Cold showers

The gift that keeps on giving. The beauty of starting your day with something difficult.

I don’t remember the exact day I first took a cold shower, but I know it was in 2012. I don’t remember the exact reason I decided to try it, but it was probably my self-improvement-heavy YouTube diet of the era.

While I didn’t know it at the time, my first cold shower was a big moment in my life. Very few things in life embody the correct mindset – across multiple different domains - the way cold showers do.

This is a blog post that I’ve been wanting to write. This publication has been giving me the ability to talk at length about something, for as long as I want – whereas an in-person rant to friends or family would probably leave them annoyed.

On this particular topic, when I’ve brought it up to people, I've mostly received the same reaction from everyone:

“Oh! That’s great that you do that! But I could never do that.”

So, here’s my chance. This is my opportunity to sell the concept. Maybe I’ll send this to people as a reference point.

I know cold exposure therapy is in the zeitgeist right now. I don’t love that – I’m trying to be an iconoclast here. But, in true hipster fashion, I can honestly say that I “liked it before it was cool”… and I will continue this practice when it’s uncool again.

How I do them

It’s 7am and my alarm goes off. I snooze once. (I’m a everyday “snooze-once” kind of guy.) Nine minutes later, and I’m walking to the bathroom.

I walk into the bathroom, immediately open the shower door, and get in (with the shower off), closing the door behind me. My just-woke-up brainfog actually helps me here – there’s simply not enough brain cells actively operating to form a protest. This is all automatic.

Then, the big moment. I say aloud my personal mantra (more on that later), audibly count down “5, 4, 3, 2, 1”, and then turn the handle to the coldest setting.

Freezing cold water – which I can only assume was chilling out in the pipes of my apartment building – blasts onto my chest. I spin around rather quickly and try to get my whole body wet.

There’s a fresh blast of cold when I finally get my hair wet. There's something about the feeling of the cold water hitting the top of your head that is just a whole new level of shock.

Applying soap to my body is easy, because we usually stock up on a big-ole bottle of soap. Sadly, our shampoo and conditioner bottles are more fiddly. But, all that stuff happens fast. All told, the shower itself is about 3 minutes.

I turn the handle to off. The air in the bathroom – which prior to the shower induced shivers – now feels warm, believe it or not. Not to say I’m warm by any means, but I’m immediately starting to warm up.

Then, a zippy dash to my clothes. As I’m getting dressed, I realize all my brain fog is gone. The mental clarity is beginning to kick in. It feels so good – better than anything a pill could provide.

Mental clarity, skin, and hair

The natural high after a cold shower is amazing. It’s hard to really convey that in text form, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I’ve read some scientific papers showing that the hormone adiponectin is triggered by a cold-water response, and that completely tracks, for me.

I heard on a podcast recently that cold exposure was prescribed for melancholy, in the not-too-distant past. This also tracks – it’s hard to imagine feeling “down” after getting really cold and then warming up.

In addition, it’s a 2-hour hangover killer. That is to say: if I’m really hungover, and take a cold shower at 10am, my hangover will be gone until 12pm.

My skin also feels very supple after a cold shower; to the point where I don’t need lotion at all. I’ve always hated how long and annoying it is to apply lotion to your whole body.

I grew up in Michigan where winters are cold, meaning you’re in heated rooms for four or five months. Throughout every level of school, including college, I had the driest skin. I wish I had known about cold showers back then. It drove me nuts constantly. I had an “easy” solution right there but didn’t know about it.

My hair after a normal, hot shower always tends toward frizz. After cold showers, my hair is much smoother. Furthermore, my scalp isn’t itchy, which is a big boon to my hair.

The next best thing

There have been periods – a great many, actually – where I take normal, hot showers. Sometimes, it’s for years. I still try to end those showers cold; usually for the last 30 seconds.

This conveys some, but not all of the benefits. My skin will be a little dry, but not as much. My hair will be a bit frizzy, but again, not as much. The mental effects are there, but perhaps 20% as strong.

It’s something. It’s better than nothing.

Versus ice baths

I can’t really compare to ice baths, which are more commonly talked about in the culture, because I’ve honestly never tried an ice bath. Right now, we don’t have a bathtub in our apartment, but even when we did… they’ve always seemed like so much more effort than a cold shower.

You have to go buy a bag of ice from the gas station or grocery store. (Not just one bag either, I would think.) I don’t know why you’d go through all that effort when there’s an easier, cheaper way that just requires turning the shower handle.

I’ve seen some rich people have a specialty device in their house that does this, and I’m sure those are the best you can get. Personally, I hope I can get to that level of wealth someday. But for now, cold showers accomplish the goal well enough.

Starting your day with something difficult

Remember how most people react with “I could never do that” to the proposition?

For me, I like that it’s difficult – it’s a feature, not a bug. I’m affirming to myself that life will undoubtedly throw some uncomfortable things my way today, and that I’ll be able to handle them all the same.

Cold showers exist in the realm of “things that are difficult to start, but once you start, you’re fine.” So many things in life – and these are the truly important things – fall into that category.

The countdown from five is not unimportant, here. In my mid 20s, I trained myself to approach difficult things (at the time, mostly dating stuff) with the “countdown from five” method. When I reach “two”, there’s an adrenaline rush, along with an accompanying thought that goes something like “let’s see how this goes!”

I still use the countdown for uncomfortable moments, and it’s nice to set the tone for my day with one such situation.

My mantra

I mentioned having a mantra that I say aloud before turning the shower handle. Fine, I’ll say it publicly.

“Don’t be a pussy.”

Yep, there it is, in its full crassness. I actually try to live by this, at every moment. I have it on a sticky note by my computer. If I were to get a tattoo (I have none currently), it might be something that symbolizes that phrase.

I could reword my mantra into something more positive such as “be courageous”, but I like it better in its raw, uncouth form. It conjures something more visceral that way, in keeping with the metaphorical bloodsport that life mostly always is.

I read a book recently called “The Courage to be Disliked” which builds a pseudo life philosophy around the idea of courage. That’s a real banger of a book. I’d recommend it to anyone. (Also, the book is structured in a unique and intuitive way.)

I don’t always say my mantra before turning the handle, but if my brain puts up a little last-minute resistance, saying it aloud always gets me over the finish line.

Wrapping up

Will this essay convince anyone to try a cold shower? I’m dubious.

One has to arrive here at their own volition. One has to be bold.

All I can do is state the following, once again: cold showers have been a profound force for good in my life.