I take cold showers all year-round.
OK, that's a lie. I take cold showers from the end of March to early November. I have them occasionaly throughout winter as well, but not daily.
But what's the reason behind this?
I am not gonna talk about the physiological benefits of cold showers. FUCK THAT. Even if they indeed raised testosterone (lmao if you need cold showers for testosterone), provided with clear skin, gave you increased willpower and what not, they're really not worth it if you're doing them for those reasons.
It has become a meme. "The cold showers". Part of the cringeworthy self-improvement trifecta:
Y I K E S you boring fucks.
Cold showers act as a stressor, like intermittent fasting. They boost your cortisol levels higher than normal, activating the fight or flight response.
In layman's term, cold showers make you anxious and intense, because your body thinks you are in bad situation you need to get the fuck out.
And you are. You are under cold water. People back then didn't have a nice comfy home and a heat system that doesn't let you experience anything other than perfection in terms of temperature. If you fell in a cold lake, best case scenario you developed pneumonia and you died. Simple as that.
And that's precisely the reason you take them. Deliberate discomfort. You put yourself in an unpleasant situation by choice and you endure it. You make your mind hard as the boners I get after the cold shower.
I am all about a nice warm bath, a nice sponge massage and the rest of the debauceries. But I feel guilty, almost dirty after that. All warm and cosy and comfortable. Ready for nappy time and soft french cookies. Pwease dot hut mi!
It may as well be my problem. If I get too comfortable, I get restless. Perhaps it's innate guilt I haven't yet worked out, for all the atrocities of the past. I don't know.
Even when I was a kid I did shit like this. Standing in a horse death pose for as long as I can, standing outside the house naked, not eating for 24 hours (my record I think is 48 hours).
I don't feel comfortable in comfort.
That's not always the case obviously. If I get shit done, the important stuff I know I need to do, I will just rot away, feeling blissful. In most cases though there are always stuff to be done.
But I believe I've found a solution and once again it's not moderation.
You do deep work, in hell-mode, with relentless focus, in such manner that you don't really have an option afterwards, but to chill the fuck out.
There's nothing more destructive than the mild, grinding uneaseness. When you have to work, YOU WORK. When you have to sit, YOU SIT.
The in-betweens will serve you no good in both situations.
That's why cold showers serve as a nice discomfort catalyst. They take away some of modernity's hyperbolies.
You can replace cold showers with any unpleasant situation. A friend of mine locked himself in the house and he wouldn't get out until he performed 1000 push ups. That's A LOT harder than your think.
Try it for yourself. Pick something you hate doing and fucking DO IT. Find your breaing points, they will serve as a mental barrier when real life hits you hard.
The younger you start doing this shit, the better. You don't want to get caught by the inherent tragedy of the human condition before you are ready for it.
-Thatredbeardguy
SECOND POST SCRIPTUM: After re-reading this, I just realized I may have an S&M thing. WELP! Let me get the my whip while you sit tightly...
Read these or the leather belt if waiting for you:
I also have a Twitter, go say hello!
