I’ve been taking cold showers for the past 6 months, after hearing about Wim Hof’s cold therapy and his experience. Well, that not exactly true. Hot showers actually, but with a cold bit at the end. Through experimentation, I’ve discovered that it seems to hurt in accordance to the resistance I offer!
I was already partial to a bit of cold water from snorkelling in Scotland, but having a dose of it in the shower every day, I’ve noticed a few things about my experience. Well, the cold water definitely makes you sit up and pay attention!
My Experience of Cold Therapy
Sometimes it’s not exactly pleasant, but it does make me instantly inhabit my body, and is very beneficial in a number of other ways, in an electric shock therapy sort of way!
There are some mornings when I really don’t want to turn the water to cold, I’ve found that those are the mornings when I benefit the most from doing it! I’m using this as transferable knowledge to whenever I don’t want to do things that get me in my body, for instance get myself out of bed and go running.
One of the ideas behind cold therapy is that you purposely stress the body. This causes the body to mobilise its resources, strengthen it’s immune response, building resilience, and sort of vaccinating itself against stress.
It’s strange, the better I feel when entering the stream of cold, the less painful the cold water seems to feel! I found this fact to be interesting. It seems the more relaxed my body and mind is, the less I feel the cold.
What I’m finding is what adds to the suffering and pain in the shower, is not so much the cold, but my resistance to it, when my body and mind literally contract against it.
When I started with the cold showers, I used to do a yogic fire breath as I turned the tap on the self-inflicted pain! This seemed to help quite a bit in that it counteracted the cold by warming my body and also gave me something to focus on other than the cold!
Power of Relaxation
However, recently, I stopped doing the fire breath, and instead I simply breathe deeply and slowly as I turned the water cold. I also consciously relax all the muscles that I’m aware of which are tightening. And the more I relax, the less the cold affects me…
The same is true in my mind, the more I’m thinking about how cold it is and wanting to turn the tap to warm again, the colder it feels! It seems to hurt in accordance to the resistance I offer.
So what I’m discovering is that I can consciously relax my body and mind to better handle the stress. Literally, by breathing into it, I can use my breath to consciously relax my body and in turn relax my mind. And in a state of relaxation of my mind feels more resourceful.
I’m curious to see how I can apply what I’m learning in the shower to rest of my day!
How can I breathe more deeply and face the challenges in life with more ease?
You might want to try it too, the next time you receive an unexpected shock or unpleasant news, breathe deeply, relax your muscles to allow your creativity and wisdom to flow to face the situation. Offer no resistance to life and see what happens.
Cold shower instead of coffee in the morning, anyone!?
Photo by Tim Wilson on Unsplash
