The Great Debate: Cold vs Hot Showers: What Science Says

 What would happen if you had a cold shower every day for 14 days and two weeks?

You may have heard of a guy called Iceman. He's written a book. He's done YouTube videos. He developed the Wim hof method using ice baths and cold showers to improve your health.

I'm going to write about some of the benefits and the research revolving around using cryotherapy or cold therapy before you say there is no way I am ever going to take a cold shower. Just read this article because doing this has some seriously positive benefits, and you can do it gradually, so it's not very uncomfortable.

 

1)  Boost the Immune System 

Now you would think that going out in the cold when it's rainy. It's cold. You'd get sick because your parents told you to stay out of the rain. After all, it's hard. You're going to catch a cold. Stay inside, where it's nice and warm. Well, when you expose your body to cold for a short time, your immune system becomes enhanced. You get more monocytes and lymphocytes, white blood cells that fight pathogens. You have a boost of T helper cells. The T helper cell is like the quarterback of the entire immune system. You also get a spike of T-suppressor cells that help calm down an overactive immune system, preventing too much destruction of the immune system. So it's a system where your immune system is fighting things off, yet you have other factors that ensure there's not too much collateral damage, so your immune system is enhanced when you expose it to cold, which is counter-intuitive.

 

2) Driver of Brown Fat 

 

Next, taking a cold shower will help you lose weight. How? 

You will trigger brown fat when you take a cold shower. Another term for brown fat is brown adipose tissue, so the cold sensation is the primary stimulus for stimulating brown fat, so the colder it is, the browner fat you have. Now, what's so significant about this brown fat versus the white fat or white adipose tissue?

 

Brown fat, on the other hand, boosts heat energy and metabolism. Your metabolism is going to increase when you have more brown fat. You'll lose more weight, and losing more brown fat will also trigger the loss of white fat, which is the storage fat you have in your body. That's pretty cool. One hundred grams of brown fat can burn 3400 calories per day, and that's more calories than you could potentially eat in a given day. So, we want more brown fat on our bodies.

3)  Anti-Inflammatory

Cold showers help with inflammation. They are anti-inflammatory, so taking a cold shower would be very therapeutic if you have inflammation, autoimmune disease, arthritis, bursitis, or tendinitis.

 

4)  Antioxidant

Cold showers can boost your antioxidant networks; the more antioxidants you have, the less DNA damage you have and the lower your risk of cancer and other diseases.

5)  Nerul Protection

Cold showers help your brain. The cold activates the regrowth of neurons, so that's cool, too. As a side note, you have a night of much better sleep when you're out. Now, this is within reason. Okay, I'm talking about freezing, and I'm talking about having the temperature cooler. You will sleep better, so another benefit I forgot to add to this is sleep.

6)  Noradrenaline

 Noradrenaline is similar to adrenaline and when they tested people that have anxiety attention deficit disorder depression they usually have low noradrenaline so by using this fantastic method of exposing yourself to cold you can spike noradrenaline and improve your overall mood so if you're depressed you can pull yourself out of that lower emotion if you have anxiety excessive worry things like that you it can elevate your feeling it can help your cognitive function, your focus, your memory, and you can become more alert so apparently our bodies have evolved over eons to adapt to things like cold hunger starvation so our bodies through this process have developed specific type of adaptive survival mechanisms to improve our health to survive better when exposed to cold and hunger and things like that it's called the hormetic effect and a hormetic result is when you tell someone to a stress and then the body adapts and becomes stronger like exercise would give you a hormetic result fasting would give you a hormonal effect taking a cold shower would definitely do it.

 

7)  Longevity

Longevity because cold showers stimulate autophagy, just like fasting stimulates autophagy. This is a condition that your body gets into when it's recycling old, damaged proteins. So, if certain things aren't working in the body, like proteins, enzymes, or mitochondria, or if they're plaquing in the brain as in amyloid plaquing or whatever, your body's going to recycle all that and turn it into brand new proteins.

8)  Lower Cortisol 

 The other cool thing about a cold shower is that it will help lower cortisol and reduce stress. Also, it's going to create better recovery. So, coal therapy is the way to go if you're an athlete who is sore and needs to recover faster.

 

9) Make insulin more sensitive

Another reason it can assist you in losing weight? Well, it can create an increase in insulin sensitivity. The more insulin sensitivity you improve, the less insulin is produced because it is now working. There's going to be less insulin resistance, and the more weight loss you'll have, the better the blood sugars you'll have, so if you have diabetes, your pre-diabetes. You take a cold shower. You'll notice that your blood sugars come into check much better, and you'll lose weight when that happens.

 

Researcher’s Recommendation

 

Please begin with a hot shower, get comfortable, get hot, take a shower, relax, and switch to cold. It means taking a nice, cold shower for about 30 seconds—not lukewarm, but freezing for about 30 seconds—and then turning it back to hot and just having that as your introduction to the cold the next day you go in there and starting to increase the 30 seconds to maybe 40 seconds. The following shower lasts up to 50 seconds before gradually rising to the point where you're taking a cold shower for 5 to 10 minutes. Still, it will be comfortable if you do it slowly. This has nothing to do with cold therapy, but researchers bring it up because it's not as hot as traditional therapy. There are some exciting hermetic effects to infrared, but anyway, as you can see, if you did cold treatment for 14 days, you would see remarkable health benefits.

FAQs 

Q: What are the benefits of taking a cold shower?

 A: Cold showers have been shown to have several health benefits, including increasing alertness, improving circulation, reducing muscle soreness, boosting the immune system, and promoting weight loss.

Q: Are there any downsides to taking a cold shower? 

A: Some people may find cold showers uncomfortable or unpleasant, especially during winter. Cold showers may also be less effective at removing dirt and oil from the skin compared to hot showers.

Q: What are the benefits of taking a hot shower?

 A: Hot showers can help to relax the muscles, relieve tension and stress, and improve sleep. They can also help open up the skin's pores, making cleaning and removing dirt and oil easier.

Q: Can hot showers be harmful? 

A: While hot showers are generally safe, they can cause skin irritation or dryness if the water is too hot or if you shower for too long. Hot showers can also lead to dehydration and may worsen certain skin conditions, such as eczema.

Q: Which is better, a cold or a hot shower? 

A: The choice between cold and hot showers ultimately comes to personal preference and individual health needs. Both showers have their benefits and downsides, and it's important to listen to your body and choose what feels best for you.

Q: Is there any scientific evidence to support the benefits of cold or hot showers?

 A: Several studies have been conducted on the health benefits of cold and hot showers. However, more research is needed to fully understand these benefits' mechanisms and determine which type of shower is better for specific health conditions.

Q: Can I alternate between cold and hot showers? 

A: Yes, alternating between cold and hot showers, also known as contrast showers, has been shown to have additional health benefits, such as reducing inflammation and improving athletic performance. However, it's important to start with warm water and gradually decrease the temperature to avoid shock to the system.