Creating good habits is a key step in living healthy, sustainable lives. However, knowing which habits best fit our personal circumstances, and how to properly adopt and maintain these habits can be challenging. Often, if the habits require too much effort to adopt, or they simply don’t align with your circumstances, they can bring more stress than benefit.
Implementing a habit that involves changing HOW we do something we already do can prove very worthwhile, since it may offer big benefits without adding anything to a schedule…
Something you do day in, day out (minus the odd lazy day) is have a shower. When you have it, how long you have it for, how good your shower is, and whether you enjoy it or not are all factors that change between people and between days. Analysing shower timing, duration, temperature, and other factors are all variables that can be tweaked to have a greater impact on physical and mental, and even environmental health.
Changes you can make to your shower routine that may benefit environmental and personal health include re-thinking the products you use and changing the time of the day you have it. Something you might be less familiar with, however, is the benefit of temperature changes…
Cold showers
Benefits
The first thing to understand, which extends beyond just cold showers, is the benefit of experiencing extremes. This could be any number of stimuli, such as intense muscle contraction, maximal heart rate, extended fasting, or, as in this case, extreme temperature exposure.
You’d assume that exposure to extremes can only be damaging – but, in small doses, the opposite is true. In this adaptive response, known as hormesis, small doses of extremes provide a protective and beneficial effect on your body. Interestingly, this is the basis behind exercise – tiny tears within muscle fibres lead to an adaptive response, meaning they heal stronger than before. The same is true for cold exposure, except instead of muscle strength and joint health, its improved circulation and skin health, and better thermoregulation (regulation of body temperature).
In addition to the physiological benefit, I believe exposure to extremes improves our mental resilience against discomfort. Anecdotally, I can say that my tolerance of cold has dramatically increased since I started taking cold showers a few times a week, and I am much more comfortable during the shock I believe cold showers help me build up a mental resilience that propagates into the rest of the day. In addition to this, I frequently experience improved mood after a morning cold shower, likely due to the endorphin release and intense sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system activation.
Tips
Whilst I love getting into freezing cold water, I’m frequently reminded most humans don’t. So, I’ve put some thought into how you might gradually, comfortably build up the habit. Start small and start slow – perhaps have your normal shower then right at the end turn it down halfway to lowest, try and stay in for a couple of seconds, then turn it off and get out. Next time maybe increase it to 10 seconds, and then the next time try to put it all the way to 0. This may take you a couple of days, or you may want to ease in over a week. No rush. Make it sustainable.
Something to note - since this is a big sympathetic stimulus, I’d suggest not doing this last thing at night, nor straight after a big meal. The reason for this is that sympathetic activation takes blood flow away from the digestive system and to the muscles – ready to fight or flight… which is the opposite of what you want before sleep or after a meal. Finally, if you know you have breathing/lung problems, take it particularly slowly and with extra care, since cold exposure influences breathing.
Hot showers
Whilst cold showers are more powerful in boosting health, hot showers can also be an effective tool.
Benefits
Just like cold showers, hot showers offer benefits both physiologically and mentally. The same benefits are even greater with a bath, but this requires a lot more water and a lot more time.
The physiological benefits, also like cold showers, include improved skin health and circulation. In parallel, the increased blood flow in the skin opens the pores allowing increased discharge and removal of cellular, metabolic or particulate waste. Interestingly, with our increased exposure to harmful microplastics – in the food we eat & in the air we breathe – induced sweating has been shown to be a clinically effective method for eliminating such particles.
The heat also influences our endocrine (hormonal) system. Reductions in cortisol – a key stress hormone – contribute to a short-term decrease in blood pressure. The heat also increases the release of endorphins, again, making it a pleasurable experience and improving mood.
One slightly more circumstantially specific benefit is with congestion. When hayfever season comes around I know I will be hit with both a nose that runs like Usain Bolt, and one that gets blocked up like the M25. It’s no secret that steam inhalation is a useful tool for combating congestion, but this idea is rarely partnered with your shower – normally it involves hunching over a bowl of hot water with a towel draped over your head – not so practical.
Tips
Unlike cold showers, hot showers are innately more pleasurable. However, to really push to the extreme, perhaps (similar to cold shower method) start incrementally turning up the heat after you’ve had your normal shower. Then try push higher and higher – obviously don’t be stupid and turn it right up – you will burn yourself and it will hurt!
Since this will put a higher strain on your building’s energy usage/cost, if you turn down the power to ~½ you can use less water but still get the same effect.
Whilst these habits probably won't solve all of life's problems... this doesn't mean they can't make a small but noticeable contribution to a healthy lifestyle. Enjoy giving these a go!
I give smart showers 8/10
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