<story><title>The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)</title><url>https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161749</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>michalu</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been taking cold showers exclusively for 11 years now.&lt;p&gt;It doesn&amp;#x27;t get much easier but you&amp;#x27;ll get addicted to the great feeling after.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s similar to running or exercise, it sucks to do but you do it anyway because the benefits far outweigh the temporary discomfort.&lt;p&gt;The trick for me was to never use warm shower again and never compromise ... only coldest water available counts. First thing in the morning.&lt;p&gt;It makes everything easier as once you experience that comfort of warmer water you&amp;#x27;ll have to fight with it again and again.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s why I don&amp;#x27;t believe in James Bond showers and similar stuff.&lt;p&gt;Only last year I started to take warmer showers if I need to take one late at night and want to get a good sleep fast (I took about 4 so far) ... to build this habit, for me personally, it was paramount to leave no other option.&lt;p&gt;For the first 7 years I haven&amp;#x27;t been sick at all. At the same time, I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s a miracle practice for your health. You will get sick if you expose yourself to risks of getting sick often enough - it&amp;#x27;s simple.&lt;p&gt;In the early days, I used to procrastinate in the bathroom ... a good trick was to start timing my showers. I would leave a timer set for 5 min and paper to log time, I tried to get in and out beating 5 min time-frame. In less than couple of weeks it became a habit that I enjoy for some 8 years now.&lt;p&gt;Other than health, energy and willpower, I suspect it has some solid psychological benefits ... you get out in the morning you feel like a superhuman, imagine starting your day in such way and how that compounds over the years.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s great habit to start.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bregma</author><text>If you lived where I live and did this you would be dead.&lt;p&gt;In winter the temperature of my water at the well-head is about 4 C, but if it&amp;#x27;s sitting in the pipes over night it can hit 0 C (which means no shower until it thaws, of course).  The ambient air temperature in my bathroom is often below 10 C in the morning before I rouse the fire when it&amp;#x27;s -20 C or below outside, and that happens for weeks at a time. A 4 C shower followed by standing wet in 10 C air means a fairly quick excursion into hypothermialand.&lt;p&gt;I guess if you live in, say, an apartment in Saudi Arabia or Florida a &amp;quot;cold shower&amp;quot; might have a completely different meaning than if you live in a cabin in the Canadian back woods.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)</title><url>https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161749</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>michalu</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been taking cold showers exclusively for 11 years now.&lt;p&gt;It doesn&amp;#x27;t get much easier but you&amp;#x27;ll get addicted to the great feeling after.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s similar to running or exercise, it sucks to do but you do it anyway because the benefits far outweigh the temporary discomfort.&lt;p&gt;The trick for me was to never use warm shower again and never compromise ... only coldest water available counts. First thing in the morning.&lt;p&gt;It makes everything easier as once you experience that comfort of warmer water you&amp;#x27;ll have to fight with it again and again.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s why I don&amp;#x27;t believe in James Bond showers and similar stuff.&lt;p&gt;Only last year I started to take warmer showers if I need to take one late at night and want to get a good sleep fast (I took about 4 so far) ... to build this habit, for me personally, it was paramount to leave no other option.&lt;p&gt;For the first 7 years I haven&amp;#x27;t been sick at all. At the same time, I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s a miracle practice for your health. You will get sick if you expose yourself to risks of getting sick often enough - it&amp;#x27;s simple.&lt;p&gt;In the early days, I used to procrastinate in the bathroom ... a good trick was to start timing my showers. I would leave a timer set for 5 min and paper to log time, I tried to get in and out beating 5 min time-frame. In less than couple of weeks it became a habit that I enjoy for some 8 years now.&lt;p&gt;Other than health, energy and willpower, I suspect it has some solid psychological benefits ... you get out in the morning you feel like a superhuman, imagine starting your day in such way and how that compounds over the years.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s great habit to start.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Moru</author><text>How cold is cold for you normally? Our water is about four degrees celcius never mind what season it is. It just hurts, never really managed to stay more than a few seconds.&lt;p&gt;Some people around here are hacking a hole in the ice and swimming for a while...&lt;p&gt;Edit: Seems the test assumed 10-12 degrees average temperature in Netherlands.</text></comment>