5 Unusual Tweaks to Boost the Benefits of Cold Showers
Potent science-backed tricks I’ve learned from 200+ days of cold showers
Despite greeting the icy deluge over 200 times, its effects still amaze me daily.
The jolting spike in energy and focus. The comfort-rejecting kick to the mind. The stress-vaporizing deep breaths. Then, the sea of refreshing calm.
Science is a superfan of cold showers as well.
While one study correlated 30 consecutive days of cold showers with a 29% decrease in sickness, another found a metabolism spike through brown fat activation. Yet another study found repeated cold exposure to harden your stress tolerance.
The wildest finding yet? Up to a 530% and 250% spike in concentrations of feel-good hormones like noradrenaline and dopamine, respectively!
“We go to the gym to work our muscles, but inside our bodies, we have millions of tiny muscles in the cardiovascular system — and we can train them by simply taking a cold shower.”
— Wim Hof, the superhuman Iceman
But despite costing zero dollars and extra time, why don’t most stick to this powerful habit?
Simple. They rush.
Fired up by the hype, they somersault into sub-zero water. If they don’t end up sneezing and slurping tea under thick blankets, they run out of willpower.
To build a sustainable cold-shower (or any) habit, ease yourself into it:
- Day 1: Start with transition showers — slowly gyrate the knob from hot to cold.
- Week 1: Gradually decrease the hot: cold duration ratio. Then, increase the speed of the transition.
- Week 2: Ditch hot. Start with lukewarm. Continue leveling up your transition showers.
- Week 3: Time to greet the chill. Start mild and work your way down to sub-20 degrees Celsius.
By week 4, you’d have warmed up to the cold.
P.S. This isn’t an excuse to get complacent. Stay consistent. Even if you miss a day, greet back your icy faucet the next.
It’s time to inject potent flavor into your “vanilla” cold showers — here are 5 ways to put the power of cold showers on steroids.
Control Your “Mammalian Dive Reflex”
Today’s land mammals descended from 370 million-year-old fish that got fed up with the seas.
So, we still possess the primitive dive reflex — a rapid series of 3 bodily changes anticipating underwater oxygen-deprived swimming:
- Bradycardia — aka slowing down of your heart rate.
- Apnea — aka a sharp pause in your breathing.
- Heightened peripheral vascular resistance — aka a spike in your blood pressure.
This amalgam results in a sharp involuntary intake of breath that floods your lungs with Oxygen.
Ironically, modern showers can hoodwink this evolution-honed, millennia-old reflex — the moment the cold torrent hits your face, the dive reflex kicks in.
Resist the reflex by controlling your breathing. Breathe deeply using the ancient pranayama breathing technique of Ujjayi or “oceanic breath”
While one study found Ujjayi breathing to increase bodily Oxygen saturation, another explored its stimulation of the vagus nerve — the “relax” command center of our bodies.
Forget the water. Forget the cold. Forget the shower. Turn your focus inwards and onto your breath.
To get the hang of this, allow yourself at least a week or two. Gradually lower the shower temperature and hone your reflex resistance.
P.S. Don’t steel your will, clench your jaw, and flex your muscles to avoid flinching. That defeats the purpose. Focus solely on steadying the breath — your body will follow suit.
By overriding your millennia-old survival programming, you develop deeper breath and mental control — handy in high-stress “Flight or fight” situations.
Be it cold water hitting your body or cold waves of suffering crashing through your life, you won’t flinch.
Inject “Contrast” Into Your Cold Showers
The core benefit of cold showers stems from their “shock” effect — the sudden change in temperature when you step into the chilling torrent.
But this lasts only for seconds. As your breathing steadies and shivering fades, your body adapts. As dermatologist Lauren Ploch explains,
“Our bodies tend to adapt to water temperature to become comfortable, so a contrast shower ‘shocks’ the system by switching temperatures just as our body begins to adapt to the previous temperature”
To continually trigger the shock effect, use “contrast”— oscillate the knob from hot to cold every 15 to 30 seconds. Props to my friend Akshad Singi for this novel idea. A few pointers:
- Start with cold, and finish with cold. A “15-second on-off” cadence is a good starting point.
- Make the cold phase longer than the hot — don’t melt in the cozy heat, and forget to switch back to cold. Aim to hit a 2-to-1 ratio of the cold-to-hot duration.
- Swiftly switch the knob from hot to cold — fight the urge to “ease” yourself into the temperature drop.
- Keep a count of the oscillations — and with every cold shower, aim to set a new high score.
Consistently pulling off contrast showers make plain cold showers easier.
P.S. This isn’t an excuse to ditch regular cold showers — because the extended cold exposure also has a lot of benefits.
Increase the “Ease of Exit”
Anything that pushes you face-to-face with discomfort is a growth catalyst.
Cold-approaching gorgeous strangers. Signing up for a kickboxing fight. Going on stage at an open Mic. Attempting a risky dare. Trying a hardcore fitness challenge.
But most such catalysts have a low “Ease of exit” — the embarrassment, peer pressure, or social expectations will push you through.
But cold showers? The water knob is mere inches away. One nanosecond wrist flick, and you can spell an end to the icy torture.
Resisting such easily accessible comfort trains your brain to lean into discomfort.
To increase the ease of exit, switch on the geyser beforehand. Stare into the eyeless depths of the shower head. Throw in a pack of ice to dial up the cold. In the winter, double down on cold showers. Take them early in the frigid mornings.
The easier not taking your cold showers gets, the harder it gets to stick to them.
Tighten Your “Negotiation Room”
Our comfort-addicted brains are master negotiators.
By hesitating long enough, you can justify escaping anything hard and snaking into anything easy — all thanks to evolution programming us to seek pleasure and avoid pleasure.
Thinking about a decision can and must take time — to weigh out the pros/cons and evaluate it through a rational lens.
But once you’ve decided, snap-execute. Hesitation will only weaken your conviction. Train your snap ability with cold showers:
- By stepping into the bathroom you’ve already decided to take a cold shower.
- So why procrastinate in front of the showerhead?
- Note the time duration between entering the shower room and turning on the faucet.
- Keep shortening this gap — until it’s instantaneous. Decide to take a cold shower and take it.
A similar snap technique I’ve found to work like a charm is performing “on-demand pushups.”
Decide to do X pushups → Drop right there to the ground → Bang them out.
No thinking. No pausing. No hesitation. Only prompt action — a ridiculously easy way to beat the 95% procrastinating majority.
Don’t Let the Cold Hijack Your Amygdala
Ever blanked out in an exam due to the sheer tension? Or stammered gibberish after walking up to a cute girl? Or went mute in a crucial interview?
Fear, shock, and stress hijack our brains and freeze our cognitive capabilities.
Train yourself to stay sharp under pressure using cold showers — the easiest DIY simulations of stressful situations (especially in winter)
I try multiplying 2-digit numbers, reciting random tables, and imagining vivid scenes. This challenges both your creative and intellectual capabilities.
If I’m chewing on a problem or fleshing out an article, I carry over the mental work into the shower — and try to continue flexing my brain.
P.S. Lost in these mental gymnastics, you might end up soaping your body 10 times. Don’t blame me for overextending your toiletries budget!
A Quick Warm Recap for You
Cold showers are our real world’s equivalent of Dragon Ball Z’s gravity chambers.
Leverage them to toughen your mind, body, and immunity. Before diving into snow-crusted lakes, build the habit:
- Day 1 — Hot-to-cold transition showers.
- Week 1 — Increase transition speed. Decrease the hot-to-cold ratio.
- Week 2 — Ditch hot. Embrace lukewarm. Continue.
- Week 3 — Start cold. Progress to sub-20°C.
Solidify the habit through daily consistency. Then, power up your cold showers even further:
- Control your “Mammalian Dive Reflex” — through deep Ujjayi breathing.
- “Contrast” your showers — by switching every 15–30 seconds between hot and cold.
- Make your cold showers “easier to exit” — by turning on the geyser, pausing in front of the faucet, and taking them earlier in the mornings.
- Fight your brain’s hesitation mode — by snapping on the cold-water faucet the moment you enter the shower.
- Fight the cold’s Amygdala hijack — by multiplying numbers, reciting verses, solving math problems, or imagining vivid scenes.
Even these “enhanced” cold showers pale in comparison to the ice baths and freezer rooms beloved by pro athletes.
Even more extreme is the superhuman Wim Hof — swimming in sub-zero lakes, trekking the snowy Alps shirtless, and performing a one-arm planche at 63!
But for us mortals, daily (enhanced) cold showers are enough to keep us alert, sharp, and driven.
Give my regards to your cold faucet.
