Hot and Cold Showers 101
Exposing my body to cold temperatures
Prior to starting the For A Better Monday adventure in April 2016, finishing my daily showers with water at a lower temperature was already a habit of mine. If I had done some running that day, I would pass the coldest water I had access to on my arms and legs. In April 2016 I decided to start swimming in Lake Geneva. I will always remember my very first time. It was a beautiful sunny spring day at “Les Bains des Pâquis”, and the air temperature was in the 20 degrees Celsius. The water on the other hand was extremely cold. I remember it being around 7 or 8 degrees.
The place was packed with people sunbathing, but only a few people including myself dared to swim in the lake. Going into the water was a bit painful at first, but as I started to swim the enjoyment increased. I stayed for about 10 minutes in cold water. As I got out from the lake, I could feel a sensation of warmth all over my body. I dried up, and went to lay down under the sun. After a minute laying down, I was able to reach a sense of accomplishment as If I was able to get rid of if all the negative tension accumulated in my body. The combination of going into cold water and later laying down under the sun made me feel extremely relaxed.
After that day swimming in cold water became a sort of an addiction for me. Back then I held a membership to a gym nearby. This allowed me to get into the routine of working out three to four times a week, and after my workout go swim in the lake. I would do it pretty much in any weather condition. I was able to hold on to this ritual until my departure to Argentina in late January 2017. I would have never though that I’d be able to swim in lake Geneva during the fall and winter seasons. I never got sick, and this practice enhanced my life greatly during my last year spent in Geneva.
Hot and Cold Shower Rituals
In Buenos Aires unfortunately, I don’t have an easy access to cold water. Even tap water will eventually get kind of cold during the winter months, but nothing compared with the water temperatures in Switzerland. Although the temperature interval between hot and cold water are shorter here in Buenos Aires, this situation does not keep me from regularly doing hot and cold shower sessions.
As I’ve been regularly practicing hot and cold showers, very naturally, different sets for my sessions emerged on their own. The difference between the sets depend on the time and energy in hand for that day. I am mentioning the energy factor, because going back and forth with hot and cold showers several times in a row, at times, have the tendency in making me feel a bit tired right after the session.
Here are the three different sets I usually go through during my shower sessions.
The Bare Minimum
This one consists of taking a regular shower with warm water, and before getting out, I finish off with the coldest water available for a couple of minutes. I usually shower this way when I don’t have much time in hand.
The Hot Cold Hot Cold
This is probably the one I use the most often. It consists of taking a regular shower with warm water. Once I am done with washing my body, I pass to hot water for about 45 seconds, then to cold water for one to two minutes or so, I switch back to hot, and finish off with cold water spending between one to two minute at each different temperatures. What I like about this pattern is that, one, it’s not too time consuming. And two, going through two rounds of showers at different temperatures does not make me feel much tired afterwards.
The Full Session
I shower this way when the main focus is to move my lymphatic fluid as much as I can. After being done with my regular showering routine with warm water, I go back and forth as much as I can between hot and cold water. I try to go through six to ten iterations. In order to do a session like this one, one needs to have some time in hand, and a structure that allows to have enough quantity of hot water. So far in Argentina I’ve been living in places with individual water heaters, which usually have limited amount of hot water supply. The good news is that during the couple of minutes while I am showering with cold water, this gives the water heater the opportunity to catch up and provide water at a good temperature for the next round of hot shower.
The full session can be amazing, and I believe it to be extremely supportive at moving the lymphatic fluid around my body. That said, it’s time and energy consuming. By energy I don’t only mean gas or electricity, but also my own energy as a human being. When I have the opportunity to do such a long showering sessions, I allow some time for rest afterwards. I usually don’t fully rest, but I just try to plan my day so I can take it easy for a couple of hours which are going to be following the showering session. I usually do some reading or writing during that time.
Adaptive Capacity
I believe that exposing my body to temperatures that will take me a bit out of our comfort zone tend to improve my capacity to adapt and eventually make me a more resilient person. I believe that the hormesis principle apply to exposing the body to challenging temperatures. If you are not familiar with the hormesis principle, I highly encourage you to read on it. I find it to be an extraordinarily powerful principle for regeneration. The principle goes way beyond hot and cold showers. It can help us understand the benefits of practices such as dry-fasting or exercising at high pace as well.
The Three Variables
If we decide to make progress and increase our ability to adapt with hot and cold showers, there are three variables on which we can work on.
- The portion of the body being exposed to high and low temperatures
If you have access to a hand held telephone shaped shower head, you can experiment exposing the different parts of your body to cold water. I personally started initiating myself to take cold showers this way. I did not feel like jumping right at the very beginning under freezing water. I would instead shower my legs and arms. As I got into the habit of showering my arms and legs regularly with freezing cold water, I started to extend the showered areas gradually through time. At one point I was able to to enjoy freezing water head to toe. (When I say freezing I refer to the coldest tap water one can get in Switzerland. In the wintertime it can get amazingly cold) - The water temperature
If extremely hot or cold water is daunting you, starting with a lower difference in temperature could help. Instead of finishing the shower session with extremely cold water, one could start finishing off the session with cool water first. As you get comfortable with the actual temperature over time, you can then lower it from session to session, until you can handle the coldest temperature available. The same applies to the other side of the spectrum with hot water. As a word of caution, please make sure that your health condition allows you to take cold and hot showers before experimenting on your own. - The amount of time spent in cold water
The third variable is the time we are able to spend out of our comfort zone. As we make progress with our cold showering sessions, we can gradually increase the time spent in challenging temperatures. This variable also comes in handy when one does not have access to really cold water. By increasing the time we spend in the coldest temperature we have available to us, we can still create a challenging condition to the body by staying a longer period of time under the lower temperature that is available to us
Icy Baths
If you do have access to a bathtub. Filling the tub with the coldest water available, and adding a big pack of ice cubes in it could help to lower the temperature of the water. It will then be a bit more difficult to alternate between hot and cold, but to challenge the body with cold temperatures when really cold water isn’t available, the addition of ice cubes in cold water can be a great help to create the adequate challenging environment. In addition, immersing your body fully in cold water is in my opinion more intense than taking a cold shower. When the entire body is immersed the entire skin surface of the body is in contact with cold water. In a shower situation, no matter how abundant the water output is, there will always be body areas getting less exposure to water than others.
My Conclusion For Now
Exposing the body to cold and hot temperatures through showering is a practice that can easily be integrated to a daily routine. My experience so far has been great. In addition to moving the lymphatic fluid around and making me feel overall more relaxed, I believe taking cold showers makes me more resilient. During the winter months I don’t feel as cold as I used to when I am outside. I also think that this practice has been a great reducing factor in me catching colds.
I AM NOT A HEALTH PROFESSIONAL. I would like to make it very clear that I am only sharing my own experience on this website, and have no intention to give any specific advice on health. Please read the disclaimer section for more information.
