It’s not long ago when we used to utilize nature to help us get over some ailment or treat ourselves before the invention of the pill. The pill has taken over, and today almost everything is possible as long as you have the right pill. We just don’t care about the side effects of the tablets or capsules, and we just want to feel better.
I work from home and recently I met a group of friends who questioned me so much about how I juggle my home and work at the same time. I told them it is the power of a cold shower.
They all laughed at me because the cold shower sounded like a cliche. One of them even told me why I was torturing myself like that when I can just go to a pharmacist and get some easy pills.
We have forgotten to shower with cold water just the way we forgot how breast milk tastes. Even major medical practitioners have not yet accepted the cold shower.
If you look at the CDC research on people suffering from depression, you will find that the numbers are still heartbreaking. To help such people, my team and I decided to carry out research on how a cold shower can help reduce mental stress.
Why Cold Water?
Imagine yourself enjoying a nice hot shower and then all over a sudden, cold water starts running down on you. You can scream because it will feel like a creepy old monster has touched you.
My advice to you is, if this happens, don’t run out of the shower just yet. The cold shower is extremely important, and you need it after a long, tough day.
Cold water helps reduce anxiety and depression. The study we took shows that, if you like swimming in cold water and also take cold showers, you are likely to be in a better mood, have less stress, and be more energetic, relaxed and free from aches.
Reducing Stress
- We also came about another term known as hydrotherapy which means therapy from the water. After working all day let’s say from 8 am to 5 pm, most of us are usually exhausted, and we just need to forget the day and sleep tight to re-energize for the next morning.
Exposing yourself on such like evening to a cold shower will equalize your thermal stress. The shock waves that the cold water sends down your spine succinctly activates brain hormones. The hormones act like anti-depressants which naturally take away your stress.
- As you go through your day, there are chemicals in the body that pile up. These chemicals can make you lose sleep at night or become anxious over nothing. For instance uric acids.
If the level of uric acid in your body happens to go up, you may find yourself with a painful and swollen neck or have kidney problems. Showering with cold water helps so much in neutralizing the levels of uric acid in the body.
- We also love our skin so much especially ladies. Therefore, you need to make showering cold water a habit. At first, you can shower in warm water then switch to cold water. It sounds scenically, but you will be saying goodbye to redness and puffiness around the eyes.
Your skin muscles will also tighten meaning, and you will be beating aging by far. Once your skin is relaxed, you will be relaxed and in a good mood.
- By reading through previous researches on similar topics, we found that the researcher Dr. Schultz sampled that exposing yourself to cold water enhances the performance of glutathione. The glutathione is a powerful antioxidant whose main role in our bodies is to project the performance of other antioxidants.
Do you know what this does to stress levels? They reduce. You become strong, and you can withstand any form of physical, emotional or mental disturbances.
How Cold Water Works
When you go for a cold swim or take a cold shower, the cold sends a shockwave to your body. The blood vessels near your skin tighten up. This forces blood to move deeper from the surface so as to preserve heat.
As the blood rushes into the body, it cleans up the brain and other vital organs like the kidney by supplying them with fresh and clean blood.
The movement of blood in and out of vital organs boosts the absorption of nutrients and oxygen, detoxifying the organs. When the major parts of your body are back to working great, the level of stress hormones decreases. You become relaxed as your nervous system is calming down. Unlike hot water and anxiety pills, cold water works impressively.
How To Get Used To Cold Showers
I know you can’t just jump from using hot water to using extremely cold water. I found a slow process which can help you adapt easily to cold showers. You can start with a comfortable shower with a favorable warm temperature.
After a few minutes, at your pace, you can lower the temperatures by adding cold water little by little. If you require precision in your system, you can use a thermometer to measure temperature each time.
If you do this for a few days by less than two weeks, you will feel superbly comfortable when taking a cold shower.
Conclusion
A cold shower is clearly the easiest way to beat your stress and anxiety. It involves low technology, it doesn’t cost much, it goes well with your everyday lifestyle, and it’s natural.
Many people I know of have been relieved of depression and are now enjoying a better, healthy life. Cold water makes the brain work better. You know that the brain is the engine of the body, so if it’s great everything is awesome.
Join the cold shower club and be part of the few who are smiling their way to stress-free lifestyle naturally.