Benefits of cold exposure

Discover the health benefits of being cold

Benefits of being cold

Cold exposure is good for your health. It challenges the body to adapt and become stronger - much like exercise. A process that challenges the body and makes it stronger in the long run is called hormesis.

Examples of hormesis

There are many types of hormesis. Here are a few of them:

1. Exercise
2. Heat exposure
3. Cold exposure
4. Fasting
5. Mental challenges
6. Sun exposure

Adversity creates strength.

1. Cold exposure reduces muscle pain and speeds up recovery from exercise

Cold water immersion reduces muscle soreness when done within 24 hours after exercise. The cold acts as an anti-inflammatory agent within muscle tissue. This reduces swelling and speeds up the healing process.

Cold showers reduce muscle pain

I use cold exposure to speed up the healing of a certain muscle group if it takes too long to heal on its own. Cold exposure prevents blood from pooling in muscle tissue.

Blood pooling stops new blood with fresh nutrients from reaching the muscle and stops old blood with by-products of the healing process from circulating away to be cleansed.

Inflammation isn't always a bad thing. It is the signal that tells our muscles to grow and get better. Exercise produces the inflammation that eventually leads to an increase in muscle size and strength.

Cold therapy to speed up muscle recovery

If you need to recover as soon as possible (like from a strenuous sports event and there's another one coming up shortly), I'd recommend using cold therapy as soon as you can.

If you want to increase your fitness level, I'd recommend using cold therapy a few hours after exercise so that your body can learn to deal with inflammation on its own.

Cold therapy is also good to speed up muscle or joint recovery because of its anti-inflammatory effects.

Use cold for exercise performance.

2. Cold showers reduce depression and increase energy levels

This study investigated whether cold showers could be used as an effective treatment for depression. The results were astonishing. Depressive symptoms were reduced almost instantly and the cold showers showed no indication of dependence or addiction.

The study proposes that one of the major causes of depression is a lack of hormesis that challenges our brain and body (just like how exercise reduces depression). Cold showers challenge the brain to switch on certain areas that aren't stimulated enough with our current, comfortable lifestyles.

A 2-3 minute cold shower of 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) was done once to twice a day. This was enough to elicit the mood-enhancing effects of cold exposure.

The same study showed that cold reduced pain in the same way as pain medication (via an analgesic effect).

A short, cold shower has lasting benefits.

Cold exposure activates the sympathetic nervous system

The study showed that cold exposure (in the form of cold showers) activated the mechanisms in our bodies that cope with physical stress. These are the same mechanisms that are activated during exercise. Increased energy production throughout your body creates an energizing effect.

Hormones released through cold exposure

Cold exposure increase blood levels of beta-endorphin and noradrenaline. This leads to a mood-enhancing, euphoric and energized feeling. These hormones explain why some people claim that cold showers wake them up better than coffee.

Cold showers are better than coffee.

3. Cold therapy increases metabolism

Cold exposure can increase your metabolism by 16%. It costs energy to warm the body up or cool it down. Your body will take this energy from fat stores. The increased energy levels and activation of the sympathetic nervous system, as we have discussed in the previous point, will also increase your body's energetic burn rate.

How much weight can you lose in one cold shower?

Not much. The amount of fat that you burn in a single cold shower is minuscule. You can't sit in a cold shower until you've lost a certain amount of body fat. You will enter into hypothermia before you lose any noticeable amount of fat.

The weight loss effects of cold training are adaptive. This means that your body will burn more fat mass per cold session over time as it adapts by learning to burn more fat to create heat. The more often you take a cold shower, the more fat storage you can burn per cold shower.

The metabolism-boosting effects of cold exposure persist afterwards because of sympathetic nervous system activation and the release of endorphins and noradrenaline.

Do it regularly (like exercise).

Benefits of cold exposure

The above findings tell us that cold exposure has the following benefits:

1. Better ability to respond to stress
2. Decreased recovery time for muscles and joints
3. Prevents blood pooling from strenuous exercise
4. Better elimination of the by-products of muscle recovery
5. Anti-inflammatory: Reduce pain and swelling
6. Increased ability to turn fat into energy
7. Increased energy production
8. Better mood and a sense of euphoria
9. Protection against depression

Cold is good for you.

It seems like we have been too successful at making ourselves comfortable. Doing things that make you uncomfortable from time to time will help your body to stay strong and fit. It is okay to feel cold from time to time.

Remember to never push your body further than it can handle. You can want to strengthen your body - not break it down.

I stop my cold therapy as soon as I start to shiver. Your body will get stronger and be able to endure more cold before it shivers as you go on. Stay Strong!

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