The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
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The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
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Re: The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
#2So if you take a cold shower you'll be less likely to want to call in sick.
Re: The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
#3https://hbr.org/2018/03/cold-showers-lead-to-fewer-sick-days
The link is an interview with the study author, and excerpts are below.
This is the first high-level evidence showing that cold showers can benefit your health. People who took them for at least 30 seconds for one month called in sick 29% less than our control group — and 54% less if they also engaged in regular physical exercise.
Participants who took the cold showers actually reported feeling ill just as many days, on average, as the people who showered normally. But either their symptoms were less severe or they felt more energetic, so they were better able to push through the sickness and function anyway. The exact effect on the immune system is unclear, but we do have some knowledge of the pathway through which it works. Cold temperatures make you shiver — an autonomous response to keep your body temperature up. It involves a neuroendocrine effect and triggers our fight-or-flight response, causing hormones like cortisol to increase, shortly before we shift to a relaxation response. Moreover, cold temperatures activate the brown — or good — fat in the body.
Brown fat doesn’t have any proven connection to immunity, but it does affect the body’s thermoregulation. When activated, it keeps the body warm by burning calories. It may also increase your energy and metabolism and help control your blood sugar. That could reduce your risk of obesity and diabetes.
Re: The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
#4Just read the summary. For me personally a hot to cold shower isn't nice. But a cold shower although initially repulsive becomes very enjoyable. And when it ends the thaw feeling is magic. When you are freezing, even cold feels warm.
Some days I get so cold in my bones I feel a hot bath or hot shower is the only way to sort me out. If I'm proper dirty, a cold shower doesn't do.
Re: The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
#5i wonder if there are studies about hot bath. Onsen are extremely popular in japan, and i'm absolutely certain the relaxation you get from hot water is beneficial to health as well
Re: The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
#6https://hbr.org/2018/03/cold-showers-lead-to-fewer-sick-days The link is an interview with the study author, and excerpts are below. This is the first high-level evidence showing that cold showers can benefit your health. People who took them for at least 30 seconds for one month called in sick 29% less than our control group — and 54% less if they also engaged in regular physical exercise. Participants who took the…
That doesn't sound healthy at all. If the only difference is that they went to work sick, then I see little benefit. Except to the disease of course, it get spread around more effectively.
Re: The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
#7I'm not sure what the take-home from this is. Fewer people called in sick.
Does that mean more people who were actually sick were tricked into a false feeling of health and went into work to spread their germs?
Or does it mean that healthy people that were just feeling a bit groggy were re-invigorated by a cold shower?
Re: The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
#8This SciShow-clip discusses this study and others.
I do it most mornings for (anecdotal) "waking up the mind" when I'm tired. Sometimes it feels like the world goes from SD to HD. I don't do it 90 seconds though more like 30 tops and I don't believe that I'm less sick because of it. For me it's also a psychological test of "can I chose to do something that is tangibly uncomfortable when it's super easy to just stay nice and cosy".
Re: The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
#9https://hbr.org/2018/03/cold-showers-lead-to-fewer-sick-days The link is an interview with the study author, and excerpts are below. This is the first high-level evidence showing that cold showers can benefit your health. People who took them for at least 30 seconds for one month called in sick 29% less than our control group — and 54% less if they also engaged in regular physical exercise. Participants who took the…
> Brown fat doesn’t have any proven connection to immunity, but it does affect the body’s thermoregulation. When activated, it keeps the body warm by burning calories. It may also increase your energy and metabolism and help control your blood sugar. That could reduce your risk of obesity and diabetes
Wonder what effect this would have on a weight loss program?
Re: The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016)
#10The sentence "routinely showering (hot-to-) cold resulted in a 29% reduction of self-reported sick leave from work but not illness days" raises some alarms. Also the fact that so many participants discontinued the intervention "because of its burden or a sickness" (much fewer discontinuers in the control group).