Cold Shower Benefits: Ancient Rituals and Modern Health Boosts

I live in Norway, and was delighted to read all the feedback on cold baths and showers. Through my job, I had access to a cabin on the ocean, and bathed during the summertime (17-18 Celsius). I felt great afterwords(hot shower to wash the salt off). On a dare, we swam later and later into the fall, swimming until the water was 12C, and always getting an incredibly invigorating experience. It became the absolute highlight of every trip to the cabin! I thought this was all to do with the ocean, for some reason, and it never occurred to me that a cold shower or bath would give me the same results! It is exactly as described here by so many: I swam around until I didn't feel cold anymore, then stayed until I started to feel chilled (arms start getting heavy in 12C! ). Then into the hot shower, and out again incredibly re-invigorated. What an interesting website!

Dear Igor from Russia, I have done hot and cold showers for many years. I have found that 3 minutes hot to 1 minute cold is just about right. Do this at least 3 times and each time increase the hot and then increase the cold. You will be surprised how much hotter and how much colder you can go. I aways end with cold and go at least 3 to 4 minutes longer on the last cold. You will feel amazing! When you are sore from working out or working hard, do the hot and cold, most of the time you will have no soreness when you are through. The hot opens the vessels and lets the blood flow freely and then the cold constricts the vessels and pushes all the old blood and toxins out, replacing it with fresh oxygenated blood, so you want to do this a few times to get all the pain causing toxins out. When ever you take a cold shower you want to do a few times of hot and cold to get the most benefit out of it. I hope this is helpful.

15 days ago I came down with all the symptoms of frozen shoulder. This is an extremely painful condition in the shoulder that makes it feel sort of like its falling off. Every movement hurts, and no movement hurts. Sleep is all but impossible, because its so hard to find a place to rest your arm that does not hurt. This condition can last for 8 months to 3 years, and may not go away at all. My sister had frozen shoulder several years ago, so I'd seen the condition first hand with her. After 4 days of frantic searching, I'd found the cold showers remedy. I started taking them 3-4 times a day when I realized it was helping with the pain. Its been 15 days, I'm down to 2 cold showers a day. My mobility is getting close to normal. I missed my second shower yesterday, and the night time pain was back so at 4 in the morning I'm cold showering again. I will not miss again for a while. I told a nephew who is overweight about it, he has severe hip pain, and he said its really helping him as well. Just water... Go figure!

I think that is because you were in a foreign country maybe its ironic because everyone else that posted has been fine. Also it's possible that you already had the flu. It can take days before the symptoms of the flu start to show. And please explain to me EXACTLY how a cold bath can weaken the immune system.

162 lbs with a medium build is far from being underweight with an eating disorder. People that are underweight with eating disorders would have a frail build and closer to 70-100 lbs.

Here's my own personal story that is related to this concept.

I've always been the person with the weakest immune system, when I was a kid I had anemia, and since then I would get the flu 3-4 times a year, each time resulting in 3 weeks in bed for recovery.

Then at age 25 by pure fluke I started taking cold showers (ok it was no fluke, I couldn't pay my heat bill so they cut off the hot water :S), and I immediatley started feeling a difference. I went on close to 5 years now without getting sick once! (I did eventually pay my bill but continued taking cold showers). As a matter of fact I once stayed in a household full of sick people, shaking hands, hugging and kissing, and I was the only who didn't get sick, even though I had the worst medical history of all of them.

Ever since, I've been taking cold showers exclusively. I've varied it now so that I start out with a hot shower, then halfway through I flip to cold water until my body temperature gets to the point where the water stops feeling cold and starts feeling refreshing. What this does is it promotes the flow of blood throughout your whole body, first by forcing the blood out of your organs to your skin (that's why your skin looks red-ish), then the cold water sends them rushing back into your vital organs. The amount of energy you gain is incredible, try it, you won't be sorry! Not to mention its better for your posture, & cures back pain.

Anyways, point is that showering with cold water everyday fools your body into thinking that you are about to get sick, so your immune system gets triggered and is prepared for any virus or microbes coming your way for the rest of the day.

I find it sad and ironic, that I've wasted thousands upon thousands of dollars going to doctors, taking medication, trying everything so that I can live a normal life without fearing something as trivial as a little WIND, having to spend 60-70 days a year in bed recovering, and the answer was as simple as a cold shower!

I don't understand why this isn't common knowledge. The answer isn't to try and cure diseases, it is prevention. Simple prevention.

In contrast, hot showers are so bad for you I'm surprised there are no awareness campaigns against them. Hot showers cause depression, bad posture, back pain, lowering of the immune system, low energy, they are horrible for your skin as they dry it out completely and makes your skin looser and makes you look older, its bad for your hair as it also dries it out and makes it weak and brittle...

In life there are few things that are for sure. Love, Reltionships, Religion, god, the future, the stock market....
But now, as silly as this sounds. the only sure thing in my life is a cold shower every morning!

If your body is giving in to being cold rather than warming up, then you should try taking a hot shower first, or splashing yourself first, and/or make some deliberate effort to resist the cold ie. tightening your muscles.

I think that if one is hypoadrenal - as I am - or unknowingly at risk for that, one should procede with caution on cold showers to avoid taxing the adrenals. This is also for people who just don't like cold water!

This is what works for me to make the whole experience kind of pleasant instead of shocking to my system.

It helps to have a hand held hose with a spray. If not, I guess one could modify this approach. I start with one foot at a time, spraying it. Very quickly the cold does not bother me there. It seems to help to get the strong spray very close to the skin, as a kind of massage & blood stimulation agent, then spray quickly back and forth one section at a time, working one's way up the legs this way as much as feels comfrotable.

Once you past the thighs, the skin becomes more sensitive to the cold water. What can help is to first hand splash some of the cold water on the next area to get the cold spray, or use a washcloth to get the cold water there. It's amazing how much more easy it then becomes to not flinch with the spray following. As someone else said, don't forget to get the arm pits and all those nerves there.

For some reason once I have sprayed all my body up to my neck, when I lean over to spray my head it doesn't bother me at all, but feels good. Oh, pre preparations: First, if you have a space heater, use it in the bathroom! Get the room a little uncomfortably hot even. Have some cayenne pepper in something like yogurt to cool it down (wonderful stuff for your health - tho it might cause you to start seeing "white rice" in your stools, i.e. tapeworm segments, which means you gotta do a parasite cleanse).

Do some light exercises. Yes, slick your face & neck especially with your favorite oily moisturizer. I use plain ol' olive oil w/essential oils that are good for the skin. For me anyway, the face gets dry from cold showers but the rest of my body does not, if I don't just some oil before & after.

If you really, really don't wanna take a cold shower or health prevents it, you can modify with cold packs. You know those old fashioned ice packs for the head, neck wraps, etc. If you don't have the resources, you can make your own cold packs with freezer bags stuffed with cotton pads placed in a sock & put in the freezer. Putting cold packs simultanaeously on the head, down the spine, under the arm pits, under the feet, down the abdomen, can make one feel similar to taking a cold shower, tho it is not quite as invigorating or powerful against depression.

Two more things I forgot to mention. I find it is very help full if you can watch a clock with a sweep second hand. i try to set times like i will try to stay in for 5 minuets and watch the clock to make sure i stay that long at that point i will tell myself try to stay in for another 30 seconds and then another 30 sometimes i do minuets the clock really helps a lot try it.

Also, I find that my private parts get very cold and painful very fast so I got a tight rubber thong. i wear it now for every shower and it works great and i can stay in much longer. ed.

Alright so I really need to tell people this because I can scarcely believe it myself. Over the past few years I've had a few stomach ulcers and I've suffered from leaky gut syndrome, because of this I've developed allergies to all manor of things including cellulose in most supplements in pills and magnesium stearate and by allergies I mean if it came in contact with my skin it would start to become raw and inflamed even if I just put it under my tongue so this severely limited me from even trying most supplements to help my ulcer and leaky gut issue.Also and again this is hard to believe but I have no reason to lie to you I started developing allergies to bottled water and water from fountain soda machines, I could only drink water filtered or non filtered from a home filtering device. If I did consume these things my throat immediately swelled and my stomach ulcers burned. Over the past year or so I've learned to live with these things but I cant say its been easy. Although now my leaky gut has been remedied through a strict diet I adhered to and my ulcers are better my allergies to these things remained.

I started taking cold showers about a month ago now and at first I just stayed with cold, I enjoyed this but sometimes it would cause my stomach to become inflammed, I'm not sure why but it wasn't pleasant. Now I alternate hot and cold a few times then end on cold for 100 seconds. Now to why I'm writing this, my allergies and stomach issues are almost completely remedied!!! I just did a test with a supplement made out of fruit and it had magnesium stearate in it and no burning under the tongue no redness or irritation and after five minutes I swallowed and guess what almost no reaction at all.

The same goes with liquids from fountain machines!I drank from one yesterday for the first time in I cant even remember with no reaction. I plan on continuing this and the way things are going I think I will be free of allergies within the next month or so! This site is truly one of the best things that has ever happened to me I'm slowly gaining my old life back and for that I am truly truly thankful. To think all it took was some cold water.

two things i forgot in my last post. first im not a fat person just a few pounds overweight from time to time. I find when i take the cold showers i lose about a pound every 5-6 days this works every time and the weight stays off as long as i keep up the cold showers 2 -3 times per week. also many of you have talked about cold baths and i wanted to try them but i thought it would be too shocking. i have an old claw foot tub in the basement i put a hard rubber plug in it and filled it with water and let it sit over night. it got down to 54deg F as i said i find cold treatments better right out of bed when my body is warm all over, i was able to do 42 pushups and got in. This old tub has high sides so i was able to fill it with 16 in of water enough to cover my whole body. This is very different from a shower as the cold water hits every part of your body at the same time. also there is no way to adjust from cool to cold its just ice cold right from the start. I lay down with the water right up to my neck. I thought i would die but i forced myself to stay in and after about 15 seconds i able to stand it i found if i did not move too much it was not so bad. i stayed in for 2 minutes and i did feel wonderful after.

I have been forced to take cold showers this winter because my underground gas line collapsed to my house and I can't afford to get it fixed. I have been taking a cold shower every mornig and night for almost three months and let me tell u it is brutal. However, my skin has never looked better and I have not had a blackhead or acne since I started taking the cold showers. I love it. I may never take another hot shower again.

So I started taking cold showers about a week ago and I've already noticed a few effects.

First, I have much more energy which is helpful in my day to day life.

On top of that, I've had problems with a sore stomach that I've been trying to heal with limited success for awhile now and within a week it feels so much better now I can hardly believe how well and how fast its working.

I also have noticed that my digestive complaints have much improved, I've had intestinal inflammation which has been helped with exercise to a degree but after taking cold showers its seemed to disappear and my evacuations are quick easy and complete.

I've also developed minor food intolerance's over the past few years and almost immediately they decreased considerably I hope with time they will go away completely. I've also had great luck with an almost complete reduction in muscle soreness after my workouts by taking a cold shower right after I'm done.

Overall after the first week I have to say I'm hooked and I can't wait to see what other benefits I gain from this. As for why it works I cant say completely but I'm going to assume at least for my stomach and intestinal issues it was from the increased amount of blood that made its way into my organs which facilitated healing. As for the other things who knows but I know its doing something!

I have been reading this site for over a year and started taking cold showers (CS) right after. this info may help. first I take my CS at 5am i set my alarm and wake up every morning just for my CS. after i go back to bed to warm up. i do this because after some time in bed my body is warm all over. no cold hands, feet, other body parts. next i do as many pushups as i can. i think this is very important the body core temp up and makes the CS much more easy to take this gets my hart and breathing rate up. Just before this i turn the shower to full hot. after exercise i turn the shower to cool and get in and soap up. after 30 seconds i turn it colder then another 30 and turn it full cold. i try to stay in the coldest water for 5-8 minuets. i turn alot to get front and back. in winter my water gets down to 53f.

I wish more people would say what water temp they use. I seem to be more into this in winter than other times.

a few times i want the water to be even colder so i will take in a bucket of ice or snow water and after my CS i will pore it over myself as i lie in the tub. one more thing, i would like to know about others but for me i find i must have a high sex drive for this after sex i am not in the mood for a CS for 2-3 days then i am good until i have sex. i am 55. i live in a very cold area and the CS helps me deal with the cold weather.

I can only recommend nasal irrigation (haven't tried cold showers). I first tried it when my ears & nose became blocked after a cold and it worked. My guess is that it clears out excess gunk in your tubes, and maybe also reduces inflammation to help you breathe more easily.

Some folk use a neti pot (which is designed specifically for this purpose), but I just used a small water bottle which had a nozzle that would fit up your nose. Dissolve a small amount (quarter to half a teaspoon) of good sea salt in warm water. Then top this up with cold so that you have a decent amount for the flush (say a third of a 500ml bottle) and that the water is just slightly warm.

With your head over a sink and tilted to one side you pour the solution up one nostril and the aim is to get the liquid to pour out of the other nostril. When you first do this it might take a little getting used to, it's a strange sensation. If it goes down your throat a little don't worry, it's only salt water, but bend over the sink more and tilt your head further until it comes out of your nostril instead.

Hi there, I have just come across this site whilst looking up the health benefits of cold showers/baths. The only reason I thought to do this is because there is a New Years Day swim in the sea in freezing temperatures and seeing as a woman of 80 does this every year and is as fit as a fiddle I thought I would see if there was any health benefits. I am amazed at everyone's comments and now can't wait to start having my own cold shower experience. I have noticed a few people have mentioned nasal irrigation and washing their nasal passage etc and was wondering if someone could explain how to do this and what the benefits are?

Many thanks

WORKED TEMPORARILY

I take cold showers everday but I noticed that I dont get the same feeling like I use to. Its almost winter here so the water is definitely cold. I don't get the warm tingly feeling anymore. Am I doing something wrong?

I was introduced to cold showers by a forceful boyfriend who absolutely insisted that they'd be good for me. I was suffering from a lack of energy and couldn't motivate myself to do anything, with the result that my studies were suffering badly. At first I was very reluctant to stand under cold water for 15 minutes and he more or less had to hold me under the shower. I'm so glad he did. I now have more energy, more motivation, my skin and hair glow, and my apetite has reduced with the added benefit that I'm now 10lb lighter.

I normally take one cold shower when I wake up (washing my hair as well as my body) and then a second cold shower (without washing my hair) before I go to bed. I know haven't had a hot/warm shower for over four years.

If you need to keep water cool, you could use an aquarium cooler in the bath. Its used to keep water temperature low for cold water fish.

I tried the cold-shower thing a couple of times and I made noise, too, but I wouldn't call it singing...more like howling, or shrieking ;)

I sang along to music in my cold shower this morning, I think it helped distract me from the cold lol, and it's fun trying to sing while you're body is trying to make you breath in and out so fast!

I recently started taking alternating hot/cold showers. I start off quite warm then gradually make it as hot as I can for about 3 minutes then switch to cold for about 1 minute. I do 3 cycles and gradually make the hot hotter and the cold colder each cycle. I've only been doing this for 2 weeks now but the chronic headaches I've had for 30 years have lessoned (only 1 in the last 10 days-absolute heaven) and I've mysteriosly lost 8 lbs. (I'm quite obese) without changing my eating habits. The fact that it has been stinking hot the past 2 weeks and I'm sweating to death with no air conditioning could also be a factor for the weight loss! LOL My body temperature stays cooler for a few hours after my shower, even in this 30+ weather. I've also been doing some awesome meditations, listening to binaural beats and watching subliminal videos so it could be a combination of everything.

When I went to my Dr. last week and he asked how I was, I told him he'd better sit down. I've suffered (and I do mean suffer-suicidal thoughts daily) chronic depression for the last 17 years. I've gone off meds 3 times - once for 4 years even- but always end up crashing and need to go back on. Anyways back to the Dr. appt... I told him I had been HAPPY!!!! for 7 whole days and I hadn't cried since Sunday. The reason I cried was because I didn't know how long this would last. Had a bum day yesterday but not too bad today.

I thought it could be the combination of all the above or just my meds kicking in after trying 3 different kinds in 2 months. Not until I read all these posts did I think my showers could actually being contributing to my emotional well-being. Being 45, back in college with a bunch of 20 year olds, dealing with my disrespectful, pot smoking 17 year old son, chronic headaches and migraines, depression, hormone hostage (peri-menapause)... well I can use all the help I can get. I've also developed tennis elbow from being on the computer most of the day for school and homework. The showers haven't helped with that yet so I'm going to try emmursing my arm between my 2 kitchen sinks in hot and cold water.

Thanks for reading and I will definitely be checking out more of this website and referring my friends to it.

I just want to say that cold showers are great for major depression and anxiety disorder, but they don't help much if you don't shower your head. First, I was doing cold showers but was avoiding showering my head. It helped but I still had a lot of anxiety and depression going on. Then, after trying to SHOWER NOT ONLY MY BODY BUT MY HEAD too with cold water (I was told it's good for hair loss), I felt like I was born again. Plus, my hair doesn't seem to fall out much any more.

I have been taking cold showers for mths, i never really kept track but over 5 mths i would say. I have notice many benefits. My stress level has dropped, my skin never becomes dry, my hair is shinier, and my insides feel they function better.

With all respect to Gurudev Khar Khalsa, the medical literature does not confirm that cold showers are contra-indicated during menstruation. One can shorten the cold shower a bit if one wishes - but cold water certainly is not unhealthy during that time.

I should know - I am a woman who is enthusiastic about cold water has been taking cold showers her whole life and has two healthy children. Besides, I am a physician who wrote a book about all kinds of water cures and natural remedies.

Keep up the good work!

Alexa Fleckenstein M.D., physician, author.

I weigh 162 lbs., medium build, and have never had hyperthermia from a cold shower. Maybe it's because when I shower I wet my head and i feel this warmth when i get out. You should try that. It makes take a cold shower easier.

Maybe you should give cold showers a try. If you google "cold shower therapy" it should tell you alot of the benefits-including better skin, etc. I know one time, my family lost power for about a week, so we had no hot water. I had to take freezing cold showers all week, and i was really surprised at how good my skin looked. At first i thought maybe i was just drinking alot of water, but now i realize that it was the cold showers. it's definetly worth a try!

Well now I am back to taking cold showers again and I'll tell'ya. No stomach pains or anything else. I am not sure what it could be. Maybe my body's used to the cold showers rather than the cold baths.

I am convinced the cold shower works. When I take a cold shower every morning I feel the rush of exhileration and blood circulation when I get out, which is why I feel warm. Still my health is among the best in the world. No medication and no allergies or asthma. Period.

Now I feel the cold showers are not brutal if you do not turn the shower full blast. A gentle cold shower works just fine. I just now found out. But I do not feel as exhilerated from the bath as from the shower. So I am back to taking showers again.

Funny you mentioning this asian fellow. I still have the cut out from the original telegraph /times (?) article in my lockbox at home. I can scan it for you.