The concept of hormesis — that a low dose of poison or some other stressor is good for you — makes a wonderful excuse for many vices.
Having a little too much to drink or having a cigar is good for me, as long as I don’t overdo it.
Cold showers are also good for you, if not as much fun as other stresors:
As one form of hydrotherapy, the health benefits of cold water therapy are numerous. Cold showers provide a gentle form of stress that leads to thermogenesis (internal generation of body heat), turning on the body’s adaptive repair systems to strengthen immunity, enhance pain and stress tolerance, and ward off depression, overcome chronic fatigue syndrome, stop hair loss, and stimulate anti-tumor responses.
Some people advocate starting with a warm shower, and switching over to cool or cold water only at the end of the shower. This is fine, particularly if you are afraid that a pure cold shower would just be too uncomfortable or intolerable. But I prefer just jumping right in. When you start with cold water, you will experience the phenomenon of cold shock, an involuntary response characterized by a sudden rapid breathing and increased heart rate. This in itself is very beneficial. The extent of cold shock has been shown to decrease with habituation, and exposure to colder water (10C or 50F) appears to be more effective than just cool water (15 C or 59F) in promoting habituation. The habituation itself is what is most beneficial, both objectively and subjectively. There is an analogy here with high intensity resistance exercise and interval training, both of which elevate heart rate and lead to long term adaptations to stress, with improved cardiovascular capacity and athletic performance.
But cold showers provide a different and probably complementary type of habituation to that which results from exercise. A study of winter swimmers compared them with a control group in their physiological response to being immersed in cold water: Both groups responded to cold water by thermogenesis (internal production of body heat), but the winter swimmers did so by raising their core temperature and did not shiver until much later than the controls, whereas the control subjects responded by shivering to increase their peripheral temperatures. The winter swimmers also tolerated much larger temperature differences and conserved their energy better. Other studies confirm that the benefits of habituation show up only after several weeks of cold showering. For example, adaptation to cold leads to increased output of the beneficial “short term stress” hormones adrenaline and thyroxine, leading to mobilization of fatty acids, and substantial fat loss over a 1-2 week period.
So regular cold showers, like high intensity exercise, and intermittent fasting, appear to provide similar, but not identical hormetic benefits.
I’m in no hurry to try an ice bath.
(Hat tip to our Slovenian guest.)
American homes are centrally heated; cars and offices are warm. How does that affect you versus living in a cold stone farmhouse working out in the fields?
What have we lost in the quest for 68 degree comfort?
Cold showers and ice baths alternating with steam/sauna is a nice ritual after a good workout. Lap swimming in cold pool water is another useful workout/ritual year round. It’s best to start young and stay in the habit.
If the arteries are too stiff to absorb the increased heart rate and inotropy, the increased pressure is transmitted directly to sensitive tissues like a hammer stroke. Any weakened arteries are instantly put at risk.
Anyone with a few years under their belts might want to start very slowly.
My experience supports the efficacy of this as well. I’ve lost a fair bit of weight and feel much better since I started finishing my showers with a one-minute blast of icy water.
I did the full bore cold water thing for about three years and can testify to the benefits described above, plus one more: you emerge from the shower every morning feeling calm and fearless — confident that you have successfully passed the day’s biggest challenge, and that no one you meet is likely to have done any thing nearly as ballsy in the past 24 hours; you are the baddest guy in the room.