Both cold and hot showers have health benefits. Cold showers can help reduce inflammation, relieve pain, improve circulation, lower stress levels, and reduce muscle soreness and fatigue. Hot showers can improve cardiovascular health, soothe stiff joints, and improve sleep.
this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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i’m confused at to how cold showers would increase circulation, wouldn’t cold water cause vascular constriction causing an overall reduction in circulation?
Same way running reduces resting heart beat rate.
maybe an improvement in overall circulation?
You forgot to add that cold showers help with the sperms count, that thing really helped us get pregnant
So you’re saying I should take scalding hot showers
No worries, just the nether regions. Or dip the boys in scalding hot water once a while.
Or just play some games on your laptop.
Bonus points if you do that in a car with seat heating!
No they are not.
Not an expert in the matter, just do not want to take cold showers.
You sound like an expert to me!
I sleep every day, I should be considered an expert by now
This person sciences 👌
Depends on the situation and what you want to achieve.
For example cold and warm showers both have different benefits after a hard workout.
Warm water is better for muscle relaxation, reduced stuffy airways, etc. and is shown to let people fall asleep more easily when done shortly before bed.
Cold showers after intense workouts can help reduce muscle inflammation and improve recovery time.
And on the list goes.
If you shower in the morning or during the day, take a warm shower and end with 1-2min of really cold water. It's been shown that you don't really need more than that to trigger a little stress response from the body wich will wake you up, help boost your immune system and can improve blood circulation.
(In general do not take cold showers if you have chronic respiratory issues or you're already sick)
Yes. Cold showers are linked to higher white blood cell count, decrease in sick days, decrease depression, better sleep, among others.
At the very least they're more environmentally friendly and time-saving than regular showers. In my personal experience, I am much less sensitive to short-term temperature changes than others.
There seems to be some evidence to support this, interestingly enough:
Yes. Cold showers (and that means as cold as you can make em) stimulate your immune system and activate your brown fat cells who in this artificial environment in which we're never cold lie dormant. Brown fat activates just before you start shivering, it heats up the body by burning calories and helped our ancestors survive situations where they could just turn up the heat. There's a cool book on this: "What doesn't kill us" by Scott Carney. It's about Scott, a journalist, being sceptical of the achievements of Wim Hof (the dude that takes hour long ice baths) and visiting him to prove that he's a false prophet.
I once spent almost a year only taking cold showers. It sucks big time for ten seconds and then your body adjusts and you're actually quite comfortable (seriously, try it. Pretty amazing feeling). Wish I hadn't stopped, but come winter hot showers just became too enticing :D
Save me some time, is Wim Hof full of it? I was mildly skeptical but open to it. We obviously don't know all there is to know about the human body and mind. But then I saw that everything was behind paywalls and speeches I became more skeptical but I'm still interested.
Very much not full of it. The author ends up being completely convinced and even climbs a mountain with Wim Hof while wearing nothing but short pants.
Depends on your definition of 'full of it'.
Wim Hof does pretty much everything he claims to do. His 'method' however is pretty much nonsense. It doesn't take a genius to say 'hey if you get used to being in the cold you'll feel less cold when you're in the cold'. It's unclear how much of it is a blatant cash grab and how much he actually believes, however.
It is (technically) possible to learn to trick your body into fight-or-flight mode, releasing adrenaline which will cause your body to heat up. You can even learn to do this for extended periods of time, as at least one group of Tibetan monks practice. But unless you're a monk, you're highly unlikely to ever achieve anything other than life-threatening tachycardia.
As you may imagine, it's quite difficult to achieve and even if you do so, it's not great for your long-term heart health to constantly trick your body to release adrenaline for extended periods. It's even worse for the brain.
There's an interesting Vox video about this too.
Just a simple explainer, but interesting nonetheless.
There's an interesting Vox video about this too.
Just a simple explainer, but interesting nonetheless.
Most people here don't have water heaters; cold water is the norm. Some take a hot bath now and then, for aches and such. Most say hot water is harder on their skin. Personally I haven't found a noticeable difference.
where's here?
Pertinent question.
I moved to the tropics last year from the US Northeast. The first place I lived was a 3rd floor apartment with copper pipes and a failed water heater. A "cold" shower was about 60°F. A local friend always gave me lectures when I complained of these cold showers, extolling the health benefits, and explaining that many people here don't even have hot water.
Then I moved to a new place with PVC plumbing and an above ground water storage tank. The "cold" water out of the tap was always in the mid-80's (called "street temperature" here), and I never use the hot water heater, leaving the breaker off. There are definitely hot days that I wish the cold water was cooler.
It turns out, geography plays a role in the subjective meaning of a cold shower.
A lot of this stems from the fact that many water heaters, especially older ones contaminate the water, add heavy metals, etc.
I've never heard that. I always heard that cold water is better for your hair and skin also that it boost your immune system. Don't know if it's true but that's what I've heard
Yes, cold water baths are also reportedly good for circulation, inflammation, and muscle recovery
No wonder my water heater goes so hard when it breaks down
I'm just a guy on the internet but I think that if you adjust to colder water it would make swimming/waterfalls way more enjoyable out in the world. It also could be seen as a way to challenge yourself and literally get out of your comfort zone for a while
No, they're just different.
I like hot showers before bed, they relax me - also if I have any health issues (recently a torn rotator cuff) then I found a very hot shower helped quite a lot with that (actually very hot, followed by a blast of cool, then hot again).
Hot showers also help if I get a cold, or stuffy nose.
However, for cooling down, waking up, getting energy - then cool showers are better.
Supposedly hot water can exacerbate dry skin although I don’t know to what extent it does but it seems to be fairly common consensus. Personally, I’ve always been a bit skeptical about that.
This makes sense to me. Higher temperature water is better at removing oil from a surface (this is why you use hot water to wash dishes). Hot showers are more likely to strip oils from your skin than cold showers, leading to drier skin. Of course if you use harsh soap it won’t matter what temperature the shower is.
No, cold showers are terrible for me. Ruin my whole day.
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