The cold shower

Ridiculous. Psychotic. Unthinkable. This vocabulary and the like pops into the conversation when I discuss my cold-shower habit with any poor soul who happens to set me off. A cold shower is one of those classic masochisms, right up there with running marathons or going on a keto diet or climbing really tall mountains, one that makes you go oh man this is one of THOSE people.

The thing is, like most activities that outwardly appear so painful yet so pointless (wtf is on a mountain top that is so important you need to spend maybe weeks or months preparing for what in essence is just a super long walk with a super heavy pack just to get to a view I can Google I mean really) the pros don’t really outweigh the cons on first glance. The amount of work / pain to get to the supposed reward at the other end is questionable, to be frank. There is often some sort of clear end goal for these types of activities, whether it’s the pride of having run 26.2 miles likely without stopping, the beautiful view at the top of the mountain, or the self-esteem boost that you arrive at after a successful diet. But the strangest part of the whole thing is that the aspect of the experience that people who do these things tend to enjoy most is the pleasure achieved while they are doing the activity. Wait. Didn’t we just say that that was the most painful part? I guess the masochist label comes with a point.

The cold shower’s supposed end goal is the rather vague notion of “health benefits.” It’s not clear exactly what happens with these cold showers, but early research is promising – one study showed that people taking cold showers were less likely to get sick compared to a control group, and another study suggests that it may be a possible treatment for depression, though results are still inconclusive. This all sounds fine and dandy – the thing is that you have to take a cold shower to get those benefits. A slight holdup.

“But Aidan we’ve evolved to the point where we can have Literally Anything – chocolate, space heaters, massage chairs – delivered to our well-insulated, fully-stocked, convenience-packed personal bubbles that protect us from the Cold and the Dark and the Scary outside and you dare suggest that a COLD, PAINFUL shower is going to be GOOD FOR ME? It has (air quotes) HEALTH BENEFITS? Yeah you know what else has health benefits NORMAL HOT SHOWERS I’m outta here see you never”

Right. The cold shower certainly needs a level of commitment where one has to try and see past (or attempt to ignore) the hurdle of the cold in said cold shower in favor of the supposed “other side” of the cold shower (because there’s no way these people who shower with freezing cold water can all hate themselves this much right.) I was one such person who was lured by these vague promises of “feeling better” and “less swelling” and “permanent fun fact that will assure you do not make any friends at social gatherings henceforth.” Let me expound on my chilly, aquatic Bildungsroman for a moment.

Picture this. You’re in the shower, it’s nice and pleasantly warm/hot. You go through the usual motions, the soaping, the shampooing, the singing, the sobbing, the pondering, the resolution to finally ask out Jane from your local barber shop, yadda yadda yadda. You finish this part up. Now it’s time for your Cold Shower.

You pause for a moment to mentally collect yourself, taking a few deep breaths, shaking it out, getting in the mental headspace you need to endure a pure blast of awareness straight to the dome, like espresso that’s been infused with electrical current and injected directly into your forehead. The anticipation is there. You close your eyes. You open them. You crank the knob nearly all the way down, just to the point where the water pressure decreases slightly (but not so much that the flow of water shuts off), signifying the start of your roller coaster ride. For a few moments your mind soars upwards into the air, as if you’ve jumped from a high dive, your momentum still carrying you upwards even as you know that your journey has just begun, just barely begun, and the main event is still very much to come, as the water maintains its heat for just another couple of seconds while the pipes pump in something a bit more glacial and then.

Cold.

Your mind goes completely blank. There is nothing. There is only you, and the Cold, the deep Cold that smothers your mind like an Antarctic snow and grips your body with icy tendrils and squeezes you like hey yeah NOW you feel me don’t you it is REAL COLD and THAT is what’s up and you completely lose it for a hot (but not at all) couple of seconds.

After what can only be described as the complete opposite of an orgasm, you somehow manage to locate the fact that you are in fact still breathing you’re breathing wait what oh shit I’m BREATHING FFFFFFFFFFF HAHHHHHH FFFFFFFFF HAHHHHHH FFFFFFFF HAHHHHHH and you just breathe and breathe because you really can’t do much else besides breathe because if you’re not breathing you’re just being Cold and that’s not really doing anyone any good so you breathe and you breathe and you breathe some more. And gradually, ever so gradually, the Cold starts to recede, it starts to ebb away, fading away as you breathe and you breathe, and you suddenly regain awareness of your fingers, your arms, your legs, your kneecaps, your toes and your soul descends back into your body and you open your eyes that you just realize have been reflexively clenched tightly tightly shut while you were gripped in the Cold.

And then somehow everything is fine. Your mind is serene. You feel clear. At rest. A mild euphoric body high concocts a light chuckle deep in your chest as you reflect on what you have just experienced in the past 90 seconds. The water now, still bone-chillingly cold, is almost an afterthought as you take a deep breath in – nice and full this time – and a deep breath out, but more of a content sigh than a true breath out. You smile, and step out of the shower.

And yeah that’s pretty much how it works.