Cold Shower, Day 1

Everyone it seems these days is taking cold showers, not for the reduction of sexual frustration, though some may be cold-showering for that reason, but for the health benefits. See Wim Hoff. See brown adipose tissue. See weight loss. See hand waves magically curing depression. All these reasons and I'm sure many, many more.

I listened to a Melissa Urban podcast episode yesterday where she talks about how amazing her 85 days of cold-shower starts are to her days, and heard her challenge for "take a cold shower first thing in the morning for 30 days."

Okay, fine. Claire has often commented about her puzzlement over the various challenges I put forth for myself, what is one more in a pandemic?

So, this morning, I woke up, and, to my delight, ignored my phone, and went to the bathroom. I undressed, turned the shower on full cold, no warm, stepped down into the shower, turned my back to the shower downpour, took a deep breath, and stepped backward into the water flow.

Yeah, so, I moved to Arizona last week.

Yeah, so, Arizona is in one of its hottest summers on record.

The water was at best tepid. The coldest shower I can manage at this moment is a body cooling tepid.

Urban's challenge is to stay in THIRTY WHOLE SECONDS. Yeah, 2 minutes wasn't a problem this morning.

Her winter water is in the 50˚s Fahrenheit. My summer water is likely mid to high 70˚s F. I'm going to need an alternate cold water plan for this to be effective.