
What cold showers and exercise have in common (2014) - RogtamBar
http://gettingstronger.org/2014/02/what-cold-showers-and-exercise-have-in-common/
======
3pt14159
I started taking cold showers about 3 months ago when my cofounder challenged
my statement of: "Why don't more people eat healthy and exercise? It sucks at
the beginning but it just keeps getting better." With the statement of "for
the same reason you don't take cold showers." I'd never heard that cold
showers were good for you and after validating his claims, I gave myself two
weeks to get used to as-cold-as-possible showers. After about ten days it
started being less painful, and now I can barely imagine going back. Yes the 3
degree Celsius showers still kinda suck; but they wake you up and they make
the towel afterwards so warm and inviting. They make you hardened to the
outdoor cold and they make you not need that first coffee in the morning.

If fixing diet and exercise are number 1 and number 2 to being a happier
human. I'd put fixing the person you're dating at number 3, the people you're
friends with at number 4, and the temperatures of the showers you take at
number 5. A+ / 5 star - would have my cofounder challenge me again.

~~~
SyneRyder
I tried cold showers for at least a month. I can confirm it gets easier &
feels less painful over time, and there is a kind of rush that you get from
it.

But ultimately I stopped. Partly because my hair never washed right in the
cold water, but mostly because the showers were making me grumpy & irritable
for the rest of the day. I didn't enjoy that feeling, I didn't particularly
enjoy the showers, and I didn't notice any productivity or health benefit.

I first heard about cold showers from Joel Runyon, so I'll give him a link
[1]. But it quickly went from blogs about "here's a self-motivation idea I'm
trying" to "here is my TEDx talk and Cold Shower Therapy™ email course and
download the Cold Shower Therapy™ app on the App Store".

[1] [http://impossiblehq.com/cold-shower-
therapy/](http://impossiblehq.com/cold-shower-therapy/)

~~~
dajbelshaw
I've taken cold showers every weekday for the last few years. The way I get
around the problems raised (washing hair, etc.) is that I have a really hot
shower just before bed. This helps me sleep by lowering my core body
temperature.

Cold showers are great and, as someone who's suffered from depression in the
past, I go into each day thinking, "what's the worst that could happen"?*

*I realise that sounds flippant, but it's true...

~~~
unicornporn
So you shower twice a day? My skin wouldn't approve...

~~~
culturestate
I've been doing this (both hot, though) most of my life. My skin is fine, but
my hair used to take a beating -- now I only wash it every other day, rinsing
in between, and it seems to work well.

------
andrewvc
While this may or may not be true hacker news is particularly susceptible to
exercise fads with unconventional scientific explanations.

I think it'd be easier to convince the readership of HN to lose weight and get
fit by eating live maggots whilst suspended upside down in a vat of soylent
than to just show up to the gym 3x a week.

The most important way to get fit is to show up and do work. The virtues of a
programmer (laziness, impatience, hubris), are the opposite of what you need
to succeed at physical fitness.

~~~
themartorana
Ok but when I'm showering up at the gym - is a cold shower better? Will I see
better/faster/more lasting results?

Seriously. I shower at the gym pre-work, so I'm usually taking a cool shower
as it is, but I hadn't heard of cold showers being a thing before this.

~~~
RogtamBar
Look it up, but it's possible that cold showers are not good post-exercise due
to them hindering blood flow and preventing removal of waste materials from
muscles.

------
sndean
The writer's about page says:

> Todd’s philosophy of Hormetism is the result of years of personal
> investigation into the role of moderate stress in adaptation, as applied to
> health, nutrition, rehabilitation and psychology.

Hormetism is the idea that a low dose of a chemical can induce a response
that's the opposite of the response seen at a high dose [1].

Hormetism is, to say the least, very controversial. It is at best a seldom
observed, poorly understood phenomena that's important for the biological role
of nitric oxide and a few other chemicals. At worst, it's like homeopathy:
quacktacular pseudoscience. So take this article with a grain of salt.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis)

~~~
RogtamBar
French Academy of Sciences has publicly claimed that radiation hormesis is a
fact.

I would not call hormetism 'very controversial'.

~~~
collyw
Water must fall into the same category, as I have seen reports of people dying
after drinking too much.

------
Hondor
Simple physics analysis

Almost all of the energy we get from food is used to heat our bodies, mostly
indirectly via our liver, spleen and brain. [
[https://www.boundless.com/physics/textbooks/624/work-and-
ene...](https://www.boundless.com/physics/textbooks/624/work-and-
energy-6/power-65/humans-work-energy-and-power-287-6037/) ]

A 40 degC person exposed to 0 degC air would lose heat at twice the rate of
normal (40 degC person in 20 degC air). That's because convective heat flow
rate is roughly proportional to temperature difference. All that heat has to
be made up for by the body's metabolism. So you would burn calories at nearly
twice the rate you would normally. It doesn't matter if it comes from brown
fat, shivering, waste heat from your brain, or some other process, as long as
it's internal to your body, it's taking energy that would otherwise not have
been used.

A shower in 0 degC water could be on the order of 100 times more effective
than 0 degC air, so you could get the same value from a shorter exposure. [
[http://www.engineersedge.com/heat_transfer/convective_heat_t...](http://www.engineersedge.com/heat_transfer/convective_heat_transfer_coefficients__13378.htm)
]

A cold shower for a couple of minutes a day (0.1 % of your life) would be
equivalent to cold air for a couple of hours (10% of your life). That's about
10% more energy used than otherwise. So it sounds like even from a simple heat
transfer perspective, cold showers must be effective at losing weight, as long
as you don't compensate for that some other way like feeling more hungry
afterwards :P

~~~
onion2k
A cold shower lowers your skin temperature, which in turn causes your body to
restrict the blood flow to save heat. When you get out of the shower and back
in to the warm you start pumping blood back to the surface again. There is no
additional work done to warm you up. Your physics approach is betrayed by
biology. We've had thousands of years to evolve an efficient solution to the
problem of heat conservation.

~~~
ljf
So having a cold shower has no effect on core temp? What about a cold bath?
What about being in the sea after an accident at the higher latitudes??

Also I think you will find that returning your skin to a normal temperature
after chilling in in any way (water, aircon, etc) temporarily decreases core
temperature after which you expend energy to return it to normal.

We may have had thousands (if not millions) of years to evolve solutions to
heat conservation but they aren't perfect, or people would never die in
freezing water or conditions.

~~~
Hondor
If your core temperature drops, it's probably because you're losing heat
faster than you can generate it. That kind of points to how effective this
could be in the limit of being nearly fatal - If you can lose more heat than
your body can produce, you're surely doing a pretty good job of burning
calories!

Yes, I agree we're far from perfect at conserving heat. We're optimized for
other conflicting purposes instead. We don't even have fur.

------
derefr
One thing I know that cold, exercise, and _loud noises_ all have in common is
that the body responds to them by producing adrenaline. People are told by
nutritionists to take compounds like tyrosine to make up for the essential
nutrients (i.e. phenylalanine) that sustained adrenaline production uses up,
if they work in an environment with frequent "shocks" of any of the above
types.

I do wonder if actually being in such a phenylalanine-depleted state (which is
then also a tyrosine-depleted, phenylethylamine-depleted, L-DOPA-depleted,
dopamine-depleted, adrenaline-depleted, and norepinephrine-depleted state) has
any long-term effects on the body, which might even be positive. Goodness
knows it certainly makes you want to sleep for a week.

(Come to think of it, an interesting question would be whether people with
phenylketonuria who grew up on a compensatory dietary-restriction regimen low
in phenylalanine—thus causing such sustained deficiencies of all the
above—have any physiological differences to people without phenylketonuria.)

~~~
alatkins
Can you comment on whether chronic stress could be added to that list of
factors contributing to phenylalanine depletion?

~~~
torus
The wikipedia page for Tyrosine suggests yes:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrosine#Medical_use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrosine#Medical_use)

------
buserror
I've been taking cold showers for years, it gives such a good kick in the
morning it's MUCH more efficient than coffee to get you from that lethargic
state you can get in the morning to full-speed. Oh and if you had a heavy
evening the night before, it's also a good way to remove the potential
lingering headache you woke up with :-)

It does take a little willpower to get in, but the 'cold' effect lasts about a
second; I no longer even have the unrestrained strong shiver I use to have due
to the thermal shock.

Oh, and even in really cold water, I can stay there for quite a while, wash my
hair etc. The sign that I've been there too long is when the top of my feet
start to hurt a little.

Once you get out, metabolism is at full speed and you'll pretty quickly feel
very, very warm (while staying outwardly cold for a while).

Only downside I know of is that I'll sometime feel too warm when I get in the
office, as the metabolism goes overboard a bit.

My wife doesn't understand how I do it, she calls me 'glaconman' (french
version of iceman) since I'm definitely not getting any cuddles for the next
20 minutes or so -- but well, it does work very well for me...

~~~
maga
>Only downside I know of is that I'll sometime feel too warm when I get in the
office, as the metabolism goes overboard a bit.

This and picking the right shampoos and soaps at the beginning. It's hard to
them "foamy" in cold water, especially during winters when tap water gets even
colder. My usual 10 min baths went to 20 with cold water simply because of it.

~~~
Hockenbrizzle
This is why I start my showers luke-warm and then go cold. My hair is medium-
long and really thick and I just cant seem to make any progress washing it if
the water is too cold.

~~~
keypress
You don't have to have cold showers everyday. I default to cold, and when
grimy go for hot. You only really need to soap the places where the sun
doesn't shine. And your hair doesn't need shampooing everyday. But each to
their own.

------
100ideas
Also of interest may be the Mammalian Diving Reflex
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex))
- Exposing your face to cold water and holding your breath can induce
bradycardia (slowing of pulse), dropping it by 10-20 BPM.

In my experience, it leaves me with a sense of calm and general body-
relaxation similar to how I feel 30-60 minutes after cardio workouts.

~~~
justinlardinois
_If_ you can manage to keep calm long enough for bradycardia to set in.

I took a marine biology course in high school and we had an experiment to show
braycardia that involved holding your breath and putting your face in a bowl
of ice water. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep my body from
panicking and pulling away.

~~~
100ideas
This is the quintessential way to activate the Mammalian diving reflex at
brunch, cocktail parties, the office, or the classroom. Unless you are
inclined to panic, you and your more medically-minded friends will be
fascinated by the significant and immediate effect it can induce on your PNS
and heart rate.

------
sambe
The homepage of this website is currently encouraging "natural" correction of
myopia via slightly incorrect prescription and intentional straining. Most of
the evidence I'm aware of (see references in e.g.
[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140513-do-glasses-
weaken-y...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140513-do-glasses-weaken-your-
eyesight)) concludes that this makes things worse. My reaction to such things
(especially when focussed on natural methods) tends to be distrusting
objectivity.

------
powera
Article is from 2014.

Also this guy thinks he has the solution to back pain and bad vision as well,
so I would take all of his solutions with a "not verified by actual scientific
studies" grain of salt.

~~~
nkozyra
But I already bought his Cold Water Magic Beans®!

------
taneq
Interesting. The article reads a bit like bro-science but there are plenty of
references to scientific studies... I'll be curious to see whether 'cold
therapy' starts appearing as a buzz word in weight loss treatments.

~~~
dwg
Close to it for sure...

[https://coolfatburner.com/](https://coolfatburner.com/)

[https://www.coldshouldervest.com/](https://www.coldshouldervest.com/)

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/does-
glo...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/does-global-
warming-make-me-look-fat/383509/)

~~~
komali2
Tim Ferris based a huge chunk of his "24 Hour Body" book on the concept of
cold baths.

~~~
alatkins
4 hour body - the dude optimises way past 24 hours!

------
deepGem
I have been on cold showers for almost a year now. Can't imagine going back to
warm showers, even in the dead of the winter. The coldest shower I took was
perhaps in Switzerland in December - I lasted for a couple of minutes or so in
the shower. It was a fabulous experience nonetheless. Why take a cold shower ?
I was spending way too much time in hot showers, almost 20-30 minutes.
Criminal waste of time and water. Am not sure about the benefits, haven't
noticed anything change in my body, but it's a great feeling to come out of an
icy cold shower. Suddenly, the world feels warmer :)

~~~
bitL
Just make sure you don't catch deep sinus infection from having your head
exposed to cold too much/often, like it happened to me (1+ year of cold
showers). You don't want to be knocked out for a month.

~~~
deepGem
I did catch an infection and was knocked out for a couple of weeks. Haven't
had any issues after that. I'll watch out though. Thank you.

------
keiferski
Cold showers remind me of my experience in a Japanese bathhouse in Kyoto. At
first, the hot baths are _way too hot_ and the cold bath is _absolutely
freezing_. But, if you power through it, the results are amazing. The process
of (rinse > hot bath > cold bath) repeated over and over again was incredibly
calming.

It ended up being one of my favorite things about Japan, and I spent 2-3 hours
there everyday during my week in Kyoto.

------
maga
I wrote about my experience with cold showers here before:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8808859](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8808859)

490 days later, I'm still using cold water only. Except for ears: switched to
using warm water when experienced some buzzing in one ear during last winter.
I've upped my game by adding snow/ice baths during the winter. Since last
autumn I have added daily HIIT - 10-15 mins of advanced body-weight exercises
with 20 sec. rest intervals.

Now, how it affects my weight. Since the last time I wrote about it, I've
actually begun to follow my weight numbers. Back at the time I was about 84kg.
Cold showers alone, with some gym here and there didn't do much for weight: it
went down to 83 sometimes, but bounced back to 84 later. Yet, I must say, I
was well into the practice by that time, and few years before I could weight
as high as 88 kgs. So, perhaps, cold showers did lower my weight somewhat
without my notice. Adding HIIT gave a steady weight loss, albeit a slow one:
three months into I lost only 2-3kgs. It is possible that HIIT burned more fat
yet balanced weight by adding lean mass: some muscles are bigger now. Mind
you, all that time weight was of no concern to me: followed it just out of
curiosity. Last January though, my old trauma reminded about itself and I
needed to lose weight. Since I was already doing most of the recommended
stuff, I just cut on calories by completely removing sugar and keeping 12 hour
window for eating. In one month I lost about 6kgs going to 76-77kgs and
decided to keep it their by increasing calories. TL;DR: Cutting calories is
the fastest way to lose weight, neither cold-showers, nor HIIT can compete
with it in short term.

On the upside, both cold showers and HIIT are downright pleasure to do once
you get addicted to them. I do HIIT after the work before evening meal, at
about 5 - 6PM, follow it with a cold shower and feel full and energetic as if
I've just waken up in the morning.

------
keypress
I like cold showers, and hot ones. I can never have a shower hot enough
though, and getting out always is chilling. Whereas once you get out a cold
shower, you only feel warmer. Preferably you don't want to leave the cold for
freezing. I swam in a mountain stream late autumn last year (in the UK). It
was so icy entering the stream, I thought it was never going to happen. After
a few attempts and acclimatisation I was happily immersed. A little sun on the
skin afterwards left me totally re-energised and awake. So just stick with it
if you want to give it a go. Much like a cold shower, it's initially shocking,
but becomes pleasurable. The human body is quite odd!

------
spiraldancing
I'm into my second year of extreme Scottish showers -- first 5 minutes as hot
as I can stand (and keep turning it up as I get used to the temp) ... last 5
minutes as cold as it goes. I expect there are legitimate physical health
benefits; however, for me, the main benefit is the challenge & discipline of
it, of stepping out of the shower thinking that the hardest thing I'll do
today may already be behind me.

------
blubb-fish
I'm exclusively showering cold now for more than a year. If I recall correctly
one of the reasons was a VICE documentary on Wim Hof - that quite impressed me
- though after a while I came to the conclusion that he is mostly well
marketed (by his son - who he refers to as the biggest asshole he knows -
[https://youtu.be/VaMjhwFE1Zw?t=1311](https://youtu.be/VaMjhwFE1Zw?t=1311))
and that most claims are rather blown out of proportion.

For example his scientific research on suppressing immune response to an
infection is sold as a medical revolution while it has absolutely no practical
value - if you think about it - quite the opposite as an immune response is
usually something rather useful.

Anyway - I think it is worth it for several obvious reasons:

\- it's definitely very refreshing!

\- it helps waking up a lot

\- it is a simple way to train discipline

\- it's less stressful to skin than hot water

\- it's nice to know that I am not depending on hot water

------
chenster
I did it for over year. It's still uncomfortable as I remembered that I always
need to mentally get ready. My upper arms, especially triceps, are the most
painful, coldest body parts when showered in cold water. I'm not sure why.
During winter, I literally had to jump up and down, screaming to withstand the
absolutely torturing coldness for the first five seconds. It gets a little
better after that. I couldn't never take cold shower too long before the
freezing water penetrating the skin and shivering the bone. That's when I know
it's time to finish and get out.

~~~
RogtamBar
Water is colder in winter....

Best thing would be having a thermometer and showering with same temp water
all year round.

------
_98fj
I started to shower cold (actually first warm, then cold, then "neutral")
every day when I was 9. I'm 30 now, so 21 years of that :).

I almost never feel cold, when I do i'm sick or very tired.

I do martial arts and I gain muscles very very easily, so maybe that's because
of that?

And all my blood values have always been in the optimal range, except
cholesterol which is always a bit too high (runs in the family).

------
throwaway7767
An alternative for people in colder climates: just wear less clothing day-to-
day. I generally wear one layer fewer than people around me. It really doesn't
take long for the body to acclimate to it to the point it's no longer
uncomfortable.

I love my hot showers too much to give them up, so this seems preferable.

------
AthleticNerd
I ran D1 track in college and our strength coach advised us to take cold
showers before lifting as a way of warming up and calming down, but mostly
calming down. He said it was a good idea before races too.

The guy was absolutely ripped so I'd believe what he says, and he usually
backed it up with studies.

~~~
dredmorbius
One word of caution: it's not a coach's _own_ accomplishments or physique
which are qualifications, but the _results_ they promote among their
_athletes_.

I've known horribly bad coaches with excellent physiques. And excellent ones
who were quite literally paralysed.

------
atomical
There is a lot of controversy surrounding Irisin.

[http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/?s=Irisin](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/?s=Irisin)

Quotes Peter Attia? He isn't a researcher.

------
xyzzy4
I would certainly take a lot of cold showers if I didn't have to be conscious
during the shower.

------
maxencecornet
How cold should be cold showers ?

~~~
RogtamBar
Practically, you can't do anything else but use the cold water from the
shower.

However, even in summer it is usually quite invigorating, even though it might
be 15-20°C. It can be a good deal colder in winter though.

------
rituch
Please refrain from using abusive terms here on this forum.

~~~
AJRF
Wow, get real rituch.

~~~
hartpuff
You "get real". Not everyone is from an English speaking country or can
differentiate 'earthy banter' from sincerely offensive epithets online.

~~~
kingkawn
Which is why the default reaction shouldn't be offense

~~~
hartpuff
Who said the default reaction should be offence then? Who even said rituch was
personally offended by it?

If someone doesn't recognize it as relatively harmless banter (which may be a
matter of opinion anyway), then why would they _not_ think it's inappropriate
here, when this forum is known for being more civil than most, partly for the
reason rituch gave?

The "default" should be to recognize that misunderstandings happen online, and
to definitely not post a rude, redundant comment like "get real" to an already
heavily downvoted post that two other people have already addressed.

Edit: Well, judging by the down and upvoting, it seems I'm in a minority, or a
lot of 'free speech' warriors here don't understand the concept of private
forums with rules, and think posts simply telling people to "get real" add to
a discussion.

~~~
user_0001
How about he came out and said

"yo bitch, that's crazy" or "my nigga, that's insane"

These would be deemed unacceptable and rightly so.

~~~
hartpuff
I assume you mean AJRF. Just because those two examples are unacceptable
doesn't mean "wow, get real" is acceptable. If you disagree or don't
understand why someone said something, then either forget about it, or reply
to it for clarification or discussion.

I mean why don't we all just post "get real" to everything or everyone we
disagree with? Apparently a surprising number of people here can't think of a
reason why not, since they think "get real" a fine response.

Edit: Actually, I think you mean if the "motherfucker" guy had said those
things, in which case, I agree. People defending the use of "crazy
motherfucker" may indeed be offended by the examples you gave, or feel they
are inappropriate here, but can't seem to understand that terms they think are
fine may be considered inappropriate to other people.

------
jetbeau
Wim Hof people Wim Hof

~~~
proksoup
Wim Hof is an individual case study that has done research in this area, and
other related phenomena (breathing and autonomous response control)[1]

Not sure it's any more or less "bro science" then this article, but it's
interesting and relevant enough to be worth talking about here I think.

[1]
[https://www.radboudumc.nl/Research/Pages/PNASIceman.aspx](https://www.radboudumc.nl/Research/Pages/PNASIceman.aspx)

