Minor life changes often bring significant health benefits. You may love a warm shower after crawling out of bed in the morning, but switching to cold water could improve your physical and mental well-being.
You may notice healthier hair and skin, pain relief and other positive effects. Here are a few of the significant benefits a cold shower provides.
1. Improved Mental Health
People who take cold showers consistently for several months often notice changes in their mental state. Adding a cold shower to your routine could decrease depression symptoms, improve mood and reduce anxiety.
2. Hydrated Skin
You might also see changes in your appearance by incorporating a cold shower into your routine. The cool water constricts blood vessels on the surface of your skin, contributing to a healthier glow.
The water’s temperature also preserves the sebum layer, which protects your hair and skin, while hot water dries this layer and reduces your protective barrier.
3. Beautiful Hair
Beyond helping you maintain the sebum layer, which benefits skin and hair, cool water also closes your hair’s cuticles.
When the hair cuticles are sealed, your strands look glossier and smoother. The cuticle also protects your hair from damage and breakage, leading to long-term positive effects for your locks.
4. Improved Energy Levels
Waking up early has many benefits, like more time in the morning and better sleep at night, but it can take some effort. A cold shower can shock your system, making you feel more alert.
The shock also increases your heart rate and oxygen intake, giving you the necessary push to start your day strong.
5. Reduced Inflammation and Muscle Pain
Whether you just finished a challenging workout or feel aches and pains throughout the day, a cold shower could be the solution. Lower temperatures cause your blood vessels to constrict, moving most of your blood supply to your core and vital organs.
During this process, the blood picks up a lot of oxygen and nutrients.
Once you leave the cool temperatures, your body will warm up again, leading the blood to flow back through your arms and legs, eliminating inflammation and making you feel better.
6. Stronger Immune System
The shock of cold water that increases your blood flow also stimulates the blood vessels working to fight off infection in your body. When you shower with cold water, you may experience fewer sick days and colds throughout the year.
Your cold shower can be short and still provide these benefits. Less than two minutes in the water will bring noticeable changes in your yearly health. You’ll also reduce water usage, decreasing water scarcity, which affects one in 10 people worldwide.
7. Well-Functioning Metabolism
When you shower with cold water, your body uses more energy to keep you warm. This energy use might burn calories and increase your metabolism’s efficiency.
It’s still best to incorporate this tip with other strategies like exercise and healthy eating.
8. Relief for Isolated Pain
While cold water reduces inflammation, it also decreases pain from other causes. The cold dulls your nerves, slowing the rate at which the signals travel to your brain. Standing in a cold shower will temporarily relieve many aches you experience in your everyday life.
Just as you might wrap a sore knee in an ice pack, a cold shower has the same effect. You’ll feel immediate relief when the cold water runs over these painful areas.
9. Calming for Irritated Skin
During a cold shower, the water creates a cooling sensation all over the skin. This sensation might relieve you if you have a skin condition causing itchiness.
It also works well for short-term itches like mosquito bites or rashes.
10. Improved Circulation
When the cold water hits your skin, most of your blood flow moves to deeper tissues and circulates faster to keep you warm. This increased circulation in your deeper tissues has benefits like improving hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
How to Start Taking Cold Showers
Now that you know the many health benefits cold showers offer, you may want to try them. Start by turning the shower water as low in temperature as it can go. You want the water to fall below 60 degrees.
When starting, you don’t need to keep the chilly water running for too long. Start with 30 seconds and slowly build tolerance until you can stand in the water for a few minutes.
Alternating hot and cold showers also work well, especially post-workout. Use hot water for three minutes, then switch to cold for a minute. Keep changing back as you work through your shower routine, and always remember to end on cold.
Change up Your Shower Routine
Cold showers offer many positive health benefits. They cause external changes like healthier hair and skin. They also cause internal positive effects, from improving circulation to easing aches and pains. You might even notice mental health improvements by adding this practice to your daily life.
Next time you hop in the shower, turn the tap in the opposite direction to see what this technique does for you.
