7 reasons to use the power of the cold shower.
The power of a cold shower…
Just to step into a cold shower instead of having a hot one might seem a bit tough at first, especially first thing in the morning or when it’s not really warm outside; but if you think of our ancestors who didn`t have our kind of housing and heated water, they would have to wash and bathe in whatever natural water resources were there.
And these would usually be cold. So when one of our paleolithic ancestors went for a shower under the nearby waterfall he was really prepared to wake up!
The first thing that happens when you pour loads of cold water over your body is a gasp for breath and a bit of hyperventilation, and this leads either to you jumping out of the shower, or to taking a deep breath and beginning to relax again inspite of the cold sensation. Practising cold showering regularly to daily deepens your breath, which again supplies your whole body with more oxygen.
Also your heart begins to beat faster, raising your energy level and alertness. There you are, ready for anything, fully awake and fully alert. This goes especially for the morning cold shower to start your day well.
After a good workout, a cold shower will ease muscle pains by improving cirulation, preventing swelling and removing lactic acid.
Another pretty cool thing about having a regular cold shower is that it can support weight loss. We have two kinds of fat in our bodies, white fat and brown fat. Now the white fat is the stuff that starts covering our bellies, thighs and lower back through unhealthy nutrition and lack of exercise. Regularly exposing our bodies to the cold activates our brown fat, which works for us as a part of our metabolism, reacting by working at a higher rate and quickly burning lots of calories to regulate our body temperature and keep our organs warm.
Cold showers stimmulate your blood circulation and help regulate your blood pressure. The increased metabolic rate and blood circulation stimulates our immune system too produce white blood cells to fight off diseases. Aswell as that our lymphatic system is supported in transporting waste out of our cells because the lymph vessels are contracted by the cold, pumping lymph fluid out.
A daily cold shower will raise your spirit and make you happier. This is really a helpful tool to use against depression as the cold stimulates the brain to pour out noradrenaline.
Guess what.. nothing great and unusually spectacular came out of roaming around in our comfort zone; Challenges like the cold shower train our everyday ability to become uncomfortable in order to achieve more in our lives. And deliberately encountering and embracing uncomfort trains our ability to take difficult situations easily, staying calm, relaxed and focussed.
Get outside and move to your roots!
wild-horse 05/2015
