Everything I Learned Taking a Cold Shower in 2022

I’ve had this weird, annoying voice in my head all my life.

This is not necessarily the case evil voice. It doesn’t convince me to commit murder or rob banks. No, this voice is mostly about making me do stupid things. When I was a kid, you might say something like “I bet you can’t run to that point on the horizon without stopping.” Or “I bet you can’t backflip off that precarious edge.”

We all have inner voices, but my “I bet you can’t” voice has been part of my makeup for as long as I can remember. And in general, this is purely positive. This usually forces me to eat well and exercise. Today, at 41, I am mostly fit and healthy.

And this is partly thanks to the voice, which is still heard often today. Always the same…

“I bet you can’t run a marathon” or “you bet you can’t learn a second language” or “you bet you can’t stop drinking soft drinks”. Most of the time my voice is my friend, but sometimes it misleads me. He once made me do a sleep experiment that made my mind melt. This is probably the worst thing the voice has told me to do.

Second worst? Cold showers. Please let me tell you why I’m only taking cold showers all through 2022.

It was late 2021. My wife and I had family staying for Christmas. Twenty people in all. We had fun, we had fun, but there were problems. Mainly logistics. My house has two souls. One indoor shower — a very normal hot water shower — and a less normal outdoor shower that only has access to cold water.

To make it easier for guests, I started taking showers outside. Cold showers.

Christmas is in the height of summer in Sydney, Australia, where I live, so it was about right. It was hot, often over 110 Fahrenheit. Sometimes I’d go for a run, get all sweaty and cranky and just dive into the cold shower. Ointment, pure relief.

Then the still small voice popped into my head…

“Hey little one bitchI bet you can’t take cold showers for whole year…”

Stupid stupid brain voice

You’ve probably heard about the “health benefits” of cold showers. According to the study, there are more than a few good reasons to take them.

One study reports that by increasing the availability of endorphins and another hormone, norepinephrine, cold showers can alleviate symptoms of depression. (Obvious caveat here: I absolutely do not believe that depression can be cured with cold water.)

Other studies have reported a boost to the immune system, improved physical recovery after exercise, and reduced inflammation. Giovanna Mallucci, a professor of neurology formerly at the UK’s Institute for Dementia Research, claims to have discovered a “cold shock” protein present in the blood of regular winter swimmers that could potentially delay the onset of dementia.

But to be completely honest, none of these reported benefits were on my conscious mind when I committed to cold showers for an entire calendar year. I was just listening to the voice.

As a middle-aged man saddled with decades of ingrained toxic masculinity that equates overcoming physical and mental struggles with inner strength, I like to put myself through ridiculous “challenges” for the sake of it. This is my personality. I’m too old to change now. When the voice speaks, I listen and almost always obey.

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Part of me was hoping the cold showers would help speed up my metabolism or help me recover faster from a workout (I’m an avid rock climber), but mostly I wanted to try something different. To have something new to talk about when the conversation dries up at school. I am a shallow person with shallow needs.

Mostly, I think it’s helpful to do something difficult every day for the sheer satisfaction of completing that task. It’s an ego boost, sets the tone, and has an energizing effect that has the potential to reverberate for the rest of the day.

That’s how I started.

At first it was relatively easy. In my experience, most challenges like this are. Overcome with the psyche to try something new, I stood in the cold shower for five minutes at a time and emerged trembling and proud. I got into the shower like a madman, frantically rubbing my stomach like a hysterical tourist looking for ticks. I just gutted him.

What became more challenging later was grind — committing to the part after my initial enthusiasm waned. Imagine being stinky, exhausted after a long hard day at work, suddenly remembering that you need a shower before bed. This is when the temptation arises, when it feels more than justified to take a warm bath or stand for 15 minutes under a scalding hot shower.

But I persevered, often on the verge of angry tears, in the breach of Baltic water and shriveled genitalia.

Yes, take this. I sure showed you, silly little stupid brain voice.

Easy mode

I have a rigid cold shower routine that I follow every time without fail. It was not a process that I consciously developed. It appeared naturally in the petri dish of cold shower survival mode.

It goes like this: I let go. I get naked. I stand in the cold, splashing water for a few seconds, pondering my life choices. In a way, this is the worst part: before the shower. That’s when you have to make the “choice”.

I take two steps forward. No wetting of face or hair at this point, just pain and unintelligible grunting for about 20 seconds. Then I turn around. This is always the hardest part. The large flat surface of my back exposes the highest percentage of nerve endings to the cold water. But once that’s done? I’m fine most of the time. I take the soap, start washing. I turn to wash off the soap, dip my head and hair. I cook. Everything’s Alright.

Unfortunately, I soon discovered that Australian cold showers are ‘easy mode’.

On a work trip to New York in March, I discovered that not all cold water is created equal. My soft summer body was crucified in the arms of New York’s freezing winter ice water. I was shocked to my core. I couldn’t believe how cold it was. But I persevered, clumsily squeezing out a single-use hotel shower gel as I ran on the spot like a confused caveman, trying to somehow change my internal temperature to something bearable.

Later in the year things got worse.

In October, I went on a family trip to southern Chile, where I guess my son-in-law’s shower water was piped directly from the icy, snow-capped mountains that surrounded us. The water in Chile was Baltic, to the point where my brain literally freezes if I stay too long. Complete agony.

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The closest I came to dealing with cold water was on this trip.

We had just returned from a once-in-a-lifetime experience: climbing the summit of Villarrica, one of Chile’s most active volcanoes. It was brutal. It took us eight hours to get to the top and approximately four hours to get back down, navigating through snow and icy conditions the entire time. We were prepared to the max, crampons and ice axes and it was a real struggle to get to the top. On the way down, everyone was eagerly discussing getting home and hopping into a nice warm shower. My heart sank. I knew I would be starving from this well-earned heat feast.

My family was shocked when I said I still planned to take a cold shower tonight. “Surely you can have hot water this time,” they said.

But they did not know the limits of my stubborn stupidity. I had spent almost a year doing this shit, I wasn’t going to break my streak because I was feeling a little chilly. But I can’t lie – I doubt my cold shower that night lasted more than a minute. Enough to clear yourself and pop outside, into the false comfort of a dry towel and a steaming cup of hot tea.

But why?

The question I always get is “why?” Other than “the voices told me”, I don’t have a good answer for that yet.

Did I experience any long-term benefits? I’m not sure. This is an experiment with a sample size of one. I didn’t take many sick days in 2022, but other than that I’m not convinced that cold showers have changed something. I’m not convinced that they help with recovery, or cure dementia, or whatever it says on the box.

Was it worth it? Hell no. Would I recommend going all-in on a cold shower? No. No problems.

Will I stop taking cold showers after the end of the year? I’m still not sure. Oddly enough, I think I’ll continue.

Am I contradicting myself here? Absolutely. But my feelings about this cold shower experiment are complicated, rooted in weird ideas about trying hard things and not giving up, even if there’s no good reason to keep going. Basically I’ve watched way too much anime.

The simple fact is this: I have never regretted a single cold shower. I always felt better right after. Alert, happier. Some people suggest it will help my skin and make my hair… better? Thicker? Silkier? I do not know. Maybe it’s my imagination, but my skin really did look cleaner, better, softer. I think.

More importantly, after cold showers I always felt like I did achieved something. I’ve never had that sick feeling you get when you spend too long in a hot shower. It was good to do something difficult. That was nice.

In some ways, cold showers make me happy. I think.

But I also believe that willpower is limited. Could it be that the mental energy required to endure cold showers for a year made it difficult to achieve the other, less silly goals I set for myself in 2022? Is it a coincidence that I [checks notes] gained 10 to 12 pounds, felt more anxious, and exercised significantly less during the same period? It’s impossible to say.

Part of me believes that the determination I put into daily cold showers made my reserves of willpower disappear, making it harder to continue eating healthy or hitting the gym regardless of my motivation levels. These were usually habits I followed without question. This year? Not so much.

Regardless, I know I’ll have a hard time stopping. At this point, taking a cold shower is such an ingrained habit that I know my inner voice will fight against going back to “normal.” As silly as it sounds, warm showers will feel like cheating to the voice in my head. I suspect a year may not be enough for this little bastard.

Because eventually these things become normalized. Like giving up sugar or caffeine, taking a cold shower is hard, especially at first, and the effort required to maintain the habit never really goes away, but it does. It’s much easier now. Cold showers are no longer necessarily a challenge; what was once an active struggle is just noise. A low-frequency hum that you barely notice until someone turns it off.

This is where I am. I am a cold shower person for the foreseeable future. Thanks, silly little voice in my head. Thanks for nothing. And maybe everything.