Cold Shower Benefit #1

Taking Cold Showers Will Improve Your Body Chemistry

There are two compounds that are dramatically affected by cold showers: uric acid and glutathione.

Glutathione is the king of antioxidants. All the other antioxidants in your body will perform better when glutathione is present, allowing you to process toxins out of your body more efficiently. Cold showers boost your glutathione production.

Uric Acid makes your muscles sore, 1-4 days after you work out. In 2009 the New England Journal of Medicine found that 24 minutes of cold water immersion had a measurable effect in relieving muscle soreness. That’s why athletes soak in ice baths after a hard day of training – they want to be able to walk in a couple of days.

Cold showers also decrease blood lactate concentration, reducing post-workout pain and speeding recovery. If you work out regularly (and come on, Dads, you should) then cold showers will make your post-workout pain bearable.

Cold Shower Benefit #2

Cold Showers Burn Brown Fat

Not all fat is created equal! (Just ask ketogenic dieters.) There are two types of fat in your body: white fat and brown fat. White fat (metabolically docile white adipose tissue) is energy your body stores in case of a famine. Brown fat (metabolically active brown adipose tissue) keeps your body warm and generates heat.

When your body gets cold, what is your natural physical response?

Shivering.

You shake in every tiny muscle, which expends a tremendous amount of energy. So much energy, in fact, that your body will raid its stores of white fat, and convert them to brown fat. Suddenly, keeping you warm is more important to your body than saving up for a famine that may never happen.

“In adults, brown fat is located on the upper back and neck, and upper chest above the clavicle,” says Brett Mckay of the Art of Manliness, “so when you shower, aim cold water so it hits that part of your body.”

He gives a quick overview of the benefits of cold showers in this video:

Cold Shower Health Benefit #3

Cold Showers Improve Your Immunity & Circulation

“On a whole-body scale, immersing yourself in a cold tub of water brings down your heart rate and increases your circulation, minimizing inflammation and helping you recover faster,” says Dr Joseph Mercola. If your body thinks it is freezing, it will slow your heart rate to conserve energy. At the same time, your metabolic rate increases (so you can burn more fat and stay warm) and your immune system is activated. Studies show an increase in white blood cell production, T cells, and lymphocytes.

Alternating between hot and cold water is one of the best ways to activate your lymph system, which processes toxins out of your body. Cold water contracts your lymph vessels, and warm water relaxes them, allowing your lymph system to pump stagnant fluid through your system.

Cold Shower Benefit #4

A Cold Shower Is A Natural Cure For Depression

“Cold showers stimulate what is known as ‘the blue spot,’ which is the brains primary source of noradrenaline – a chemical which plays a role in alleviating depression,” says Sean Russell. “The mild electroshock delivered to the brain by the cold shower (you’ll know exactly what I mean) sends an overwhelming amount of electrical impulses from peripheral nerve endings to the brain, which could result in an anti-depressive effect. There is a high density of cold receptors in the skin, much more than there are for registering warmth.”

This barrage of stimulus to your skin can literally shock you out of depression. (I don’t mean literally as in the newfangled doublespeak meaning, figuratively – I mean, quite literally.) This is an all-natural method of electroshock therapy.

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Wash away #depression with a cold shower. You’ll be *shocked* at how fast it works.
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Cold Shower Benefit #5

Cold Showers Improve Your Skin And May Slow Hair Loss

When cold water hits your body, the capillaries near the surface of your skin will dilate. This is meant to warm your skin by bringing blood from deeper levels of tissue to the surface. Conversely, your cuticles and pores will contract, which keeps them from getting clogged. This prevents acne and blemishes.

The big bonus for dads: contracted pores strengthen the roots of your hair, which can slow the effects of hair loss. This guy says cold showers completely stopped his hair loss.

Cold showers vs. Warm-then-cold showers

There are two different camps in the cold shower community. Some people advocate starting with cold, staying cold, all the time. (It was good enough for our forefathers before modern plumbing, right?)

Others allow for some warm shower time, followed by cold.

But you might be different. You might prefer the instant shock of cold water. Some people say that after completing a 30-day Cold Shower Challenge, they prefer starting with cold.

You might be one of those guys…but how would you know, unless you try?

Are you willing to do commit to 30 days of cold showers?

Here’s all you have to do:

Spend 30 seconds in cold water for 30 consecutive days.

You can download Joel Runyon’s Cold Shower App to track how many consecutive days you can go. If you’d like some encouragement and reminders, register for the BeTheBetterDad.com 30 Day Cold Shower Challenge here:

“Your supply of willpower is limited, and you use the same resource for many different things,” say Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney in their bestselling book Willpower. 

Every time you exert your willpower – making a decision, handling a crisis, or avoiding a temptation – you are drawing on limited reserves. Studies have shown that if you find yourself exerting extra willpower, you have a greater chance of giving up on something else later in the day.

Baumeister created an experiment where participants were brought into a room with 2 plates, a plate of cookies and a plate of radishes. Some participants were asked to eat the cookies, and some to eat the radishes. After a brief wait, they were then given 30 minutes to solve a complex geometric problem, a problem that was actually impossible to solve.

The ones who ate the radishes, and had to exert self-control to keep from eating the cookies, gave up an average of 8 minutes later. The cookie-eaters persevered much longer, for an average of 19 minutes.

When that study was published in 1998, it laid the groundwork for a theory called Ego Depletion.

Using your willpower to make a decision, the Ego Depletion theory goes, reduces your reserves of willpower. This makes it more likely that you will not make good choices later, and this is precisely why Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day: black turtleneck, blue jeans. By removing the need to make any choices about what he was going to wear that day, it left him more willpower to draw from later.

Parenthood Naturally Drains Willpower

Kids are a constant supply of unexpected stresses. No matter what you happen to be doing, at any moment, you could be interrupted by a crash from the other room, screeching demands of justice, or a puddle of vomit in your lap.

Keeping your cool in every new crisis is the hallmark of the Better Dad.

Even if you can’t respond with patience every single time, you can try to respond patiently more often. With stronger reserves of willpower, your chances of patient success increase dramatically.

Improving your willpower is easy, and it just takes one simple, uncomfortable habit.

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Do you want stronger willpower? It just takes a deep breath and a decision: get in the water.
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Taking Cold Showers Will Strengthen Your Willpower

Your body has an automatic response to freezing cold water: Get the heck out of it!

Getting into a cold shower early in the morning is not easy. And that’s the point.

Taking a cold shower is a difficult (but minor) challenge that you fully experience in a physical way. Your entire body will react with spasms, and your brain will tell you many, many reasons why this cold shower thing is a bad idea.

The man who can face that discomfort, and overcome the objections of his body and his mind, is a man with a will stronger than other men.

HARDENING – The Real Benefit of Cold Showers

The physical health benefits of cold showers are all great, and make a cold shower experiment worthy of your time.

But the real superpower that you get from taking a cold shower every day is called Hardening.

“Cold showers appear to have improved my stress tolerance,” says Todd Becker, “by buffering emotional reactions. What I mean by this is that bad news, surprises, arguments, or events that would have previously caused a brief surge in adrenaline or an emotional flush, no longer have that effect, or at most have a very attenuated effect.”

Todd writes about Hormesis, the idea that the right kinds of stresses help make us into stronger people. For Dads that are into self-improvement, personal development, or physical fitness (you know, you guys) Hormesis is something you definitely want to know about.

You can really see Hormesis in effect after the first week or two taking cold showers every day. You can handle stress easily, and when the unexpected happens – you don’t panic.

Every morning, you are actively tempering your panic response by taking a cold shower. Your body freaks out when the cold water hits your skin, and your daily training enables you to breathe through the panic, and intentionally do what you have decided to do, without being distracted by the sensation barrage happening in your brain.

During your next family meltdown – projectile vomit, shattered glass, or an unexpected tantrum – whatever happens, you will find yourself more likely to breathe deep, steel yourself for the discomfort, and endure it with patience.

Hardening is the bedrock of your willpower. Cold showers will test how hard you are, and every day, you can rise to the occasion and endure physical discomfort, so long as you have made the decision to endure.

This decision doesn’t stop at the shower. It stays with you, and all the livelong day, you will stick to your decisions, because you have the strong willpower of someone who takes cold showers every morning.

The shock of a cold shower is not something you can easily forget. Once you get the endorphin rush, you will want to keep doing it…but your discomfort will always warn you against it. That’s why spending 30 consecutive days moving through this discomfort will harden you.

Are you willing to do commit to 30 days in cold showers?

Here is the minimum requirement for this 30 day challenge:

Spend 30 seconds in cold water for 30 consecutive days.

That’s it.

You can download Joel Runyon’s Cold Shower App to track how many days you can go. If you’d like some encouragement and reminders, register for the BeTheBetterDad.com 30 Day Cold Shower Challenge here: