Recently I’ve been having a cold shower each day to help wake me up, there’s many reasons over why this benefits you on-line and quite simply you feel more manly stepping into a freezing cold shower and forcing yourself to stay calm without crying like a little bitch. Now, I like my creature comforts, but alongside the obvious benefits of saving money having a shower. Having a cold shower means you also don’t waste time when cleaning as your in and out quickly anyway and additionally it doesn’t cost me as much money in electric / gas because the water doesn’t need to be heated.
There are many benefits to taking a cold shower. I’ve trawled the web and posted as many as I can find here for you to review and consider it. If you take up the 30 day challenge of a cold shower, or just want to tell me how you felt about it then why not make a comment and let me know
I’m going to post the benefits below and try to backup the claims with links to research articles rather than just spamming content. A lot of this content was used from other websites as I wanted to collate the data, however I don’t want to copy word for word so I will be taking the information and modifying it with references to articles from research
Health benefits of cold showers
Cold showers help burn fat aiding weight loss
Claims on the web have reported that Scandanavian researchers found exposure to cold temperatures accelerated the metabolic rate of brown fat by as much as 15 times which could result in a weight loss of almost 9lbs in weight of white fat over a year. For reference …
Brown Fat = Good (this burns it)
White Fat = Bad (this is what stores it)
(1 Stone in weight is 14 pounds so it’s almost 1 Stone in Weight Loss)
Now, I did a search for the article about it but I couldn’t find it. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, I did however find an article in the Wikipedia for Brown Fat, which is also known as BAT or Brown Adipose Tissue. This article describes the Activation of Lipolysis and Metabolism by Cold Exposure. Basically if you can’t be bothered to read it, they did lab tests on mice for 8 weeks after feeding them a heavy-fat diet so both groups of mice were really plump.
The mice were then split into two groups and were exposed to two different temperatures. The mice exposed to 30’c didn’t show much change, but the mice exposed to a temperature of 4’c (they were acclimatised by by exposure to 18’c first) showed marked elevation of the metabolic rate as measured by O2 consumption and CO2 production which is consistent and linked to weight loss and the decrease of BMI. This same test was carried out on “normal” mice fed on a usual diet, and after they were exposed to similar temperatures they were also shown to be decreasing in BMI and weight. So there’s at least some proof to the claims, but the temperatures must be at least 4’c and for 8 weeks to have any real effect.
Cold showers help wake you up
When you step into the cold shower, and that oh so icy cold water hits your skin. It sends your brain into panic mode, and forces you to breathe deeply and longer, it sends your body into shock and makes you shiver. As a result this speeds up the oxygen intake and your heart rate which results in increased blood flow. The result? It gets more oxygen around your body and makes you feel wide awake in an instant. I actually stood in my shower when I switched it on, my resting heart rate was 51bpm and when I went into the shower it instantly jumped to 101bpm. After finishing the shower and measuring it again around 30 secs later it was back to 51bpm.
Make yourself like good with that N(ICE) cold shower
Apparently cold water is good for your skin and hair. The only real benefit of hot water is opening up your pores. As your body does this to increase removal of excess heat from your body. For your body however, the hot water dries out the skin and removes essential oils in it. Cold water does the opposite it firms your cuticles and pores and closes them up aiding the grip on your body and preventing dirt from entering it
Improving your bodies immunity to illness and stress
Similar to the effect of waking you up cold water increases heart rate and oxygen circulation throughout your body. This has claimed additional benefits like lowering blood pressure, clearing clogged arteries and boosting your immune system. Additionally research has shown it can help with depression
Quote from site “this is because exposure to cold is known to activate the sympathetic nervous system and increase the blood level of beta-endorphin and noradrenaline and to increase synaptic release of noradrenaline in the brain as well. Additionally, due to the high density of cold receptors in the skin, a cold shower is expected to send an overwhelming amount of electrical impulses from peripheral nerve endings to the brain, which could result in an anti-depressive effect”
Showering in cold water is a hormonic stressor too which improves you bodies ability cope with stress tolerance by a reaction known as Hormesis which works by your body being exposed to low doses of an agent that is toxic or lethal at higher doses
Increased fertility and testosterone production
Several research articles, the majority of copy & paste articles about cold showers online quote the Thrombosis Research Institute and University of California. Claim that taking a cold shower increases your testosterone. Additionally it’s also reported that this can increase your sperm count too, those “nads holding your lads” don’t like being too hot. There’s a reason why those balls are held in a sack that shrinks or expands. They work a miracle at maintaining your little swimmers temperature. Exposure to cold shower helps keep those little swimmers alive rather than killing them off. The same reason as wearing tight underwear and sitting down is meant to be bad for sperm production too. So if you’re trying for a baby it can have benefits for things that may seem a lost cause
Speed up recovery from hard exercise
After a hard exercise session, your body builds up a lot of lactic acid which is produced as a result of your body breaking down glucose for high demands of energy which then forms a bi-product of pyruvate which is generated from oxidised glucose. The problem with this is generally your muscles can’t get rid of the lactate produce which can lead to symptoms such as cramps. One way of solving this is by cold water therapy such as showers and ice baths. This works because the cold water shocks and constricts the veins holding all the blood which removes the lactate and then when you step out of the ice bath or shower new fresh blood is pumped into the body. The shock also causes your heart to pump faster which helps to circulate the blood better containing the lactate
