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You're a crazy motherfucker, but variety is the spice of life. Props for that. I'm going to stick with heat for my showers and leave cold for when I'm skiing.

I tried cold showers for at least a month. I can confirm it gets easier & feels less painful over time, and there is a kind of rush that you get from it.

But ultimately I stopped. Partly because my hair never washed right in the cold water, but mostly because the showers were making me grumpy & irritable for the rest of the day. I didn't enjoy that feeling, I didn't particularly enjoy the showers, and I didn't notice any productivity or health benefit.

I first heard about cold showers from Joel Runyon, so I'll give him a link [1]. But it quickly went from blogs about "here's a self-motivation idea I'm trying" to "here is my TEDx talk and Cold Shower Therapy™ email course and download the Cold Shower Therapy™ app on the App Store".

[1] http://impossiblehq.com/cold-shower-therapy/

I've taken cold showers every weekday for the last few years. The way I get around the problems raised (washing hair, etc.) is that I have a really hot shower just before bed. This helps me sleep by lowering my core body temperature.

Cold showers are great and, as someone who's suffered from depression in the past, I go into each day thinking, "what's the worst that could happen"?*

*I realise that sounds flippant, but it's true...

So you shower twice a day? My skin wouldn't approve...

I've been doing this (both hot, though) most of my life. My skin is fine, but my hair used to take a beating -- now I only wash it every other day, rinsing in between, and it seems to work well.

The cold water doesn't dry your skin off nearly as much as hot water does.

I take them only before bed, it's sort of meditative and helps me get to sleep.

Joel here :)

Glad you tried it. For my part - I tried to build tools that helped people take action (rather than just read it and think "hey, that's a cool idea"). Pretty much all of them were free if that helps at all.

If the "tm" thing bothered ya, I apologize. Let's call that symptoms of a hangover from a trademark related lawsuit (story coming soon).

Let me know if you want to do pushups in the park anytime soon :)

I started taking cold showers outside after my morning run when the heating element in the electric shower failed for the second time.

I just use a house and spray nozzle off the back-yard tap ( winter in Ireland is quite mild! ) and the main benefit I feel is the warmth when entering the house afterwards, rather than the typical step-out-of-shower chill.

After a couple of weeks it becomes a routine and normal showers now feel weak and insufficiently cleansing.

I haven't noticed any particular health benefits, still susceptible to colds and flu.

When I started, it was 2.5 minutes of horrible feelings, then next 2.5 minutes were kinda Okay. Nowadays the adaptation takes like 3 seconds, then I just coast under cold water. And I sometimes take a cold shower at 3am and go to sleep right after. Body adapts.

But I haven't really seen it helping to get rid of belly fat; it helps sore muscles recovery after/during workout significantly though. For belly fat I still need to do all the aerobic exercises and proper diet until 6-pack shows up.

I have been doing them for a while. Yes they suck to start but then they start getting meditative.

As winter ended in New England I wanted to up the stakes a bit. Where my wife and I live there is a lovely little waterfall where we go swimming in the summer. Decided to start swimming in Mid March while taking the dog on a walk next to it while she was gone on a trip. Max time in the water at first was maybe 90 seconds but doing it almost everyday since (combined with the changing of the seasons) means now I can stay in as long as I want without discomfort: on the order of 5 minutes.[1]

Side bonus: it has reset my internal thermometer for what is "cold". Most cold snaps are now, by comparison, "ehh this isn't so bad."

[1] http://i.imgur.com/b9GHHQr.jpg

I like taking cold showers after getting out of the sauna at the gym. Living in minneapolis though, there is no way in hell I would ever cold shower in the morning before work. The hot shower in the morning and my leather heated seats are the only salvation from the cold ass winter.

The thing is cold showers warm you up by booting up the metabolism.

3 mins after stepping out of a cold shower I'm usually feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, as if I had just kicked some disgusting dog off my porch. (/s)

Lol, you may have convinced me to try a cold shower just because of the great metaphor.

I've been taking cold showers for about a month just because it's been extra hot and humid where I'm from (Singapore), and I've actually been really enjoying it. My water isn't 3 degrees C though, probably more like... 20. I wish I could have it colder.

Perhaps a river or lake can provide you with colder temperatures? I've got a similar issue, I practice outdoor swimming the year round and the temperature doesn't get below 4 degrees. I've got to move countries to swim in colder water

> Perhaps a river or lake can provide you with colder temperatures?

Nah, down there in the equatorial tropics, the only things that get much below 20°C are those in fridges or freezers. The aircons don't go below 16°C.

Not really, unfortunately:

http://www.seatemperature.org/asia/singapore/singapore.htm

I recently moved to Singapore and assumed cold showers were pretty much the norm here. Can confirm it's not comparable to having a cold shower elsewhere though, in terms of willpower :)

I'm not sure a 20 degree shower really counts as a cold shower. That is a comfortable swimming temperature on most summer days and people can easily spend 20-30 minutes in water just to cool off even if they are unaccustomed to taking cold showers at home.

I've only been to such hot countries on vacation, and I think if asked, most people would confirm that they mostly don't use the hot water, except perhaps to sanitize hands with soap.

I gave it a try as well, after reading an article on getting more energetic throughout the day.

I didn't notice the difference and the cold showers are not something I could get used to. Guess it's different for each person.

I take cold showers every now and then (more often in winter actually) and like you said I kind of like it. However what I usually do is warm it up at the end, partly because I like the feeling of warming up from being cold but also because I feel cold the rest of the day otherwise.

Is be curious to hear you expand on points 3 and 4.

Tried it for two weeks once and promptly came down with the worst cold I'd had in a decade. causation? Maybe, maybe not -- but that doesn't incline me to try it again.

Likely causation. Try rather adding 10-15s a day to the duration of your cold shower. Some research shows cold showers after 2-2.5 minutes aren't giving you any benefits and over 10 minutes are outright dangerous (unless you are a pro-athlete in recovery).

Even if you do it for longer time, you can still catch horrible cold - I got deep sinusitis knocking me out for a month and am still have some mild symptoms (it was a combination of a bacterial infection, another virus and cold showers prior to catching it). Be careful!

Disagree. I took them for a month and I didn't notice any benefit. This was in February in Denmark at the lowest possible setting btw.

Wow, 3 degrees is not just uncomfortable, but literally cold enough to be painful. Our pool gets down to about that over the winter and sticking my hand in for even a few seconds hurts. Interesting that you found it less painful after a while though.

Yeah, I don't think they will be that cold once we're out of the winter. I live in Canada, so I'm a little bit used to the cold. Although not as much now that I live in Toronto.

I'm in Canada too, but in Victoria we don't really get Canadian weather. :P

Cold showers are much harder than getting healthy. I started exercising and changed my diet a few months ago and it felt great after a week or two. And you're right that it keeps getting better.

I tried to take very cold showers for months or swim in winter. It never became less painful.