DEV Community

Cover image for Cold Shower Therapy
Adrien Giboire
Adrien Giboire

Posted on

Cold Shower Therapy

originally posted here

A couple of months ago, I watched a video where Joel Runyon gives his first talk at TEDx, How Cold Shower Therapy Can Change Your Life. The title of his talk was a bit confusing to me.

When I was a child, my parents used to put me in cold showers to calm me down, or to punish me for having done bad things. I was pretty hard to handle as a child. Anyway, I really wondered in what way cold showers could be used as a therapy.

In his talk, Joel tells an anecdote about a meeting he had with a successful entrepreneur friend. Joel told him about his will to eventually start his own business after he was done with a new great job opportunity he just got.

His friend asked him about why Joel didn’t started his own business already. Well, you know answers’ Joel. Everybody replies the same. Like not enough money, not enough time, not knowing what to do as business anyway,…

The true thing is that most people are afraid of the new situation starting its own business is. You will lose your regular wages which can be more or less scary, according to your social situation (couple, children, …). You will have to build the business you want which can be pretty hard and exhausting.

It will be uncomfortable.

Relating to this uncomfortable thing, Joel’s friend told him to do one thing to understand what being uncomfortable is. Take a cold shower each day during 30 days. This is uncomfortable.

I have my own business and I was curious to see how this therapy would work on me. So I did it.

Today, I’m over 40 cold showers. I don’t think I’m gonna be more able or unable to deal with uncomfortable situations. And taking the bull by the horns is one thing I never was afraid of. Despite that, I don’t think that if you can’t take a cold shower each day during 30 days will make you more unable to deal with uncomfortable situations. And I don’t think that if you are able to take 30 cold showers, you will be more reliable when facing uncomfortable situations.

But here are my thoughts about taking cold showers.

It is more eco-friendly. Not using hot water means no need to burn anything to warm your water. You might even be more likely to take shorter showers, so… It also helps you being thin or burning fat. Indeed, as you cool down your body with an ice cold water shower during 5 to 10 minutes, you will make your body burns a lot of calories to warm itself up. And last but not least, it makes you more vigorous. You’ll see.

And there is more to it.

Try to set it up as a routine, and you’ll like it. And don’t be mistaken, one hot shower from time to time is allowed.

Want to read more about the health benefits of a cold shower?

Follow this link to comment

Top comments (0)