Four long weeks of cold showers, exactly what I needed to remind myself the importance of committing, even when the commitment sucks. The whole experience made me think, “if I can take this freezing shower for no reason other than I said I would, why should I go back on anything else?” There were definitely days where I thought, I could totally just take a warm shower today and write about the excuses in my head for doing so. “It was raining and very cold out. I was sick. One day won’t ruin what I built up over the month.” Still, I just made myself get in and do it. By the time I got out, I looked back on the excuses I was looking to make and knew they are the exact reason I needed to start this trial in the first place. Now that the trial has come to a close, it’s time to reflect on what I can take away from these past few weeks.
I’ve been asked a lot if I will continue cold showers once the trial has ended. For the next few weeks, I’ll answer with a resounding no. However, I do foresee myself taking the occasional one when I know I need to get some things done afterward and don’t want to waste a few minutes standing still, or if I need to quickly shower before leaving home. I can also see myself turning the water to cold is when I need a jolt of “Hey dumbass stop making excuses and whining.”
A similar but slightly different approach I may stick with is to take contrasting showers. While trying to pull up some real research on benefits of cold showers, beyond the sensationalist articles with names like “Top Five Reasons You Need to Take Cold Showers Now,” I found a report by the Australian Coaches Council that briefly mentioned benefits of temperature contrast for muscle recovery. Here’s the whole document. Page 15 discusses hydrotherapy thru the use of contrasting temperatures. Right now, I’m looking to get back into running and biking, and the claims made for muscle recovery can be quite helpful. During the trial, I looked for benefits of cold showers specifically and found a few pieces on the topic, but I’m sure I could have just as easily found articles highlighting the benefits of hot showers. In reality, there are probably benefits to both, so why not just switch it up from time to time?
One problem I catch myself in when taking hot or warm showers is loitering in the shower and not getting onto the things I need to accomplish that day. The biggest benefit I’ve seen in my weeks of cold showers is a huge drop in the time spent each day getting clean. I gave an estimate of six minutes based on how I would listen to about one and a half to two songs per shower previously. During my cold shower trial, I had was in and out in an average of 2:27, 3:16 for time including drying off, cutting time well in half. Having had this experience, I wonder to what extent I will be conscious of the time I spend showering going forward.
Along with time spent, someday this could translate into dollars saved. RIght now, the apartment I’m in I don’t pay for most utilities, but I decided to look at the factors. I found this calculator after a quick Google search. I entered in the local utility costs I was able to find on the city of Dubuque website, an average time of 6 minutes and a warm shower (defined as 90° F) for a result of $0.19 per day which comes out to over $67 per year. For cold showers (65° F) at the same time, the cost is cut well in half, $0.09 per day or $32.87 per year, but as I mentioned above, a cold shower tends to push you to go a bit quicker. At 3 minutes that total drops down to $0.05 per day, $16.43 per year. At 2 minutes a mere $0.03 a day which comes to $10.96 every year. Is that warm shower taken every day worth a couple dimes each time? Maybe. That’s up to you, but a definite benefit to keep in mind.
Now that I’m done freezing myself by choice, what will I be doing next? The mail list subscribers might have noticed I was spending quite some time at the library this past weekend. While there I took out a handful of books. In order to actually read the near 1000 pages, for the next four weeks, I will be reading at least 35 pages of a book per day. My reading list has gotten a bit out of hand with more books added every week from podcasts, blogs and even within books themselves. Most recently, I was turned onto the biographies by author Walter Isaacson after he appeared on the Tim Ferriss Show, a highlight mentioned in my newsletter. During my trip to the library, I grabbed his book on the life of Benjamin Franklin along with a few others. With October coming to a close, I realized I haven’t watched any horror movies this month, so I decided I should dig into a horror novel instead, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson in this case. Lastly, developing new skills is something I love doing and one that I’ve been long interested in has been woodworking and carpentry. After several minutes of walking up and down the library stacks I found Nick Offerman’s Good Clean Fun, which I hope to be an enjoyable, yet educational, read. I hope to finish each of these over the course of the next four weeks. If you want to join along, I challenge you to try reading differently than usual. For example, I never read fiction, I figure I’ll wait for the movie to come out or watch a YouTube video summarizing the events and themes in a few minutes (I personally enjoy Sparky Sweets from Thug Notes). So if you usually read fiction, pick up a biography or nonfiction book on a subject you know only a little about, or, if you’re like me, dive into a story crafted from the mind of a great author. October is a great time for horror.
The next few posts may be a bit different than what I’ve done in the past, but I hope you still tune in and join me thru each book!
Trying Out Before Buying In 