A Cold Shower A Day Keeps The Doctor Away?
Cold therapy, such as taking a cold shower, can improve circulation, boost the immune system, and provide other health benefits. It is recommended to start slowly and consult a doctor if unsure.
A Cold Shower A Day Keeps The Doctor Away?
This is Dutch extreme athlete Wim Hof, also known as “The Iceman”! He’s broken many world records mostly relating to the enduring the cold, for example:
- climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts
- running a half-marathon above the Arctic Circle barefoot
- standing in a container completely covered with ice cubes for more than 112 minutes
You might not want to do yoga in your pyjamas on an iceberg, but you might like…
- better circulatory health
- reduced risk of stroke
- a boosted immune system
- healthier skin
- more energy and alertness
…and things like that. Wim Hof’s method is not just about extreme athletic achievements; most of what he does, the stuff that can benefit the rest of us, is much more prosaic.
The Wim Hof Method
For Wim Hof, three things are key:
- Breathing (See: Wim Hof Method Breathing Exercises)
- Commitment (See: How to Increase Willpower)
- Cold therapy (See: Benefits of Cold Therapy)
Today, we’re going to be focusing on the last one there.
What are the benefits of Cold Therapy?
Once upon a time, we didn’t have central heating, electric blankets, thermal underwear, and hot showers. In fact, once upon a time, we didn’t have houses or clothes. We used to be a lot more used to the elements! And while it’s all well and good to enjoy modern comforts, it has left our bodies lacking practice.
Practice at what? Most notably: vasodilation and vasoconstriction, in response to temperature changes. Either:
- vasodilation, because part of our body needs more blood to keep it warm and nourished, or
- vasoconstriction, because part of our body needs less blood running through it to get cooled down.
Switching between the two gives the blood vessels practice at doing it, and improves vascular muscle tone. If your body doesn’t get that practice, your blood vessels will be sluggish at making the change. This can cause circulation problems, which in turn have a big impact in many other areas of health, including:
- cardiovascular disease
- stroke risk
- mood instability
- nerve damage in extremities
On the flipside, if the blood vessels do get regular practice at dilating and constricting, you might enjoy lower risk of those things, and instead:
- improved immune response
- healthier skin
- better quality sleep
- more energy and alertness
- improved sexual performance/responsiveness
So, how to get that, without getting extreme?
As today’s title suggests, “a cold shower a day” is a great practice.
You don’t have to jump straight in, especially if you think your circulation and vascular responses might be a bit sluggish in the first instance. In fact, Wim Hof recommends:
- Week 1: Thirty seconds of cold water at the end of a warm shower each morning
- Week 2: One minute of cold water at the end of a warm shower each morning
- Week 3: A minute and a half of cold water at the end of a warm shower each morning
- Week 4: Two minutes of cold water at the end of a warm shower each morning
How cold is cold?
The benefits of cold exposure begin at around 16ºC / 60ºF, so in most places, water from the cold water mains is sufficiently cold.
As your body becomes more used to making the quick-change on a vascular level, the cold water will seem less shocking to your system. In other words, on day 30 it won’t hit you like it did on day one.
At that point, you can either continue with your two-minutes daily cold shower, and reap the benefits, or if you’re curious to push it further, that’s where ice baths come in!
Can anyone do it, or are any conditions contraindicated?
As ever, we’re a health and productivity newsletter, not doctors, let alone your doctors. Nothing here is medical advice. However, Wim Hof himself says:
❝Listen to your body, and never force the practices. We advise against doing Wim Hof Method if you are dealing with any of the following:
- Epilepsy
- High blood pressure
- Coronary heart disease
- A history of serious healthy issues like heart failure or stroke
- Pregnancy*
- Childhood*❞
*There is simply not enough science regarding the effects of cold exposure on people who are pregnant, or children. Obviously, we don’t expect this to be remedied anytime soon, because the study insitutions’ ethics boards would (rightly!) hold up the study.
As for the other conditions, and just generally if unsure, consult a doctor.
As you can see, this does mean that a limitation of Cold Therapy is that it appears to be far better as a preventative, since it helps guard against the very conditions that could otherwise become contraindications.
We haven’t peppered today’s main feature with study papers, partly because Wim Hof’s own website has kindly collated a collection of them (with links and summaries!) onto one page:
Further reading: The Science Behind The Wim Hof Method
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Stop Cancer 20 Years Ago
Dr. Jenn Simmons shares vital tips on preventing cancer and inflammation, advocating for lifestyle changes and proactive health management at any age.
Get Abreast And Keep Abreast
This is Dr. Jenn Simmons. Her specialization is integrative oncology, as she—then a breast cancer surgeon—got breast cancer, decided the system wasn’t nearly as good from the patients’ side of things as from the doctors’ side, and took to educate herself, and now others, on how things can be better.
What does she want us to know?
Start now
If you have breast cancer, the best time to start adjusting your lifestyle might be 20 years ago, but the second-best time is now. We realize our readers with breast cancer (or a history thereof) probably have indeed started already—all strength to you.
What this means for those of us without breast cancer (or a history therof) is: start now
Even if you don’t have a genetic risk factor, even if there’s no history of it in your family, there’s just no reason not to start now.
Start what, you ask? Taking away its roots. And how?
Inflammation as the root of cancer
To oversimplify: cancer occurs because an accidentally immortal cell replicates and replicates and replicates and takes any nearby resources to keep on going. While science doesn’t know all the details of how this happens, it is a factor of genetic mutation (itself a normal process, without which evolution would be impossible), something which in turn is accelerated by damage to the DNA. The damage to the DNA? That occurs (often as not) as a result of cellular oxidation. Cellular oxidation is far from the only genotoxic thing out there, and a lot of non-food “this thing causes cancer” warnings are usually about other kinds of genotoxicity. But cellular oxidation is a big one, and it’s one that we can fight vigorously with our lifestyle.
Because cellular oxidation and inflammation go hand-in-hand, reducing one tends to reduce the other. That’s why so often you’ll see in our Research Review Monday features, a line that goes something like:
“and now for those things that usually come together: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and anti-aging”
So, fight inflammation now, and have a reduced risk of a lot of other woes later.
See: How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation
Don’t settle for “normal”
People are told, correctly but not always helpfully, such things as:
- It’s normal to have less energy at your age
- It’s normal to have a weaker immune system at your age
- It’s normal to be at a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, etc
…and many more. And these things are true! But that doesn’t mean we have to settle for them.
We can be all the way over on the healthy end of the distribution curve. We can do that!
(so can everyone else, given sufficient opportunity and resources, because health is not a zero-sum game)
If we’re going to get a cancer diagnosis, then our 60s are the decade where we’re most likely to get it. Earlier than that and the risk is extant but lower; later than that and technically the risk increases, but we probably got it already in our 60s.
So, if we be younger than 60, then now’s a good time to prepare to hit the ground running when we get there. And if we missed that chance, then again, the second-best time is now:
See: Focusing On Health In Our Sixties
Fast to live
Of course, anything can happen to anyone at any age (alas), but this is about the benefits of living a fasting lifestyle—that is to say, not just fasting for a 4-week health kick or something, but making it one’s “new normal” and just continuing it for life.
This doesn’t mean “never eat”, of course, but it does mean “practice intermittent fasting, if you can”—something that Dr. Simmons strongly advocates.
See: Intermittent Fasting: We Sort The Science From The Hype
While this calls back to the previous “fight inflammation”, it deserves its own mention here as a very specific way of fighting it.
It’s never too late
All of the advices that go before a cancer diagnosis, continue to stand afterwards too. There is no point of “well, I already have cancer, so what’s the harm in…?”
The harm in it after a diagnosis will be the same as the harm before. When it comes to lifestyle, preventing a cancer and preventing it from spreading are very much the same thing, which is also the same as shrinking it. Basically, if it’s anticancer, it’s anticancer, no matter whether it’s before, during, or after.
Dr. Simmons has seen too many patients get a diagnosis, and place their lives squarely in the hands of doctors, when doctors can only do so much.
Instead, Dr. Simmons recommends taking charge of your health as best you are able, today and onwards, no matter what. And that means two things:
- Knowing stuff
- Doing stuff
So it becomes our responsibility (and our lifeline) to educate ourselves, and take action accordingly.
Want to know more?
We recently reviewed her book, and heartily recommend it:
The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer – by Dr. Jenn Simmons
Enjoy!