I felt good I’d meet up with a buddy and go for “a drink” which usually ended up with a game of darts for drinks, a game of pool for drinks, and drinks for drinks. The night usually ended around 3am (Korea the country that never sleeps), and I’d be up at 8am for work, cleaned, functional and ready to get at it. Well, my body wasn’t always ready to “get at it,” and I eventually felt sick. The itch in my throat stayed there for a week coaxing an occasional cough. My buddies loved it, though, and jumped on the opportunity to criticize the “power of the cold shower.”
But I stayed the course, and it was the easiest cold I have ever dealt with. Usually, I’m like a child-junkie when it comes to colds. I complain, I don’t want to do anything, I get upset, and I take a lot of drugs. But that time around, I was actually in good spirits and positive that I’d get over it sooner than later. I continued with my cold showers, watched what I ate a little more and tried to get at least 6 hours of sleep. And, ta-da! I was better.
The two experiences taught me a lot on how my body reacts to sickness since my cold shower routine. I’m more in tune with my body and I knew how much I could push it. I’m also glad that I didn’t use the experience as a way out or excuse to stop. I kept on it, and I didn’t get any sicker than if I had taken hot showers. I actually felt that I was healthier sooner.
So Much More to Learn
It’s been a year and the experiment still continues. I’m still learning so much about the capabilities of my body. Researching the science behind Wim Hof’s method has given me more focus on and provided different experiments to try. I’ve begun to stimulate adrenaline to heighten my immune system (academic article 1, academic article 2). Additionally, my research led me to start Tibetan g-tummo meditation, which has also been studied and verified my solid research (academic article 3). Practioners of g-tummo have been observed to elevate their core body temperatures to fever-like temperature which can boost immunity. The more I learn, the more there is to learn. It’s fascinating to discover how complex and resilient our bodies can be.
If you’re sick often, feeling tired, overwhelmed, or unsatisfied, I encourage you to check out the links I’ve provided and to also do your own research. Change is possible, and it may be a little cooler than you think.
For more opinions and perspectives on cold showers, check out this post from Health Ambition.