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Comment by amorphous | Hacker News Reader

I have one rule: I only ever do sports if I have rested well the night before. It took me until I reached my 40s to realise that lack of sleep + heavy exercise = high chance of catching a cold.

Other sure ways how I can get sick: overdo sauna after exercising and, by far the worst, overdoing cold showers (Jim Hoff anyone? - I got seriously sick experimenting with that)

I guess the overall strength of my immune system is below average :-(

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There is a high correlation between insufficient sleep and catching cold. It kind of made sense but I've looked it up and found several studies supporting this.

This winter I've tried only cold showers after running outside. Cold showers as in (sometimes) my neck hurt if I did it too long. Did not catch a cold until this spring and I think this is more correlated to insufficient rest/sleep (on top of exercising) than to water temperature.

My takeaway is enough rest is not optional and cold showers are doable even in very cold water. I have no idea how hard would be a bath in water + ice.

What’s the theory behind the cold shower?

One theory is that it is supposed to reduce tissue inflammation.

for me it wakes me the f up. It's strong like having drunk coffee or something. Results may vary of course, but works wonders for me and my focus during the day.

I know of an old woman who's beed ice-cold bucketing for years and looks great and hasn't been sick in a long time. Does this with -20C outside too. Yet I find I may get sick easier if it's too cold outside and I go all out freezing shower.

I believe there is research into anti-depressive effects of cold water exercise too. It seems to be helpful when treating stubborn depression that doesn't respond to other treatments.

The topic was covered in a BBC programme:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047z13f

I still do cold showers, but just finishing with cold water for a short interval, 20 seconds or so. That seems to be entirely beneficial (I don't remember were I read it but there's some other cold shower expert recommending not going longer than that)

I've been doing cold showers after working out ... but when I do, I'm freezing _the entire day_. Does this happen to anyone else?

Does attire affect your temperature perception? I mean, maybe you're just not wearing enough...

Nothing different than I usually wear ... t-shirt and jeans, and I keep my house at 74 degrees (it's usually a bit warmer in my office). Under normal circumstances, as you can imagine, I find it quite comfortable.

But if s/he just went running s/he is probably pretty awake.

Google for Wim Hoff. It's Wim, not Jim.

And it's Hof, not Hoff. ;-)

Interestingly Ive noticed the same thing in regards to exercise plus sleep. But instead of taking that as an indicator of my immune systems strength, I thoufht it was more an indicator of how absolutely filthy gym equipment is. I always shower IMMEDIATELY once Ive finished working out these days.

I can concur to your experience. I was knocked out for two weeks-to-month by overdoing strength, interval training and cold showers (~1 year), in combination with start up life; paradoxically sauna regime helped a lot (rigorous super hot 10-15 minutes + immersed super cold 2 minutes phases). Still, I was catching flu regardless. I also tried 3 days of salt-water fasting to reboot immune system; not sure how much that one did. Cold/coughing after a massive exercise was usually more bronchospasm/exercise induced asthma when I was not used to it. Lack of sleep was always a killer, I had 50% chance I catch some sickness symptoms when sleeping <5 hours within two days, especially when weather was bad.

What you're saying is what the results discussed in the article are arguing against.

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