That's brisk, baby! (Week 11)
"Nothing burns like the cold, but only for a while."
I don't even watch Game of Thrones (yet) but I know what George R. Martin is talking about with this cold thing. It's what I discovered in my week spent only in cold showers...and in a cold ocean. It burns for a while, but then you discover something deeper than mere pain.
The idea–or maybe challenge–was suggested to me by my buddy Jon, who even presented me with the research and logic behind the Benefits of Cold Showers. So I resolved to take only cold showers every day for 7 days, and cap it off on Sunday by joining the Swim-A-Month-Club for their monthly swim in The Gorge, the ocean-fed waterway just off Victoria's Inner Harbour. All this in the month of March, after the coldest February the city has seen in 83 years.
Well. Here's my anything-but-earth-shattering discovery. Cold water hurts. And yeah, it kinda sucks too.
I decided to sneak up on the plan, starting Monday with the shower set at lukewarm before turning it down to ice cold - which is apparently the way Katherine Hepburn always had her shower. That was at least tolerable. Then it got ugly.
I kept waiting all week for the much-ballyhooed benefits of cold water to arrive. They said I would experience "increased alertness." It's true that for the 2 minutes I subjected myself to the frigid torture chamber I was pretty alert. In fact I was acutely aware of my suffering. As for the rest of the week? Nah.
Then there are the other supposed benefits, like "refined hair and skin" and "improved immunity and circulation." Nope and nope. Both were fine before, and neither got any better with constant ice-cold dunking. Easing of stress? Combatting of depression? Losing of weight? Negative on all three counts. Maybe my lab test was too short to show any real results, and I wasn't about to stick around as a human guinea pig for any longer.
Here's something I found out. You know how when you wash dishes you use hot water? I think we both know why. 'Cuz if you used cold, the dishes wouldn't get clean, or would take 10 times longer to get clean. My body–and probably yours too–is kinda the same. When you wash it in cold water, it just doesn't feel clean. And when you step out of an ultra-chilled shower, you can feel that soapy film sticking to your skin for the rest of the day. Better make that the rest of the week for me, because I never felt truly clean until I finally got into the good stuff again on Sunday night.
Maybe the one true benefit of my week, and something that others have found as well, is that taking cold showers builds massive will power. When I joined the jolly nutters down at Banfield Jetty on Sunday morning for their monthly dip in The Gorge, I was full of beans and more than ready to dive in. It was one of those "If I can do this, what then can I not do?" moments. Some might even go so far as to call that life-affirming. An interesting notion, and one I'm warming up to.
NEXT WEEK: My first painting!
I don't even watch Game of Thrones (yet) but I know what George R. Martin is talking about with this cold thing. It's what I discovered in my week spent only in cold showers...and in a cold ocean. It burns for a while, but then you discover something deeper than mere pain.
The idea–or maybe challenge–was suggested to me by my buddy Jon, who even presented me with the research and logic behind the Benefits of Cold Showers. So I resolved to take only cold showers every day for 7 days, and cap it off on Sunday by joining the Swim-A-Month-Club for their monthly swim in The Gorge, the ocean-fed waterway just off Victoria's Inner Harbour. All this in the month of March, after the coldest February the city has seen in 83 years.
Well. Here's my anything-but-earth-shattering discovery. Cold water hurts. And yeah, it kinda sucks too.
I decided to sneak up on the plan, starting Monday with the shower set at lukewarm before turning it down to ice cold - which is apparently the way Katherine Hepburn always had her shower. That was at least tolerable. Then it got ugly.
I kept waiting all week for the much-ballyhooed benefits of cold water to arrive. They said I would experience "increased alertness." It's true that for the 2 minutes I subjected myself to the frigid torture chamber I was pretty alert. In fact I was acutely aware of my suffering. As for the rest of the week? Nah.
Then there are the other supposed benefits, like "refined hair and skin" and "improved immunity and circulation." Nope and nope. Both were fine before, and neither got any better with constant ice-cold dunking. Easing of stress? Combatting of depression? Losing of weight? Negative on all three counts. Maybe my lab test was too short to show any real results, and I wasn't about to stick around as a human guinea pig for any longer.
Here's something I found out. You know how when you wash dishes you use hot water? I think we both know why. 'Cuz if you used cold, the dishes wouldn't get clean, or would take 10 times longer to get clean. My body–and probably yours too–is kinda the same. When you wash it in cold water, it just doesn't feel clean. And when you step out of an ultra-chilled shower, you can feel that soapy film sticking to your skin for the rest of the day. Better make that the rest of the week for me, because I never felt truly clean until I finally got into the good stuff again on Sunday night.Maybe the one true benefit of my week, and something that others have found as well, is that taking cold showers builds massive will power. When I joined the jolly nutters down at Banfield Jetty on Sunday morning for their monthly dip in The Gorge, I was full of beans and more than ready to dive in. It was one of those "If I can do this, what then can I not do?" moments. Some might even go so far as to call that life-affirming. An interesting notion, and one I'm warming up to.
NEXT WEEK: My first painting!
And, not to open another can of worms so to speak, one only has to defer to George Costanza on this, "Do women know about shrinkage?"
ReplyDeleteI think only the ones who watched Seinfeld. So, luckily, Val is one of those.
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