Lockdown Diaries 4: Cold showers are entry-level Wim Hof for soft people (like myself)
Technically we are not anymore in lockdown, but life has not still returned back to normal. I have not returned to my healthy everyday habits, but have incorporated some new ones. Majority of those habits are unhealthy, but there is one new routine I incorporated that might be healthy:
Cold showers
There is surprisingly lot of scientific research about cold showers. Based on those, cold showers should not be too harmful:
1. Cold showers might burn fat
There is good fat and bad fat. Brown fat being the good one. Historically we have thought that brown fat dwindles with age and becomes physiologically unimportant. Apparently, that is not completely true. Although brown fat reduces as you get older, exposure to cold could help to slow down this effect.
The Scandinavian researchers found that exposure to chilly temperatures caused a 15-fold increase in the metabolic rate of brown fat in their healthy adult volunteers. This could lead to nine pounds drop in a year if sustained.
I don´t know if daily cold shower or two is enough to get that effect though. Being in chilly environment could just make you hungrier as well. Also hot baths burn more calories than cold showers, but might be more harmful in other ways (see below).
Verdict: If you want to lose weight, eat less.
2. Cold showers might boost your immunity
Taking a cold shower apparently increases the amount of white blood cells in your body. These white cells are the ones protecting you against diseases. So remember: brown fat and white blood cells are good.
In Dutch research cold showers lead to fewer sick days as those who were dousing themselves with cold water had 29% less sick days off than the control group. In this study duration of cold shower did not matter, the same benefit came from both from 30s to 90s showers.
There is even a study that suggests that cold showers might prevent certain cancers.
Verdict: If it is only 30s of masochism you need to endure, might be worthwhile to test. Proper diet and right amount of exercise probably plays bigger role in your immune system. Cold showers should not be relied upon as cancer treatments.
3. Cold showers help you to sleep
Contrary to what you might expect, cold showers are better for getting a good night´s sleep. As your body temperature drops, your body is fooled to think that it is already in sleep. In a study done in Lille, exposure to cold before sleep made subjects to sleep faster and also have better quality sleep through the night.
Verdict: If you have trouble with sleep and have the habit of taking hot baths before sleeping, might be worthwhile to test it out.
4. Cold showers might increase your fertility
Hot baths can be bad for fertility and based on some studies have proven that stopping hot showers increased sperm count for males. Hot baths also reduce testosterone in males.
Verdict: Quitting smoking, reducing alcohol and just stopping hot baths have probably bigger effect.
5. Cold showers might help you to cope with stress
Generally when you do anything that requires willpower and sacrifice it makes you mentally stronger. Exposure to cold can result to “hardening”, with increased tolerance to stress. When studying winter swimmers, researchers found increased tolerance to environmental stress. Of course it is important to note that winter swimming is much more hardcore than taking 30s cold shower. There are also some initial findings that cold showers could help with depression.
Verdict: Cold shower is probably not the silver bullet to stress, but combined with other healthy habits should not do any harm. If you are truly depressed, I recommend seeing a doctor.
6. Cold showers help with muscle soreness
Most of us who have done sports have experience in this. Ice cold baths and cold showers help in muscle recovery.
Verdict: You can also subject to just your sore muscles to cold and not be required to shower your whole body with it. Combine cold treatment with stretching and other mobility exercises.
Those are the benefits, but how is the experience?
For five months I have took cold showers and generally my life has not improved. There are no particular skills needed to take cold showers, they are just unpleasant but not unbearable.
1. I have started to hate showering
Last five months I have started to dread going in shower. I can tolerate the couple of minutes of cold shower but it is by no means enjoyable. You don´t really get used to it either, which I find weird. Maybe it is my body signaling that if you have opportunity to have warm shower, just use it? Luckily with this remote working, no one can really tell if you are smelling or not, so skipping shower is not so bad.
Cold showers have not reduced my stress, on the contrary. I have started to stress going to shower.
2. I have not been sick
Maybe my immune system has improved? Before I jump to quick conclusions I have not been properly sick in about 10 years. As everyone has been isolated for majority of these months I have not been exposed to normal diseases spreading around either.
3. No sense of accomplishment
Even though my life is quite uneventful at the moment, I have to say taking a cold shower does not feel like accomplishment. Swimming in ice-cold lake is more like that (which I have done couple of times), but cold shower feels like lightweight Wim Hof for soft people (including myself). Cold shower is mildly uncomfortable, but anyone with no existing health condition can do it.
4. It wakes you up
I think I am chronically sleep deprived so any trick to fool my body of its current tired state is most welcome. Coffee and meditation are some of those tricks and if I am not awake in morning, the cold shower finally seals it off. Effect is only hour or so, so cannot really stop my coffee consumption to be functional human being.
5. It is a good conversation topic
As there is not really anything happening at the moment, this cold shower habit has been a good conversation starter and apparently you can write long blog post about it. Or do 10-minute video around it, with over 5M views and 13K comments. I think our ancestors would be ashamed of how soft we have become.
6. Being thankful to what you´ve got
Warm water is a privilege for majority, so maybe this has made me to appreciate water heaters. We should be grateful to what we have and not take this modern world granted. If cold showers can help in that in just a small way, maybe they are not completely useless.
Despite the (somewhat dubious) scientific benefits of cold showers, I cannot wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone. It will probably not harm you. It will probably not change your life either.
Riku Vassinen is Healthzilla advisor. He is willing to try everything at least once, expect for folk dancing and fasting.
