Why take a cold shower?

What are the health benefits of taking a cold shower?

What do the Dutch, Finnish, and Siberians know that we could benefit from learning? That "shocking" your body with a cold shower has amazing health benefits!

Nowadays, cold showers are becoming more and more popular due to their supposed health benefits. Is a cold shower really as amazing and beneficial as it's touted to be? What are the health claims, and  does science support them? Read on!

Why should you take a cold shower?

There are numerous reasons that people are beginning to claim the amazing benefits of taking a cold shower.

The health benefits of taking cold showers range from physical to mental. Skeptical, I decided to force myself to take only cold showers for one month to see how it affected me.

What are the health benefits of taking a cold shower?

1. Wake up quickly - The first great benefit of cold showers is that they give you the willpower to wake up early. Obviously, stepping beneath a jet of icy cold water wakes you up. This could be the most powerful and greatest benefit of cold showers; they wake you up quickly! While it may not be pleasant, it's infinitely more powerful than a cup of coffee.
2. Feel more alert throughout the day - When you wake up with an icy cold shower, it increases your alertness and energy levels throughout the day. In fact, starting your day with a very cold shower can even help you feel more alert than a cup of coffee, helping you to cut back on the power of caffeine to get you through the day.
3. Increase testosterone - Testosterone is important for everybody, not just men. This important hormone helps fight depression, boost immunity, build muscle, lose weight, and strengthen your heart. Studies have suggested that starting your day with a cold shower can boost your testosterone levels, giving you all of the previously-mentioned benefits and more!
4. Protect your hair and skin - While we may love nice hot showers, hot water is actually quite bad for our hair and skin. Hot showers can increase risks of acne, dry out hair, cause split-ends, and more. Cold showers preserve the healthy skin and hair oils that our bodies need to look and feel healthy. Cold showers strengthen both your skin and your hair, making you look very healthy.
5. Lose more weight - Starting your day with a cold shower gives your metabolism a big boost, which may lead to increased weight loss.
6. Feel happier - A cold shower may help you to fight depression. Cold showers can help improve your mood; helping you to feel more relaxed, less stressed, and happier.
7. Boost your immune system - There's a reason that so many people start their mornings with a cold shower. Cold showers provide a "shock" to your body, which may help boost your immune system and help prevent you from catching illnesses. Cold showers can keep you healthier.
8. Increase your willpower and motivation - A cold shower is unpleasant, but over time you may come to appreciate it more and more. It takes a lot of effort at first, but it's not too hard to remember to turn on the cold water. A cold shower is a fairly easy habit to keep, which can help to increase your overall willpower and motivation when it comes to other habits that you want to add to your healthy lifestyle.
9. Fall asleep more easily and quickly - Counter to what you may think, a relaxing warm shower IS NOT the best way to fall asleep quickly. Hot showers stimulate your body and raise your core temperature in the same way that exercise does. The human body sleeps the quickest and most deeply when it's slightly cold. When you take a hot shower, you raise your core temperature, and your body has to work harder to cool your temperature down before it can relax enough to fall asleep. Instead, take a cold shower before bed. It may sound counter-intuitive, but a cold shower can make you fall asleep much more quickly and sleep deeper, waking up feeling more awake and more alert than a hot shower before bed.

Is it really worth it to take cold showers?

I decided to test some of these claims by taking only cold showers for a full month. Every morning (when I woke up early) and every night before bed, I took a cold shower. I book-ended my day by dousing myself in icy water. So, do I support these claims? Does my experiment support taking cold showers?

Honestly, I feel great! Now, I can't attest to all of the supposed health benefits of taking a cold shower, but I can say that I definitely wake up better, feel more alert, feel happier, and sleep quicker and more deeply than before. As much as I appreciate a steamy hot shower, I think I just might stick to cold showers from now on!