On a side note, has anyone here tried wim hof method?
I am a very physical person and his method was the first one to put my mind into a meditative state. You actually feel it in your body and shock it which silences your regular thoughts. You only focus on your breathing and how you feel in that moment. It gives me a really quick reprieve when working on a difficult problem.
You have people that take his method to extremes though, I remember one guy at the seminar literally pissed himself from holding in too long. It can make it all seem like pseudoscience. I can confirm that it has a very physical effect on my body and helps me meditate a lot easier.
A side effect of the ice training is that I sweat in really cold weather. I live in Seattle and people look at me funny cause I'm rocking a t-shirt and shorts but if I wear a jacket I'm boiling.
Also makes me feel warm in cold weather.
This is really interesting, it sounds like exposure to cold has up-regulated your metabolism or something.
My genetics are from warm countries but I grew up in a cold country, and when I go home people are always terrified that I'm going to die of cold because of how little I'm wearing.
It's interesting to see that the body can undergo changes like this even in adulthood: I guess humans are adapted to moving around!
I wonder if his methods would help people with depression.
Also: Freediving is amazing for forcing a meditative state.
Funny.
> Main difference shown was ~30% reduction in sick days they took.
> Repetitive cold showering can modulate the physiological
> response.[3] Our findings show that routinely showering
> (hot-to-) cold for at least 30 days resulted in a reduction
> of self-reported sick leave from work but not illness days
> in adults without severe comorbidity.
> 79% of participants in the interventions groups completed
> the 30 consecutive days protocol.
So, one explanation might be that the group able to successfully complete the study is a self-selecting group that may have stronger resistance to physical discomfort that they would also take fewer sick leave days despite feeling sick.
Whereas, individuals unable to complete the study are not as tolerant of physical discomfort and, so, are more likely to take sick days when feeling sick.
I really would like to know what constitutes a control group for this study.
To my mind, cold showers and sick days seem likely to be loosely correlated. This study does not seemed designed to determine whether people who take cold showers actually get sick less often than those who take hot showers.
EDIT: spelling
“The contrast between the results of both primary outcome parameters is suggestive of the fact that the intensity rather than the duration of symptoms is modulated by the intervention.”
My conjecture is this is consistent with a placebo effect. Placebos can make your symptoms feel less severe.
I also handle cold much better. I need less warm cloth to feel good. Where I was shivering and needed something warm before, I wear t-shirt now and feel good.
I've trie the wim hof method. It's a pretty incredible feeling but I'm afraid of collapsing and knocking myself out.
TLDR: he put his ass on a water fountain in the middle of a public park to flush his bowel but the pressure was so high that he ended up in the hospital with perforated intestines and nearly died.
Even without wrecking your intestines, the bacteria and probable pollutants in a public fountain would be disastrous for your intestinal flora. So, even without the risk of traumatic injury, it'd be really stupid to treat a public fountain as a mega-bidet. Not to mention you're putting others at risk. Kids and pets often play in fountains, even if they aren't supposed to.
I really can't even with this dude. And, lots of people, including nerds, take him seriously. It makes no sense.
> In The Netherlands, there has been an increasing trend for cold bathing over the past few years. Part of this growing popularity is owed to the scientific approach of a health and mindset technique hallmarked by cold-exposure as created by an individual named Wim Hof, nicknamed the Iceman for his ability to remain constant body temperature in extreme cold conditions.[25] These methods involving concentration, breathing and cold-exposure have shown to modulate the immune response.[26] These findings served as inspiration to design the present trial and its popularity facilitated recruitment of over three thousand participants in just one month time.
I tried, but honestly I half-assed it because it was both difficult to set up and uncomfortable, so I was unsuccessful in implementing any Wim Hof-like protocol.
UPSIDES: We nearly halved our water bill as all of us (kids and parents) took far shorter showers because it was so cold. This also meant we had to clean the shower much less often. I would also be more awake and alert in the morning after a cold rinse.
DOWNSIDES: I noticed I was getting more headaches and stiff necks, then I realised that the hot showers were helping me to de-tension and relax my shoulder and neck muscles which have become tight due to my long work hours writing code at a keyboard.
Didn't notice any up or down occurrences of sickness in the rest of the family. Overall, I am glad we have hot water back now. At least I have a choice which way to go.
But I think more than that - I like the blast of hot water essentially massaging the back of my neck and shoulders. I think the heat had a significant effect on loosening up the muscles and knots, and increasing flexibility and neck movement. The cold showers simply did nothing, and me tensing my body to meet the cold shock didn't help any.
I find that I do a bit of both these days - have a hot shower first and do neck stretches in the shower, then turn the water to cold just before I hop out.
I wonder if there's a way to condition oneself to somehow ignore it and not lock every muscle up? I'm not necessarily talking about Wim Hof, but it would be nice if I weren't so easily affected by cold.
I think the main issue of Wim Hof vs. regulars like us is whether you're able to maintain near skin blood pipes open in the cold water. These pipes shutting down immediately upon cold contact isn't really a good thing, it hits heart, near skin muscles get not enough blood, etc. On the other side, if your blood pipes keep pumping the blood while you're getting into cold water that is very healthy, that is the effect you're really after - the body starts to pump even more actively through these pipes to maintain the temperature in the near skin tissues and that pumping is really good for those tissues and for the heart and for the whole body. The hot shower/sauna is what makes my and other regular people's near skin blood vessels to not collapse upon entering the cold shower/pool immediately after.
cryo usually is -180 degrees F for 2 minutes. But a similar effect can be achieved with ~40 F (IIRC) exposure for ~4-6 hours. I think she has mentioned similar effects for immersion in cold water for several minutes as well.
The benefits of cold shock are basically:
* increase norepinephrine up to 5 fold which provides a ton of focus/attention. * induces biogenesis of mitochondria, thus increases endurance. * that biogensis turns white fat brown as fat cells grow mitochondria to generate heat to stay warm
Looks like she has a report on it here: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/?sendme=cold-stress
You can also listen to it in bits and pieces in various videos she has posted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-J8w2ay94
Seems like you need cold and exercise, at least in mice to get the effect in fat.
Just passing along the info. At about the halfway period of the aforementioned video she has of her talk at a conference, she goes over the biogenesis effect, but I dont recall there being a direct study link. But in other videos, she does show screen shots of the studies when she makes statistical claims which make the studies pretty easily searchable on pubmed.
Her published stuff on foundmyfitness.com does have studies though.
It's a free high, great way to start a day. I presumed endorphins are being released.
Now I prefer to run a bunch of miles and immediately jump into the (cold) ocean while still all hot and amped up from the run. The water doesn't even seem cold, it's great. Normally people wear wet-suits in the ocean here.
This sounds great, but what about the trip home? I usually run to the ocean and I sometimes feel cold on my way back just from the sweat.
"In addition, diving into cold water is a recognized trigger for sudden death in a condition called long QT syndrome (LQTS)."
It requires me to immediately face harsh conditions until I adjust to the cold and then it is awesome.
I needed frequent sick days back then when I started (it was long term bad health state).
Hot water can dry you out. Cold water may help counteract that.
ahahahahahahah. that's rich.
Tried it once for a week, and was stepping out of the shower nearly hypothermic and shivering violently. Immediately came down with a massive head and chest cold that required my first course of antibiotics in nearly a decade, followed by a tension related muscle injury that's still plaguing me three years later.
Never again.
So next time you do this experiment you need to take anti-biotics in a cold shower.
I sleep with all the windows open and my other half has pyjamas, a double duvet and a hot water bottle. Like in December in Scotland.
I also dislike wearing Jackets or Coats under any circumstances. I dislike hot drinks maybe apart from Soup.
When people go on Holiday and basque in the sun saying it is perfect weather. My actual perfect weather (I believe I feel like they do when it happens) is for a low crisp negative temperature with no wind.
For a long time I have wondered why I prefer this side of the fence and wonder if I have some weird lineage from the North.
Edit: And to address the blood pressure comment, I have always had normal to low blood pressure, so I don't think it's that.
I wonder, is this sarcasm or do you really consider 50 F as deep winter in Arizona? I get it that you are used to much higher temperatures but still...
Right now we have around 40 F in Prague and it is not even a winter yet. Cold showers are still fine right now.
But I have read that hot shower in morning significantly lowers cortisol levels so I start the day with hot shower now, when available.
Also since a few years I am living in SE Asia and hot showers taken few times a day open pores in skin and allow it breath better in this climate.
Keep doing whatever works for you, but I don’t think either of these provide especially convincing general evidence. (Note I’m not blaming the cold bath; for all I know I would have had identical symptoms either way.)
https://impossiblehq.com/cold-shower-therapy
I've taken cold showers regularly for years. One of the best things I've done for myself -- creating discipline, self awareness, etc. at zero cost in money or time.
I recommend against not trying and finding out through experience. I've found the results amazing, despite costing nothing. Since I've made cold showers a regular habit -- http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/cold-showers-rock -- I'd love to hear your results.
The placebo effect in several meta-analyses (Beecher, Haas) showed an effect in studies of around 30%.
Coincidentally, people participating in this study felt less sick when talking a hot-cold shower by ~30%.
Without being able to discount placebo, I am highly suspect of the results of this study.
Depending on the time of year the relative temperature of unheated has a broad range where I live. I’d be a lot more comfortable if this set a tight bound on the water temp. If it did and I missed it sorry.
My personal experience is with swimming in the sea year round for 3 to 4 years. 2 to 3 times a week every week. I started in August to help acclimatise to the change in the temperature as it cooled. Temperature ranges from 18C in August to 4C in early March, give or take.
The effects were great over all and I thought I was healthier for it. I understand the tightening of the muscle which some of the others mentioned as an experience. I got used to this and it seemed to relax me. I never really got the tight muscles thing except afterwards when I kind of wanted to tighten up.
I would walk in at a reasonable pace. As others have said, with a meditative feeling. Once fully emerged and the shock had passed I could swim for a maximum of around 5 to 10 minutes at the coldest part of the year. Sometimes it was more a splash around for as long as I could stand it. I generally stopped and got out when my wrists started to cramp. I'm guessing the cold water would send the blood circulation internally away from the skin.
It always felt the warmest in late September early October for some reason. The coldest place I ever swam was between two San Juan islands in August!
Once out of the water I would feel warm and have a feeling of glowing. Drying off would be a pleasure despite the outside temperature. My overall demeanour would be very positive and up lifting. I've heard talk of endorphins or something along those lines being released in to the body.
I never jumped in to a hot shower right after preferring to warm naturally and slowly. I felt warm for a good twenty minutes after getting out and being dressed fully whoever cold it was.
The whole experience became slightly addictive which is why I did it so long. Work has now gotten in the way of that.
There is a serious safety aspect to all this and it should be done with caution and understanding. This guy, Mario Vittone, was very informative on what's going on when trying to stay alive in cold water: http://mariovittone.com/2010/10/1-10-1/
interestingly enough cold showers in the morning wake me up, and cold showers at night relax me. Not exactly how it works, but it does.
One thing I noticed was that it got me alert much sooner in the morning. Typically I would get up at 7:00am, shower, eat and then head off to work to start at 9:00am, but my brain wouldn't really be in gear till about 9:30am.
With cold showering the brain was in gear far sooner. I felt more willing to get out and get stuff done. Maybe that earlier alertness helps cancel out a desire to pull a sickie?
That being said, the extra alertness wasn't worth the sheer torture of a cold shower.
I much enjoy the pleasant and unique slowness of the mornings and I wish to wake up slow, get up slow, and enjoy my breakfast slow and let the energy gradually rush back into my body for the day ahead. Looking from my perspective, a cold shower in the morning sounds like one of the worst ways to make your life more miserable.
But on the other hand cold water seems to be otherwise beneficial. For example, winter swimming is generally recognised to aid in numerous ways, both physiologically and mentally. I sometimes dip into the cold pool (4-6 C) for a minute at the swimming hall and it feels great afterwards. But that's at a time when I'm up and moving already. Doing that in the morning would be just as punishing than a cold shower.
But I have not seen a comment here warning that cold water immersion is absolutely not something you should try for the first several times alone, even in very shallow water (IE a bathtub). The risk of entering shock/going unconscious and drowning is non-trivial.
Including one death.
I've taken one day off sick in the 8 years I've been an IT contractor, and that was because I set fire to my legs (in too much pain after a dressing change to WFH).
Who knew.