What way do you take your cold showers?

I don't feel clean if I don't have a hot shower, so I will wash on hot and at the end I will turn to extreme cold.

 

DO IT. That's how I do them--it sucks and I love it, haha. If you're like me, you'll spend the first minute trying like crazy to control your breathing, which is a challenge, because every time you turn and move and expose a new part of your body to the water, it's like a fresh shock of cold. But there comes that moment where your breathing calms, and you can just relax and stand there in the water.

 

Do you fellas who enjoy cold showers have a little more heat insulation than the average guy? Asking for a friend.

 

I've been doing cold showers for a long time i.e. probably for more than 10 years. Some months I never do them because I'm in a too "confortable" state.

Their effects get weaker for me when I'm used to them, something like my body gets used to them and desenticizes. But generally speaking, they raise my mood immediatly.

Cold showers are supposed to be very benefitial, but to my knowledge there hasn't been that much scientific evidence for those claims. Therefore, don't take the following benefits as 100%:

• Improves immune system
• Improves blood flow
• Stimulates your bodies brown fat to regulate it's heat, which leads to weight loss (frankly I feel that this effect only takes place if you are for a substantial time under water)
• Hot water leads to dry skin
• Psychological benefits, overcoming an unconfortable situation, getting out of your comfort zone

Whether the effects are true or not is unclear. I feel like cold showers aren't that hard to implement into my life so I just do them as often as I can.

I generally go for max-cold. If it's cold in the room and they are hard to do, I start with the legs, then the shoulders and then my head/hair. I may repeat this cycle multiple times until I go for the full cold shower on my body. Other days I find it easier to simply start with my back (imo the hardest part).

 

How is that possible? That would be -4F which is below freezing ...

But yeah, don't get hypothermia.

 

Wow that's wild. We have a wide variety of climates across the USA--when I lived in Austin TX in the heat of summer (where we had 43 straight days of highs over 39c), the shower might only get down to 21c ... but now in the pacific northwest in the winter, my shower gets down to 10c. It was a definite shock to my system when I tried to just jump in the same way I'd done in Texas, hahahaha ... that was one rude awakening for sure.

 

So what are the medical and personal benefits of cold showers? I've done them, but I kind of consider them a placebo now. I know some guys swear by cold bath plunges for 5-10 minutes. What are the benefits?

 

Shrinkage, DUHHHH

 

Here are some of the supposed scientific benefits.

Honestly though, I just do it to help me build discipline. I have a really hard time resisting instant gratification and choosing comfort over adversity, and being intentional about cold showers just helps me push back against that a bit. Also, I've historically been a cold water wuss, so the fact that *I* can take cold showers now is a victory for me and ever-so-slightly helps me with my self-image.

 

Here's an interview with an academic that has done in depth research into cold emersion. It convinced me that cold showers is something I should do. The interview is long but has a lot of good information in it.

 

maybe he's refering to immunity issues...if you sucumb to cold weather it probably affects your immune system...casa by case.....

 

How to tell if what you are saying is a troll or not?