Maybe It’s Time to Stop Enjoying a Warm Shower?

Warm showers feel wonderful. Especially after a hard day. The thought of cranking that shower handle to the cold setting though..well..not so much.

We’ve been starting to experiment with cold showers for some of our assisted living residents. As you can imagine, we receive a lot of resistance.

There are a few though that don’t seem to resist. They don’t seem to mind them so much. And we’re seeing some improvement in their alertness.

Now we’re also doing many other therapies with the residents. It’s difficult to point to a particular therapy as the one that is causing the improvement.  But I don’t think the cold showers are hurting their health.

In my efforts to lead by example, I’ve been taking cold showers for several months now. Once you get over the initial shock of stepping into the shower, they can make you feel very alert and energized.

Seems like there is a lot of science to back up the idea of a cold shower. Various studies have found multiple health benefits for taking the plunge:

• Stronger immune system

• Triggering of noradrenaline - a brain chemical that improves alertness, focus and mood

• Fat burning to keep you warm

• Blood sugar control

• Inflammation reduction (why athletes will take cold plunges after a tough practice or workout)

• Boosts antioxidant production

• May stimulate neurogenesis - the brain’s process for growing new neurons

Cold showers can also stimulate your vagus nerve. Vagus nerve stimulation activates your parasympathetic nervous system and helps reduce anxiety and depression.

I’ve started taking cold showers before bed. It seems like the cold would make me much more alert and awake. The opposite actually happens. The cold shower lowers my body temperature making it easy to go to sleep. Just like the recommendation you see everywhere to cool your bedroom to aid in sleep.

If ‘taking the plunge’ with a cold shower all at once sounds awful, start slowly. At the end of your warm shower, try 15 seconds where you dial the temperature back. Or if you’re a little more brave, try taking a cold shower right after a big workout, a hot day outside or a sauna.

For the 15-second method, try adding 15-30 seconds of cold each time you take a shower. Gradually over time you’ll be able to tolerate the full shower. I think of how good I feel after the shower as motivation to step into the cold.

And the cold shower doesn’t have to be near the freezing mark. 50-60 degree (F) water can feel very cold and still give you lots of health benefits.

One problem we have in Phoenix is that the summer makes it difficult to achieve cold showers for any significant amount of time. The shower will start off cold but will become lukewarm.

So I purchased a simple device that helps keep the cold water coming. With our residents we take what we can get from our shower heads.