Cold showers and cold-water swimming, the benefits in terms of physical and mental health - what do we know?

[marinyork]

Mainstream claims are improvements to:

Mental Health
Alertness
Muscle soreness
Weight loss

So what do people know cold water immersion and what has been your experience?

Cold showers and cold water swimming for mental health claims are older than you are.

In anxiety circles the vagal/mammalian diving response stuff got resurrected a couple of years ago and has been doing the rounds ever since around the internet. Usually you get people religiously quoting it (especially the face splashing) not quite understanding why, but they say it works.

In 2016 the BBC had a tv double parter called The Doctor who gave up drugs and that featured some of the research on cold water swimming.
The BBC has a follow up 2 years later https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45487187 for someone who'd taken medication for 8 years and stuck in a rut and took up cold water swimming (supervised). The article explains the basic. On weight loss/depression people have been looking into how brown fat is activated in the body, as well as the stress response and cross-adaptation.

Alertness is one that's talked about a lot, it's quite a hard one to quantify. You could argue that going into parks for walks/cycles with birdsong and trees makes you more 'alert'.

For me cold showers don't work, they make particular muscles even stiffer. That one's not particularly unheard of if you seek enough experiences.

At a local park cold water swimming during covid has gone from virtually zero usage to daily swimmers (sadly the water isn't tested so it can't be verified that it's relatively safe).

 

[stephec]

I've never intentionally had a cold shower, but after a run I always have a cold bath.

Fill up to waist level with cold water and sit in it for about six or seven minutes, followed by a warm shower. It does a good job of getting rid of any inflammation and niggles, a bit like using an ice pack I suppose.

Weird thing is after a minute you warm up so much that you have to shake your legs a bit to get cold water round them again.

 

[Kryton521]

Wim Hoff{sp?} has a book and dedicates his life and well being to cold water immersion.

Don't know much about him, but as a listener to Virgin radio and a fan of Eddie Temple-Morris, who follows the method, so have I.
Turn the shower on and get as much of myself as I can stand under the water as it warms up.
Through the summer I was going swimming in the sea,[wet suited!] but always felt good for it

 

[screenman]

I start with the shower cold now wash with it warm and finish cold, brilliant feeling.

 

[screenman]

I got in a cold shower last night and wondered why it was taking a while to warm up, seems you actually have to have the mixer valve turned to warm and not cold for it to get warm. As somebody who has suffered from anxiety and depression all thier life I feel the cold water shower is something I am going to stick with, about 3 days ago I had a headache and was going to take a couple Ibruprofen but because decided to have my shower first, got out a few minutes later feeling great and with no headache.

The sad thing is many of the people who would or could benefit from this action will not even try it or research it.

 

[acuna_read]

Wim Hoff{sp?} has a book and dedicates his life and well being to cold water immersion.

Interesting guy who has become a bit of a cult figure. Lots of stuff he says is highly dubious nonsense, with a lot also being very salient and interesting. There are fMRI scans of him being able to control autonomous functions/parts of the brain and also to teach this to others. Very bizarre and interesting are of research. Interesting books worth a read and the cold water and breathing technique stuff is worth trying.

I got in a cold shower last night and wondered why it was taking a while to warm up, seems you actually have to have the mixer valve turned to warm and not cold for it to get warm. As somebody who has suffered from anxiety and depression all thier life I feel the cold water shower is something I am going to stick with, about 3 days ago I had a headache and was going to take a couple Ibruprofen but because decided to have my shower first, got out a few minutes later feeling great and with no headache.

The sad thing is many of the people who would or could benefit from this action will not even try it or research it.

There's lots of research going into pain and mood/depression management via cold water therapy and also virtual reality. Cold water therapy is related to the Thalamus and increasing the blood flow to it and it therefore functioning better is my rudimentary understanding. This supposedly allows it to work in managing pain and the distribution of endorphins/pain relieving medicines which are present in you at all times. Pain is a function of the brain anyway, the sensation of pain is produced by the brain so understanding and manipulating this could be a massive breakthrough. Very complex and way beyond my understanding for what I need to know. But cold showers, and in particular your head in cold water, seem to provide help.

 

[Notafettler]

I don't need to turn the heating on after a cold shower. Mathematically it will work out cheaper to have 21 cold showers a day to save me using the central heating. That's based on the outside temperature not falling below 9 degrees. I haven't worked it out yet for 0 degrees outside. But extrapolating I think it will only require 98 cold showers per day but that assumes i will be in the house all day.
As water charges are £1.53 per cubic metre and LPG is 44p per litre. I am hoping I will save a considerable amount of money to spend on important things like cycling and beer although not necessarily in that order.
I will also need to put more money into my pension as the combination of cold water bathing and the 5 2 diet will increase my life expectancy to 180. When buying an annuity I will not inform them of this.

 

[Chap sur le velo]

A tip if you want to try this.

Control your breathing. Before the cold water hits take a very deep breath. Concentrate hard on releasing your breath very slowly and fully empty your lungs. Do this twice and you will then be able to breathe normally.

If you don't control it, likely you will take lots of short ineffective "pants" and feel uncomfortable for a couple of minutes until you get used to it. The lack of control makes it impossible to enjoy the sensations. This shock causes panic and drowning when people fall into rough or flowing cold water.

This month the overnight temperatures have really fallen and the cold water tank in the loft is probably at less than 7degrees. I have my morning shower warm and finish with 30 secs of cold. Lovely and the colder the better.

 

[Notafettler]

A tip if you want to try this.

Control your breathing. Before the cold water hits take a very deep breath. Concentrate hard on releasing your breath very slowly and fully empty your lungs. Do this twice and you will then be able to breathe normally.

If you don't control it, likely you will take lots of short ineffective "pants" and feel uncomfortable for a couple of minutes until you get used to it. The lack of control makes it impossible to enjoy the sensations. This shock causes panic and drowning when people fall into rough or flowing cold water.

This month the overnight temperatures have really fallen and the cold water tank in the loft is probably at less than 7degrees. I have my morning shower warm and finish with 30 secs of cold. Lovely and the colder the better.

I wonder if ice packs will do the job?
Maybe not filling my giant freezer to the top and getting in it for an hour? I would have to break the lock obviously!

 

[Chap sur le velo]

Time to do this. This week the water in the tank in my loft can't be more than 3 or 4 degrees - now that's refreshing!

 

[oldwheels]

I would only consider cold water swimming with a wet suit. Cannot remember the survival time if you fall into cold water but it is not long.
I have also as a scuba diver had to find bodies of people who on a hot summer day jumped into a cold fresh water river pool.