9 Benefits of Taking Cold Showers

There are a multitude of benefits of taking cold showers from improving your willpower to using less water and saving money, to becoming a more grateful person. This article will discuss 9 benefits of taking cold showers.

I previously wrote about how to take cold showers here. This article will expand upon that article and discuss 9 reasons for taking cold showers.

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My Journey To Taking Only Cold Showers

I first consciously started taking only cold showers in August 2019, which is almost 2 full years ago as of the time of this writing. I was in a very difficult point in my life back then, and decided to take on what I considered to be a very hard challenge. The challenge was for me to only take cold showers.

For me, the benefits of taking cold showers far outweigh the temporary pain or discomfort.

Below I’ll discuss 9 benefits of taking cold showers.

1. Taking Cold Showers Can Help You Become More Resilient

Re·sil·ient — (of a person or animal) able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions. — OxfordLanguages

In part because cold showers can be painful, both physically and mentally, through the process of taking cold showers and forcing yourself to take cold showers, you can build resilience.

Everyone has difficult experiences in their life. Very often what distinguishes an unsuccessful person from a successful person is that a successful person may bounce back more quickly from bad circumstances.

By successfully accomplishing hard things, like taking cold showers, you can develop more resilience.

2. Taking Cold Showers Can Help You Use Less Water

I’ll admit warm and hot showers can be very pleasurable. But, because warm and hot showers are pleasurable, a person will likely take a longer time in the shower, thus using more water.

Because I only take cold showers, I know for certain that I use less water. I use less water to a certain degree because it’s always at least a little painful for me to take cold showers, and I want to get out of the pain. I still make sure to clean myself all over, but I don’t waste time in a cold shower, so I save a lot of water.

3. Taking Cold Showers Can Help You Save Money And Use Less Electricity

Heating up water with a water heater can require a lot of energy, hence may consume a lot of electricity. By taking cold showers, you can avoid the need to use a water heater which will save you money. In addition, like mentioned in (2) above, you may use less water when taking cold showers as opposed to taking warm or hot showers, which will also save you money.

4. Taking Cold Showers As Opposed to Hot or Warm Showers Can Benefit The Environment

As mentioned in parts (2) and (3) above, you’ll likely use less energy and less water if you take cold showers. Thus, you’ll be making less of a negative impact on the environment.

5. Taking Cold Showers Can Help You Become More Aware Of How Much Water You Use

You might not have thought about your amount of water usage consciously before, but you may notice yourself being more mindful of your use of water and how much you use when you start taking cold showers.

6. Taking Cold Showers Can Help You Build Self-Discipline and Willpower

Nearly every time that I walk into a cold shower, I don’t actually want to do so, but I do it anyway. I’ve trained myself to take cold showers, because I know that taking them benefits me in a multitude of ways in other aspects of my life.

Permanently acquiring any good habit or discarding a negative habit takes time. This is the case with taking cold showers as well.

7. Taking Cold Showers Can Help You Become More Grateful For What You Have

Let’s assume billions of people in the world don’t have access to warm or hot showers.

I’ve learned again and again that often a person often won’t appreciate something until he loses it. When one lives in a 1st world country for a long time, it’s easy to forget about so many of life’s conveniences that don’t exist in poorer countries.

Having lived, travelled, and worked in many countries, I know that having access to hot / warm showers can be quite a luxury in poorer parts of the world. This is because in many places in the world even getting access to water is difficult.

I personally lived in the Philippines for a short while, and also stayed in Indonesia. In both places, there were times when I didn’t have access to hot showers. At one house in Indonesia where I stayed, the host actually boiled water for my bathing, and then let it cool down to use as warm water. But, there was no water heater.

8. Taking Cold Showers Can Help Wake You Up And Give You A Jolt Of Energy

While taking cold showers may feel a little torturous for a short while, taking them can help wake you up, and give you a jolt of energy like you might get from drinking an energy drink. The cold water on your skin will force your body into fight or flight mode, which will wake you up.

9. Taking Cold Showers Can Help You Build Self-Confidence And Self-Respect

By achieving small victories every day, bit-by-bit, we can improve our self-confidence. As mentioned, I don’t actually like taking cold showers. It’s painful for me nearly every time to take a cold shower.

Taking cold showers is hard, but the boost in self-confidence and self-respect I’ve gotten by taking only cold showers trumps my pain. I’m very proud that I’ve taken only cold showers for 2 full years. There have been many times where the urge to take a warm or hot shower was overwhelming, but I always refused to give in.

There are few things I can say that I’ve consistently done for 2 full years, but taking only cold showers is one of them.

Conclusion

Taking cold showers can give you an abundance of benefits: mental, physical, financial, and more. It may take a while to get accustomed to taking cold showers, so go at your own pace. Developing the habit of taking cold showers can massively improve your life for the better.

Given what I’ve learned from taking cold showers, I’d be OK with never taking hot / warm showers again. Developing the habit of taking cold showers really has been enormously beneficial for me.

What did you think of this article? Do you have anything to add? Let’s discuss it in the comments below.

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