We did this in our entire house for about 6 months once when our water heater broke and we couldn't afford to get it fixed quickly.
UPSIDES: We nearly halved our water bill as all of us (kids and parents) took far shorter showers because it was so cold. This also meant we had to clean the shower much less often. I would also be more awake and alert in the morning after a cold rinse.
DOWNSIDES: I noticed I was getting more headaches and stiff necks, then I realised that the hot showers were helping me to de-tension and relax my shoulder and neck muscles which have become tight due to my long work hours writing code at a keyboard.
Didn't notice any up or down occurrences of sickness in the rest of the family. Overall, I am glad we have hot water back now. At least I have a choice which way to go.
Do you think you were standing in the shower incredible tensed up to combat the inevitable cold? I feel like just reading about a cold shower gets me in that mode.
Possibly that. I know that I used to 'shrug' in anticipation of the cold shock when I turned on the shower faucet.
But I think more than that - I like the blast of hot water essentially massaging the back of my neck and shoulders. I think the heat had a significant effect on loosening up the muscles and knots, and increasing flexibility and neck movement. The cold showers simply did nothing, and me tensing my body to meet the cold shock didn't help any.
I find that I do a bit of both these days - have a hot shower first and do neck stretches in the shower, then turn the water to cold just before I hop out.
it is type of fight-or-flight response. One result of tensing muscles is decreasing of blood flow near body surface to minimize heat losses from the body.
The best thing about a cold shower is that when you get out, you feel to only get warmer, and it's very pleasing the sensation of thawing through. Whereas hot shower to coldish environment just makes me shiver.
Yes, this phenomenon is really remarkable. When I take a nice, warm shower I feel freezing when I get out. After a horrible cold shower I feel nice and warm getting out.
A small bucket of warm water and sponge is all you really need. You get just as clean as having a full shower, use a tiny fraction of the water - and no risk of hypothermia. This is what what we did living in a small village in the Himalayas for a year.
I've tried it before as well (because of studies), but I found it tensed my body up so badly I could barely move.
I wonder if there's a way to condition oneself to somehow ignore it and not lock every muscle up? I'm not necessarily talking about Wim Hof, but it would be nice if I weren't so easily affected by cold.
i do like really cold shower ... right after good warm/hot shower. No stiff neck, etc. :) Basically a quick version of occasional weekend hot sauna + cold pool.
I think the main issue of Wim Hof vs. regulars like us is whether you're able to maintain near skin blood pipes open in the cold water. These pipes shutting down immediately upon cold contact isn't really a good thing, it hits heart, near skin muscles get not enough blood, etc. On the other side, if your blood pipes keep pumping the blood while you're getting into cold water that is very healthy, that is the effect you're really after - the body starts to pump even more actively through these pipes to maintain the temperature in the near skin tissues and that pumping is really good for those tissues and for the heart and for the whole body. The hot shower/sauna is what makes my and other regular people's near skin blood vessels to not collapse upon entering the cold shower/pool immediately after.
> The hot shower/sauna is what makes my and other regular people's near skin blood vessels to not collapse upon entering the cold shower/pool immediately after.
Most likely it didn’t hurt the neck directly but rather did not provide the normal tension reducing benefit that hot water does.
On top of that your muscles do spasm a bit when you are cold which could possibly build more pressure which over a period of days/weeks would result in pretty bad stiffness.
TLDR; 3000 participants study that asked them to do cold showers for 30-90 seconds each day for 1 month. Main difference shown was ~30% reduction in sick days they took.
On a side note, has anyone here tried wim hof method?
I actually went and met Wim. I took one of his seminars. He had us all go outside into a pool of ice together for about ~1 minute with all of us chanting who let the dogs out while we froze. I walked out completely red because it was the coldest thing I'd ever done. At that point I was doing cold showers for about a year and a half.
I am a very physical person and his method was the first one to put my mind into a meditative state. You actually feel it in your body and shock it which silences your regular thoughts. You only focus on your breathing and how you feel in that moment. It gives me a really quick reprieve when working on a difficult problem.
You have people that take his method to extremes though, I remember one guy at the seminar literally pissed himself from holding in too long. It can make it all seem like pseudoscience. I can confirm that it has a very physical effect on my body and helps me meditate a lot easier.
A side effect of the ice training is that I sweat in really cold weather. I live in Seattle and people look at me funny cause I'm rocking a t-shirt and shorts but if I wear a jacket I'm boiling.
Can relate (minus meeting Wim): when going to the spa, I alternate between sauna and submerging in ice water for 60-90 seconds. My BPM goes from 150 to ~35 in that time. Climbing out of the cold water and laying down on the chair induces such calm in my mind... Have to do this more often.
> A side effect of the ice training is that I sweat in really cold weather.
This is really interesting, it sounds like exposure to cold has up-regulated your metabolism or something.
My genetics are from warm countries but I grew up in a cold country, and when I go home people are always terrified that I'm going to die of cold because of how little I'm wearing.
It's interesting to see that the body can undergo changes like this even in adulthood: I guess humans are adapted to moving around!
Seattleite here. I am skeptical people look at you funny, at least more than every once in a while. Plenty of people dress that way in inclement weather.
This always amuses me, because I'm very quiet and introvert until I get to know people, and people who don't know me sometimes assume this means I'll be anxious in crowds.
But in fact, while I don't particularly like crowds, I learned very young that if you don't particularly want to interact with people, crowds are great. I can sit down in the middle of a party and spent 3 hours just observing people mindfully and be content, and most of the time people will ignore it.
But you can also act totally outrageous in a crowd, and people will tend to try to ignore you, not pay attention to you until/unless what you do personally affects them.
A useful exercise in that respect is to go a day and try to keep a mental count of how often you notice yourself thinking about your own actions vs. how often you notice yourself paying attention to someone elses action, and then at the end of it, try to recall those other peoples actions. Not only will most people find they spend far more time worrying about their own appearance or actions, but that they will have forgotten most of the interactions the noticed with other people even when trying to keep mental tabs of them.
Most things that most people do simply isn't that interesting to other people. Heck, most things that most people do isn't that interesting to themselves other than in the moment.
> Main difference shown was ~30% reduction in sick days they took.
That's actually not quite the conclusion. Verbatim:
> Repetitive cold showering can modulate the physiological
> response.[3] Our findings show that routinely showering
> (hot-to-) cold for at least 30 days resulted in a reduction
> of self-reported sick leave from work but not illness days
> in adults without severe comorbidity.
combined with
> 79% of participants in the interventions groups completed
> the 30 consecutive days protocol.
The protocol was randomized exposure to cold showers. Presumably the control group had no recommended exposure to cold showers.
So, one explanation might be that the group able to successfully complete the study is a self-selecting group that may have stronger resistance to physical discomfort that they would also take fewer sick leave days despite feeling sick.
Whereas, individuals unable to complete the study are not as tolerant of physical discomfort and, so, are more likely to take sick days when feeling sick.
I really would like to know what constitutes a control group for this study.
To my mind, cold showers and sick days seem likely to be loosely correlated. This study does not seemed designed to determine whether people who take cold showers actually get sick less often than those who take hot showers.
Important to note that it did not find any reduction in illness days. Meaning, they examined both whether participants got sick and whether they took the day off from work, and only found a reduction in the latter.
“The contrast between the results of both primary outcome parameters is suggestive of the fact that the intensity rather than the duration of symptoms is modulated by the intervention.”
My conjecture is this is consistent with a placebo effect. Placebos can make your symptoms feel less severe.
It does not imply placebo through. I was recommended cold showers cause I was frequently ill. I seemed to catch everything that went around. For first months, sickness just felt less bad - but that was enough motivation for me to continue. The reduction in sick days started later on. A year later definitely, I had measurable down in sick days. I basically don't need them now. I think sick days started to get better five-seven months after I started, but a year after they were basically non-existent.
I also handle cold much better. I need less warm cloth to feel good. Where I was shivering and needed something warm before, I wear t-shirt now and feel good.
Not being sick after a year is a measurable change, that is unlikely to be placebo. The change is real, even if it would be caused by something else.
But, my primary point was meant to be that the results of the study don't imply placebo, through many comments here throw it around a lot. (I am not sure what kind of effect they would want to see through.)
They do imply that effects are bound to be very small.
> Not being sick after a year is a measurable change, that is unlikely to be placebo.
Is it? The entire point of a placebo is that it does lead to measurable change that can be very significant.
> The change is real, even if it would be caused by something else.
... such as a placebo effect. Placebo can lead to real, significant change. To the extent that there has been serious discussion about harnessing the placebo effect (the primary issue being the ethics of lying to a patient).
> But, my primary point was meant to be that the results of the study don't imply placebo, through many comments here throw it around a lot. (I am not sure what kind of effect they would want to see through.)
The study doesn't imply placebo, but the issue is whether or not it rules it out. Part of the problem here is that designing a good placebo for cold showers is not straightforward. You could try to convince people of the positive health benefits of cold showers and try to convince a different group of the positive health benefits of a pill, but you'd still then not have blinded study, and you'd have a hard time demonstrating that any difference in effect isn't simply down to people finding the cold showers more convincing.
Note that this is not saying you shouldn't do cold showers if it works for you. If it works for you, it doesn't matter if it's a placebo effect or not. The issue of whether or not it is a placebo is more about mechanism. In other words: Is it actually something about the showers? Or is it something about the way you were convinced to think the showers had an effect? It matters because it may affect how this treatment works for others, and how consistently it works, and because a placebo mediated effect can change over time as cultural expectations change (e.g. placebo effect of sugar pills have gone up as people have become accustomed to using pills to solve medical problems).
But if the effect is there for you, that ought to be secondary to you. If it works without causing any harm, then awesome.
I've been using cold water at the end of my showers for a while now and it doesn't feel painful or even uncomfortable. Quite the opposite. So, your point may follow but not exactly in the way stated.
TLDR: he put his ass on a water fountain in the middle of a public park to flush his bowel but the pressure was so high that he ended up in the hospital with perforated intestines and nearly died.
That's a horrifyingly bad idea for so many reasons. I've always found Wim Hof kinda quacky in general, but this is beyond the stupidity I would expect from even a serious woo practitioner.
Even without wrecking your intestines, the bacteria and probable pollutants in a public fountain would be disastrous for your intestinal flora. So, even without the risk of traumatic injury, it'd be really stupid to treat a public fountain as a mega-bidet. Not to mention you're putting others at risk. Kids and pets often play in fountains, even if they aren't supposed to.
I really can't even with this dude. And, lots of people, including nerds, take him seriously. It makes no sense.
Cautionary note. Don't practice Wim Hof method while in a pool or tub. Tim Ferriss opens a podcast on hof with a warning about a friend who passed out practicing hof method while in a pool and almost drowned.
> In The Netherlands, there has been an increasing trend for cold bathing over the past few years. Part of this growing popularity is owed to the scientific approach of a health and mindset technique hallmarked by cold-exposure as created by an individual named Wim Hof, nicknamed the Iceman for his ability to remain constant body temperature in extreme cold conditions.[25] These methods involving concentration, breathing and cold-exposure have shown to modulate the immune response.[26] These findings served as inspiration to design the present trial and its popularity facilitated recruitment of over three thousand participants in just one month time.
I tried, but honestly I half-assed it because it was both difficult to set up and uncomfortable, so I was unsuccessful in implementing any Wim Hof-like protocol.
A factor in that might be that people would choose to take their required cold shower in the morning, and being required to do anything in the morning(like take a friends dog for a walk) might lead to an equal reduction of sick days
Reading these studies nowadays feels like reading horoscopes. Chatty, interesting topics but strictly meaningless without an associated prediction or set of predictions of what will be found. (Predictions derived from theoretical explanations.) Hopefully predictive coding will correct this as we learn that AGIs literally can't see things without learning how to see them first, and therefore neither can we.
I wonder what the compliance rate was? I've found a cold-shower regimen hard to stick to - effect might actually be larger if there was a way to verify and sort out anyone who was sneaking in a bit of warmth.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick goes over cold therapy (along with hot therapy) numerous times in her nutrition/health/biology/epidemiological research.
cryo usually is -180 degrees F for 2 minutes. But a similar effect can be achieved with ~40 F (IIRC) exposure for ~4-6 hours. I think she has mentioned similar effects for immersion in cold water for several minutes as well.
The benefits of cold shock are basically:
* increase norepinephrine up to 5 fold which provides a ton of focus/attention.
* induces biogenesis of mitochondria, thus increases endurance.
* that biogensis turns white fat brown as fat cells grow mitochondria to generate heat to stay warm
IIRC the scenario was with clothing on where people spend extended period of time outdoors in the cold. E.g. shoveling snow, hiking on a cold day, etc.
Activity makes a big difference. Sitting outdoors for 4-6 hours without a coat in 40F would mean hypothermia for most people. Heck, I lose peripheral circulation and get sick more easily after sitting outdoors for just an hour or two in 50F WITH a coat if it's not an adequate one.
Generally, quite a lot, as long as you stay dry. I spent 8 straight hours outside shooting pictures while standing - and occasionally lying down - on a frozen lake in northern Canada in January. It was -25C / -13F. I was perfectly comfortable, although I did have to repeatedly switch batteries with ones that I'd been keeping inside my coat.
It's occasionally getting to -20-25 C during winters where I live, but people go around in their daily routines (only exception is children that do not have to go to school if it's below -20 C). I'm pretty sure if not the clothes, there would be a hell lots of frozen bodies around every winter.
Just passing along the info. At about the halfway period of the aforementioned video she has of her talk at a conference, she goes over the biogenesis effect, but I dont recall there being a direct study link. But in other videos, she does show screen shots of the studies when she makes statistical claims which make the studies pretty easily searchable on pubmed.
Her published stuff on foundmyfitness.com does have studies though.
I used to do this every morning... just take a normal hot shower, then at the end crank it full cold and endure until normalized.
It's a free high, great way to start a day. I presumed endorphins are being released.
Now I prefer to run a bunch of miles and immediately jump into the (cold) ocean while still all hot and amped up from the run. The water doesn't even seem cold, it's great. Normally people wear wet-suits in the ocean here.
> Now I prefer to run a bunch of miles and immediately jump into the (cold) ocean while still all hot and amped up from the run. The water doesn't even seem cold, it's great. Normally people wear wet-suits in the ocean here.
This sounds great, but what about the trip home? I usually run to the ocean and I sometimes feel cold on my way back just from the sweat.
Yep. It's a stressor, which is the point. Strenuous exercise is also a well-known cause of heart attacks, but you should definitely strenuously exercise if at all possible.
But not a reduction in how many days people felt ill. I wonder if this speaks more to self-help style "leaders take a cold shower in the morning to get their day started" jump-start to your day than to any health consequences.
As someone who has taken cold showers. I can say that there are definitely physiological changes resulting from cold showers. The hard part is forcing yourself to step into freezing cold water while knowing that relief is just at the turn of a dial.
Given that it is a clinical trial with random assignment, and assuming that compliance was not a major issue, I think we can assume this is not about pre-existing tendencies toward self-help leadership styles. However, I suppose there could be something to what you are saying, as in 'look the part, be the part.'
If I were to speculate I'd suppose that exposure to the hot and cold elements expands the sensory experience, and expanded sensory experiences often stimulate the brain and its capacity to adapt.
I took cold showers in the evening. First few months, sicknesses just felt less bad. After about five months, I stopped to need sick days. I also need less warm cloth normally now, basically my body reacts less badly to cold.
I needed frequent sick days back then when I started (it was long term bad health state).
This is not for everyone. I can do this and enjoy it in summer but not winter. I have poor circulation and am always cold as it is. In winter, the water comes out of our pipes at whatever ground temperature is - typically just a couple degrees above freezing.
Tried it once for a week, and was stepping out of the shower nearly hypothermic and shivering violently. Immediately came down with a massive head and chest cold that required my first course of antibiotics in nearly a decade, followed by a tension related muscle injury that's still plaguing me three years later.
I can't figure out which makes less sense scientifically, that a cold shower somehow made you ill or that antibiotics cured a viral infection. Probably placebo in the latter case and happenstance in the first. You would have gotten sick and gotten better anyway without either the shower or the anti-biotics.
So next time you do this experiment you need to take anti-biotics in a cold shower.
I laughed at this - and totally understand where you're coming from.
However. For me, I have known people who weather the cold very well - unlike you and I. They'll go for a swim in a cold lake and enjoy it. Generally, I hate the cold. Even a mild cold is NOPE. My hands especially, get cold very easily.
But this is what I saw when I looked up the method:
> If you are new to cold exposure, just end your warm shower with 15 - 30 seconds with cold water only. Begin with your feet and then follow with your legs, your stomach, shoulders, neck, and back. An initial shock, shivering and hyperventilation is normal. Try to remain calm and breathe easily. Close your eyes and really try to embrace the cold. Don't pour the cold water over the head if you are not known with cold exposure. If you feel any strong physical uncomfortableness, like heavy shivering, numbness or pain, get your body warm again as soon as possible. Cold exposure works like weight lifting, you get stronger over time. There are little muscles around your veins that contract when they get into contact with the cold. After some time (only 1-2 weeks according to Wim) these become stronger, making your veins healthier and reducing the force that your heart has to use to pump blood around your body. You can increase exposure over time. At one point the cold will feel just as comfortable as wearing your favorite pajamas and you can skip the warm shower completely. Notice how you feel amazing after a cold shower and sluggish after a warm one.
When I first heard about this guy years ago, i picked up the yoga side of it and deemed it BS. But this kind of gradual conditioning he proposes, and not going overboard with it, makes me think maybe I could try it. In theory, we should feature some adaptive qualities to better weather the cold. I'd sure love to find mine.
Or are you going be the one to to pay the medical and rehab costs for my next back injury? Are you going to endure the excruciating pain and sleepless nights? Are you going to compensate me for the additional costs I'll bear for the rest of my life due to being unable to lift or carry as much or as far as I once could? Or for a year's worth of lost opportunities (professional and personal) due to being unable to remain upright for more than a few hours at a time? Or for the loss of activities that I once enjoyed?
You go ahead and do that for yourself, but don't pretend you know anything about my body or what risks I should or should not take with it.
> but don't pretend you know anything about my body or what risks I should or should not take with it.
Not at all what I was getting at. You've clearly had a bad experience and are averse to further attempts. I get that. And it only adds to my own hesitations surrounding it. If you thought I was trying to dictate what you should do - i misspoke.
What was worthwhile to me, was that I don't need to just hop into a tub of ice to try it. I can take steps to ease my way into it. I can start with warmer water, expose less of my body, etc. I can work with baby steps. Whats kept me from trying it at all was the notion i needed to do it "all-in".
Can someone tell me if their study design compensates for bias introduced by not everyone completing the study? It looks like only about 70% completed it.
“The total amount of days a participant felt ill (including symptoms of cold and flu)” responded but “the total number of days of absence from their work due to sickness“ which the study’s designers view as “the most objective indirect parameter indicative of illness severity” did not.
> but “the total number of days of absence from their work due to sickness“ which the study’s designers view as “the most objective indirect parameter indicative of illness severity” did not.
I loved cold showers since beeing teenager. Always liked cold. Not used hot water sometimes for weeks in winter. In December me and friends regularly swim in Baltic Sea when it’s 0C outside (hot sauna and generous servings of vodka surely help).
But I have read that hot shower in morning significantly lowers cortisol levels so I start the day with hot shower now, when available.
Also since a few years I am living in SE Asia and hot showers taken few times a day open pores in skin and allow it breath better in this climate.
No, it is quite healthy actually. In right doses of course.
Jumping into ice cold water after 15 minutes in 70+C sauna, a shot of vodka, some hot tea. Makes you feel great and alive in winter.
People who take cold showers are just as sick, but call off work less? Maybe it's because the misery from the cold water masks the misery from the illness?
I can offer my anecdotal experience. Been shutting off the hot water at the end of my morning showers and enduring the cold for a few minutes for the past 3 years. I have noticed that I get fewer colds. And with the colds I do get, their symptoms are lighter, and they go away much quicker, often gone in a day or two. And I haven't caught anything real bad, like a flu, since.
Competing anecdote: I once dunked for a few minutes into a very cold bath at a Budapest bathhouse, and the next few days suffered one of the worst flus I’ve ever had.
Keep doing whatever works for you, but I don’t think either of these provide especially convincing general evidence. (Note I’m not blaming the cold bath; for all I know I would have had identical symptoms either way.)
The “common wisdom” being investigated in this study and discussed in this thread was whether short and “shocking” cold showers would improve health. The top-level commenter claims that transitioning directly from a hot shower to a few minutes of cold shower at the end has made him less susceptible to respiratory viral infections.
I agree that there are often several directly contradictory pieces of “common wisdom” floating around about health topics. That’s one of the chief difficulties with folk advice in general.
Does anyone know why I prefer being cold more than others?
I sleep with all the windows open and my other half has pyjamas, a double duvet and a hot water bottle. Like in December in Scotland.
I also dislike wearing Jackets or Coats under any circumstances. I dislike hot drinks maybe apart from Soup.
When people go on Holiday and basque in the sun saying it is perfect weather. My actual perfect weather (I believe I feel like they do when it happens) is for a low crisp negative temperature with no wind.
For a long time I have wondered why I prefer this side of the fence and wonder if I have some weird lineage from the North.
I don't have any genealogical insights (I am half Armenian, half a mix of western European), but I am the same way. I drink iced coffees year round. I wear the lightest thinnest jacket I can get away with in the winter. I sleep with a fan blasting. My best guess is it's a metabolic thing--I run a little warmer/faster than most (though I suppose that doesn't explain why).
Edit: And to address the blood pressure comment, I have always had normal to low blood pressure, so I don't think it's that.
Here where I live in Utah, they have blood pressure machines all over, like inside of Rite Aid or even grocery stores. You just sit down, push a button, and wait for your arm to be squeezed. Another option is to purchase a sphygmomanometer and test yourself.
I feel like the benefits you obtain through cold showers disappear after a while as you get used to them. That's similar to the benefits I felt of meditation.
IDK, I have yet to get used to cold showers during the last two winters. Still too lazy to get my gas turned back on in 2.5 years so it isn't all that bad I guess...but during the deep Arizona winter when the temperature drops to around 50 those showers aren't even a little fun.
> deep Arizona winter when the temperature drops to around 50
I wonder, is this sarcasm or do you really consider 50 F as deep winter in Arizona? I get it that you are used to much higher temperatures but still...
Right now we have around 40 F in Prague and it is not even a winter yet. Cold showers are still fine right now.
I skimmed the cover page. If you shower at night are the advantages tracked to be local to only that moment or does it have a prolonged general benefit?
I've taken cold showers regularly for years. One of the best things I've done for myself -- creating discipline, self awareness, etc. at zero cost in money or time.
This concept is about 100% cold shower, whereas the article is about 1min of cold at the end of a hot shower. Do you think there is a difference on effectiveness? I would think the extreme of hot-to-cold would be more affective, and after 60 seconds, your bodys already adapted.
I recommend finding out for yourself by trying each and seeing the results. It will cost you nothing in time or money. I guarantee you will learn more about yourself than you would imagine and develop skills applicable throughout life.
I recommend against not trying and finding out through experience. I've found the results amazing, despite costing nothing. Since I've made cold showers a regular habit -- http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/cold-showers-rock -- I'd love to hear your results.
Cold/heat exposure are great, cold water immersion in particular. I've observed positive effects on my physical recovery.
But I have not seen a comment here warning that cold water immersion is absolutely not something you should try for the first several times alone, even in very shallow water (IE a bathtub). The risk of entering shock/going unconscious and drowning is non-trivial.
In general I am very concerned about what is considered cold. Is this just unheated?
Depending on the time of year the relative temperature of unheated has a broad range where I live. I’d be a lot more comfortable if this set a tight bound on the water temp. If it did and I missed it sorry.
I had to cold shower for a January fortnight when we had issues with our gas boiler.
One thing I noticed was that it got me alert much sooner in the morning. Typically I would get up at 7:00am, shower, eat and then head off to work to start at 9:00am, but my brain wouldn't really be in gear till about 9:30am.
With cold showering the brain was in gear far sooner. I felt more willing to get out and get stuff done. Maybe that earlier alertness helps cancel out a desire to pull a sickie?
That being said, the extra alertness wasn't worth the sheer torture of a cold shower.
I wouldn't want to get alert quickly in the morning.
I much enjoy the pleasant and unique slowness of the mornings and I wish to wake up slow, get up slow, and enjoy my breakfast slow and let the energy gradually rush back into my body for the day ahead. Looking from my perspective, a cold shower in the morning sounds like one of the worst ways to make your life more miserable.
But on the other hand cold water seems to be otherwise beneficial. For example, winter swimming is generally recognised to aid in numerous ways, both physiologically and mentally. I sometimes dip into the cold pool (4-6 C) for a minute at the swimming hall and it feels great afterwards. But that's at a time when I'm up and moving already. Doing that in the morning would be just as punishing than a cold shower.
It's interesting they only focus on the cold shower. I would have thought it would be short and barely give you enough time to get over the initial shock(cold shock response) - around a minute or so when the gag reflex hits and what would potentially drown you in open water. After that shock, things change.
My personal experience is with swimming in the sea year round for 3 to 4 years. 2 to 3 times a week every week. I started in August to help acclimatise to the change in the temperature as it cooled. Temperature ranges from 18C in August to 4C in early March, give or take.
The effects were great over all and I thought I was healthier for it. I understand the tightening of the muscle which some of the others mentioned as an experience. I got used to this and it seemed to relax me. I never really got the tight muscles thing except afterwards when I kind of wanted to tighten up.
I would walk in at a reasonable pace. As others have said, with a meditative feeling. Once fully emerged and the shock had passed I could swim for a maximum of around 5 to 10 minutes at the coldest part of the year. Sometimes it was more a splash around for as long as I could stand it. I generally stopped and got out when my wrists started to cramp. I'm guessing the cold water would send the blood circulation internally away from the skin.
It always felt the warmest in late September early October for some reason. The coldest place I ever swam was between two San Juan islands in August!
Once out of the water I would feel warm and have a feeling of glowing. Drying off would be a pleasure despite the outside temperature. My overall demeanour would be very positive and up lifting. I've heard talk of endorphins or something along those lines being released in to the body.
I never jumped in to a hot shower right after preferring to warm naturally and slowly. I felt warm for a good twenty minutes after getting out and being dressed fully whoever cold it was.
The whole experience became slightly addictive which is why I did it so long. Work has now gotten in the way of that.
There is a serious safety aspect to all this and it should be done with caution and understanding. This guy, Mario Vittone, was very informative on what's going on when trying to stay alive in cold water: http://mariovittone.com/2010/10/1-10-1/
I took cold showers for a month. Really liked the effects! I ended up wearing shorts and tshirt year round (in northern california), whereas the old me would be wearing several layers of clothing > 6 months of the year. I was taking cold showers daily for 5 months.
I tell you what has an even bigger effect on the number of sick days you take - going self-employed.
I've taken one day off sick in the 8 years I've been an IT contractor, and that was because I set fire to my legs (in too much pain after a dressing change to WFH).
For the past 2 months my family and I have been forced to take cold showers in Puerto Rico. I personally stoped showering for almost a month. I got so sticky it was unbearable so I finally showered again. The cold water was difficult to relax in.
Showering in cold water also might keep the skin pores closed causing less absorption of whatever may be in the municipal water (fluoride, traces of pesticides, hormones from birth control etc).
UPSIDES: We nearly halved our water bill as all of us (kids and parents) took far shorter showers because it was so cold. This also meant we had to clean the shower much less often. I would also be more awake and alert in the morning after a cold rinse.
DOWNSIDES: I noticed I was getting more headaches and stiff necks, then I realised that the hot showers were helping me to de-tension and relax my shoulder and neck muscles which have become tight due to my long work hours writing code at a keyboard.
Didn't notice any up or down occurrences of sickness in the rest of the family. Overall, I am glad we have hot water back now. At least I have a choice which way to go.