Morning Cold Shower and the Problem of When to Stop.
Especially when it’s so pleasant.
I know. I know. You may think that I am bunkers.
“What?! When to stop a cold shower?”
“Well, I don’t have problems with that!”
But those of us, that are doing cold showers regularly, they know what I am talking about. Finding the sweet spot where you don’t over do it but don’t left anything left there too.
And this article is about that. Just the shower use case. Not the baths.
Lately, I am trying to figure out how to do things. And one of them being cold showers. And the starts are usually fine. You can go push through them. But when it comes to endings, that always gets tricky. Especially when you want to do them long term.
One cold shower
Because we are talking about cold showers. There is just one stream, that doesn’t cover your whole body, so the signal to: “it’s enough” to finish it off, doesn’t come that clearly.
It comes in waves, and when is the final tide, gets tricky. And here is where the whole pickle starts.
One wave
Initiation
Yeah, it can be daunting. You walk in, and there it is. Another day. “Should I do it today?” You come there, you start the cold not that hard. Get into it slower.
I did some cold showers like that. Just slight cold spray on top and out. And it was working, but then I stopped doing them. Also, for the cold cold shower benefits to arrive, I believe you need to be there longer. So back to it.
Sorry, I needed to poop. That sometimes can happen after it, too.
The ‘waaa!’ phase
First, you put the body under the stream. The initial feeling is: “What the frick are you doing?” Bunch of we shouldn’t do it thoughts, quitting ones’ might arrive at this phase.
With that comes the contraction. You stiffen, clench your fist, butt chicks and all what is necessary. All happening by itself.
Withstanding phase
The next phase is, to if we can withstand it. You are like clenching, still a bit. But you get an impression, that you can go through it. Here the hard part is to not suffer through it.
To feel it, however hard and stupid this might sound, because the last phase I believe wouldn’t come. If this one doesn’t happen. And in showers it can be especially tricky, because the other parts of the body are fine. So you can ‘escape’ there.
And only then, allowing comes.
Allowing phase
This part is the destination. It’s the one where you want to arrive. You body almost like take care of it, and it feels like warming up that part. It’s hard to describe. Something happen, that if you would like to stand there forever, you could.
There is no longer this urge to run. You are at peace with it.
And that’s where you should arrive. And stay there for a couple of seconds. Till you want to.
And here comes the cold shower pickle. It happens only at the one part, you were holding the stream on. Not the others.
So you are not moving around, that stream wouldn’t flow on different parts. I don’t think you can go through the whole wave, that fast that you can just put the cold all over the body. You almost like need to fill it up slowly.
With practice, It would happen faster. But you would still need at least few seconds to get into it. And then another few to stay with it. Again, flow restrictions.
This is why I’ve said, the signal comes in waves.
THE WAVE
I think the last part is filling the waves on different parts of the body, and the final signal of THE wave comes as a result of balance over the small waves. Over the different parts of the body.
Here is why the shower is tricky compared to a bath. With bath, you experience one wave, and that’s it. When it comes to shower, it’s more of a dance.
The balance between the waves, meaning how filled the parts of the body are with cold, is as important, as one part being filled with cold fully. See?
And you would do this for your back, sides and front. All of them would need to go through it. Then you try face. That is fun, but really hard. Almost like painful but when you go out, it so much. Yeah, face become another glass to fill.
And after you receive the signal from all parts of the body, you start to buzz almost. That’s where the chance to receive: “The wave” comes. I say chance, because it doesn’t always happen.
This one is the hardest. Because it feels so good now, you want to stay there. The cold becomes like you, or what it is, and you just want to be there. But you probably have other things to do, and your body also has some natural limitation that you may ignore at those moments.
It’s probably best if it all takes like 1 minute and few seconds. That’s how I heard more experienced people talk about. That’s where the most of the benefits, comes from. After it, it may be just your unresolved stuff.
In my case, the problem wasn’t about: “Okay, now. How long can I hold it” and trying to set the record. I don’t time it, really. So, I couldn’t.
The problem
In my case, it’s more of an uncertainty. “It’s enough?” “Should I stop now?” I go away, and then I am immediately drawn back: “No you should more, you still didn’t hit the point.” I want to do it good, but should I go back? Isn’t it the thing where I would over do it. And then I have other things to do, but I need to take care of the coldness first. Ah, gush!
Ah, and I come back. Try it again, and feel it again. And the signal, signal isn’t coming and I am like: “Why the frick? Am I overdoing it now?”
Am I alone in this?
And sometimes I’m right. I still didn’t hit it. And the signal came after. But there were other’s where I over did it. Quite a lot. Once I was pissed of: “Where the fuck is the limit” and stayed there like minutes, and yeah. And the day after wasn’t great. Hope you don’t know the story too.
Balancing act
Getting the right signal of when to stop, is hard. All parts of your body has the same amount of cold exposure. Probably also need different times, for the same effect. Hands and legs are a bit easier. The core of the body needs more. And the whole game is to balance the filling similarly. For the signal to arrive.
So yeah, think about it as a game, and each part, back, front, left side and right side being like glasses. And each needs a certain amount of coldness to be fulfilled. And at the same time, you need to balance them with each other, and the face too. I’m repeating myself. But it’s needed.
Have fun. But one good policy to not overdoing it. Especially for guys is: “When it’s harder to go out then to stay in it, you probably should go.” But again, it might be misleading, because other parts didn’t get the cold love yet.
Ahhh! BUnkers!
I have other things to do!
So, that’s why it’s a game. A hard one.
Or you can go to bath. And be cool. It’s on you. I wonder if it isn’t more now that I need to go to another level. The level of proper ice baths. That I grew up from cold showers. And I just need to use the icy cubicles now.
Now, I still have something to learn here.
Bye, hope it helped you see it differentially. I would try my new framing tomorrow.
Lukas
