The vital benefits for me were mental alertness, fast recovery from muscle soreness, reduced stress, higher quality sleep, reduced fat, improved lean muscles, increased confidence, and reduced public fear.
Let’s admit, cold showers are not for faint-hearted.
It took me a while to get used to cold showers. I used to hate it initially.
I learned that it would not kill me. It is a natural response from our primitive brain to protect us. But the paradox of cold showers come from activating this survival mechanism for our body.
As a beginner, in a few minutes, my body got used to it. The destructive reactions turned into pleasant feelings. The adverse response slowly transformed into positive sensations. I started feeling good. The best motivation factor for me was watching other people to do with fun and priming myself on its fun aspect. Learning from others who are successful can be compelling and convincing.
The trick for me was to control my breathing. I kept breathing when the cold water was touching my whole body. It is a kind of mindfulness exercise.
Interestingly, after a while, the cold water seemed warmer, even though I did not change the tap to warm water. It is the adaption of the body. This is where the secret of benefits manifest.
In this post, I want to highlight three incredible benefits I gained from taking cold showers.
1 - Reduce heart rate
The most noticeable effect of cold showers is a reduced heart rate.
When I have a cold shower around three minutes, I noticed that my heart rate dropped substantially. I use a smartwatch to check my heart rate during the shower.
After High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), my heart rate dramatically increased, reaching 170 bits per minute. When I immediately go under the cold shower, it reduces to around 60 bits per minutes in three minutes.
I love this healthy and natural trick to lower my heart rate after an intense workout session.
2 - Reduce muscle soreness
Weight training, strength training, and intensive cardio sessions cause muscle soreness.
Recovery from muscle soreness is essential. My recovery used to take two to four days in the past. After having cold showers after my workout sessions, the soreness relieved quickly.
Cold showers helped me recover from workout pain rapidly.
3 - Mental clarity
My morning routines used to start with a cup of coffee.
My body needed caffeine to energize and start my day. With cold showers, my morning routines changed. I don’t drink coffee anymore. I replaced it with cold showers. Having a three minutes cold shower is equivalent to having two cups of coffee for me.
Having a cold shower creates a natural and even more energizing sensation in my body. After having a three-minute cold shower, my brain fog disappears. I start my day with a brighter outlook. A clear mind is essential for creativity and productivity.
4 - Physical alertness
Since cold shower can elevate cortisol and other energizing hormones, my body feels alert after the cold shower. The lethargic feelings disappear.
Cold showers motivate me to move faster naturally. And after an hour later I feel relaxed and reach a flow state easily.
I believe it helps me balance my hormones and neurotransmitters.
5 - Confidence boosting
Having cold showers in the morning help me boost my confidence.
Nowadays, whenever I have a challenging day ahead, especially a difficult meeting or a complex lecture, I take a few minutes of a cold shower and feel ready for the challenges of the day. I used this trick to gain confidence for my public speaking sessions.
Once I was very nervous before a keynote speech addressing to 5,000 people. I remembered this trick, and I took a cold shower in the premise 10 minutes before the session. My anxiety and fear disappeared, and the session went flawless.
6 - Improve sleep quality
Our body temperature needs to be relatively cooler to have a high-quality sleep.
Due to my active and anxious mind with lots of creative and other thoughts, falling into sleep was a problem after having cold showers just half an hour before the bedtime helped me reduce the intensity of reflections.
Since my body temperature lowers after a cold shower, I easily fall into sleep. After the cold showers, I noticed a dramatic improvement for my deep sleep and rem sleep phases when I check my sleep quality. Deep sleep is essential for recovery, and rem sleep is vital for reconciliation of memories.
I also tried a new technique of 30-second cold and 30-second warm water shower before bed. This technique helped me overcome jet lag as it seemed to reset my nervous system and helped with balancing my circadian rhythm. I believe this trick kicks the melatonin production before going to bed.
Since I started taking cold showers, I experienced noticeable changes in my immune system.
I used to have multiple cold and flu symptoms each year. Interestingly, I haven’t experienced any cold and flu symptoms over a decade.
I strongly believe that cold showers strengthen my immune system by combining effects such as fast recovery, reduced stress, higher quality sleep, reduced fats, increased confidence, and reduced fears.
I read a lot about the thermal effect of cold water, especially ice water for body composition associated with burning fat without losing muscle. Fitness is a passion for me. I love continuous and joyful workout.
I won’t bore you with the science of thermal effect but can confirm that since I started the cold showers, expose myself colder study room and bedroom, and drinking ice water, my body fat percentage dramatically reduced and my lean muscle mass increased a bit.
My role model is Wim Hof. Wim broke several Guinness records in the field. He is not only a magical practitioner but also a science-focused champion sharing his knowledge with research institutes.
Related to fat-burning, cold therapy also helped me to reduce get rid of excess loose skin after substantial weight loss. Please enjoy my experiment and great results in this News Break story titled "How Did I Get Rid of Loose Skin After Weight Loss?".
9 - Overall well-being
Since I started taking cold showers, my overall well-being improved substantially. I had a better life outlook.
The vital benefits were fast recovery, reduced stress, higher quality sleep, reduced fats, increased confidence, and reduced fears.
My overall confidence helped me to become a better entrepreneur, a better leader, a better public speaker, a prolific writer, and a better father.
Going into a flow state after cold showers helped me become more creative and productive. I became more tolerant of external reactions. I started feeling at ease with myself.
This simple trick helped me find my better version.
I hope you consider these benefits.
Thank you for reading my perspectives.
I wish you a healthy, joyful, and productive life.
Follow me to see more articles like this. I experiment a lot and share good results with my readers.
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