But let’s be real: It’s a
total chore to fill your tub up with bags of ice—even if there’s nowhere else
you’d rather sit after an especially sweaty, humid summer workout. What’s the
next best thing? An ice cold shower seems obvious, but are there any benefits
of cold showers?
While it’s not quite the
same as immersing yourself in icy water (and you won’t get the same intended
effect), even a few minutes under that cold water can affect how you perform
and recover. Here’s the deal.
What a Cold Shower Does to Your Body
First thing’s first: A
cold shower pre-workout could do wonders for you, especially when you’re, for
example, running in the heat. “You feel better, but your body temperature would
also be a little bit lower to start the run,” which affects how high it might
rise during the run, says Doug Casa, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of The
Korey Stringer Institute, which provides research on exertional heat stroke
prevention. “There’s no question that your performance could be better, and
that you’ll be safer.”
But you’re more likely to
crave that cold water post-workout, when it can provide relief for soreness and
inflammation and give almost every system in your body a boost, a recent review
of the science in The North American Journal of Medical Sciences found.
“Jumping in a cold shower immediately after exercise is a great idea, because
the faster you get your body temperature down after activity, the better you’re
going to recover,” Casa says.
That’s because when you
exercise in the heat, your blood is being shared by the skin, the muscles, and
the heart: “the heart to maintain your cardiac output, your muscles so you can
do the darn exercise, and your skin so that you can cool yourself,” explains
Casa. “When you take out one of those factors by using water to cool your skin,
your body can send blood back to important areas like your stomach and your
intestines, so you can handle hydration and nutrients better. Then your fatigue
will be less later on in the day or the next day.”
That exposure to cold
water also causes vasoconstriction, which is when your blood vessels become
more narrow and, along with the heart, need to work harder to continue moving
blood flow.This increased demand strengthens the heart and blood vessels,
translating to improved circulation longer term.Improved circulation benefits
overall health, performance, and recovery by helping to deliver key nutrients
and energy to muscles and organs while simultaneously removing exercise-related
metabolic waste products such as lactic acid more efficiently.
What a Cold Shower Does to Your Brain
What doesn’t kill you
makes you stronger, right? Well, there’s actually a scientific name for that:
hormesis, which is basically a biological phenomenon whereby a positive effect
results from exposure to low doses of something that is otherwise negative at
higher doses. “Low-dose controlled stressors such as oxygen restriction,
intermittent fasting, and cold water exposure are all utilized to stimulate the
hormetic response,” says Drogoszewski. “Hormones and neurotransmitters kick
into high gear during these exposures, leading to an increase in physiological
and mental resilience.”
Taking a cold shower for
up to five minutes, two to three times per week, has also been shown to help
relieve symptoms of depression, according to research published in the journal
Medical Hypotheses. “That cold water exposure helps to decrease cortisol levels
and increase the levels of the feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin,” says
Drogoszewski. Even better: The adrenaline rush you get from immersing yourself
in cold water creates a rush of norepinephrine, he adds, which helps to
increase energy, focus, and performance outcomes.
Any time you can force
yourself to withstand a physically uncomfortable situation (one that doesn’t
threaten your safety, obviously), it forces you to toughen up. “If you can suck
it up and stand in a cold shower, it makes you think, what other uncomfortable
situations can you push through?” says Drogoszewski. “Those last reps in your
strength workout? The final kick of a marathon?” Developing your mental
strength is just as important as building physical strength, and this could be
one of the easiest ways to do it.
So How Cold Does It Really Need to Be?
Everyone’s definition of
what’s cold is different—especially when you’re all fired up after a hard
workout. “If your body temperature is 103° or 105° after a summer run, standing
in 34° water is going to be a horrible experience,” says Casa. “Sixty degrees,
though, is still really cold—but might feel refreshing.” So there’s no right
answer as to how cold exactly your shower should be. “Generally, the colder the
water the better, and the longer you can stand it the better,” he adds.
The best practice is to
start slow and build up to longer exposures, says Drogoszewski. “The goal is to
engage in the practice long-term, so if it’s absolutely miserable, the
likelihood of sticking with it is pretty slim. I now do five to 10 minutes
straight every morning, but I started with 30 seconds of cold at the end of my
shower then built up from there.”
What you don’t want to do
is turn the faucet so far to the cold side that you end up shivering—and using
more energy—under the spray. “I would not want to induce a shivering response
in someone after they just exercised in the heat,” says Casa. “You have enough
stress your body’s dealing with already.” And in the dog days of summer? A
nice, cold shower might be the actual cooldown your workout needs.
