00:00hello and welcome today's project is all about cold showers and why they strengthen the mind but also why they reduce your reactivity towards the negative thoughts that an anxiety sufferer would get daily right and that's really important the health reasons you know are great too but in this video i really want to tackle why it helps to harden the mind and strengthen the mind and improve mental health and so i want to give you an update on where i am at with cold showers i've been taking cold showers for more than three years now and there's a reason many big reasons why i've stuck to this routine and mainly it's for the mental hardening
01:00of my mind but you know i i got a lot of benefits from cold showers and then those benefits were noticed from my dad he saw the benefits but then i also introduced him to wim hof i was like hey check out this iceman guy who's set all these world records for swimming under the ice climbing mountains in his shorts just sitting in ice baths and doing these breathing methods and and look at him this vibrant guy who's spiritually attractive and now he's been taking cold showers for a year probably more now and he's 62 and he's been doing it he's felt the benefits and and i really want to talk about those benefits today in this video now i recently did a wim hof challenge where during the coldest
02:00months of the year here in canada right january february march april i wanted to wake up in the morning do my morning routine and jump into the cold shower the coldest setting of the shower every single morning all throughout winter and what i discovered is the first thing is i could do it even though it was painful i didn't want to go into that shower but second of all i felt great the cold at when i would go outside into the cold the cold what didn't affect me as as much as it used to i used to take hot showers and then i'd go into the cold i would shiver i felt weak and like i felt very sensitive towards the cold so when i used to suffer from health anxiety and anxiety well i looked into the mirror and i saw someone who was weak mentally
03:00and physically i had a lot of beliefs about myself i i looked at myself as someone who was unhealthy but then i also was i did not have any discipline in my life i could not commit to anything i was i'd wake up in the morning i wouldn't even make my bed i would eat whatever was in the cupboard i would rush around grab things i needed for school or work and rush out the door but then i would forget my wallet or something important like my phone and i was always in a rush i did not have a discipline a routine and so the cold showers helped me with that as well but also when i used to suffer from health i would be so reactive towards all of my negative thoughts we get 70 to 80 000 thoughts a day
04:00and i was reactive to all the negative thoughts i would get one thought would be what if this is a an illness what if this is cancer what if i have this cancer like this person i saw on facebook whatever it was or any negative thought i would be emotionally reactive towards them and then by the end of the day i would be emotionally drained not even the end of the end of the day by 1 pm i would be emotionally drained so let's get into the benefits of cold showers the first one is that it wakes you up right that's that's the first one i noticed i when i first started taking cold showers i really didn't know many of the benefits cold showers would have on me
05:00i was just doing them because i was looking up to install am looking up to wim hof the iceman and i just wanted to i was acting and doing the habits of the people that have gotten their lives together and are spiritually empowering and you just find those people naturally you go on youtube you find someone who overcame the same kind of challenges you're going through and then something clicks with you and you connect with that person so i connected with wim hof he was one of the people i connected with and so i was like i want to start doing the habits of him so i jumped into the cold shower and then immediately i felt the benefit of it wakes me up i feel better i'm not so sluggish in the morning anymore at least i'm more awake and alert so that's the first benefit the second
06:00is that i noticed i started to bypass all of those negative thoughts that would be present before i got into the shower because your anxiety response activates when there is threat of pain so the cold shower is painful so i knew i was going in there and then my mind would generate so many different thoughts about why i shouldn't go in there sometimes i might even prolong go up from myself going into the shower by brushing my teeth cleaning up around the house doing things and then i notice that oh my mind is doing things that are painful but not as painful as going into the cold shower so i started to improve on that
07:00i guess you can say procrastination so i i would say to myself i'm going into that shower no matter what no matter what comes into my mind i'm going in there so what the cold shower is so why it's so great is that you begin to bypass the thousands of negative thoughts that come into your mind to get you to not go into that cold shower and so you improve on that and then that bleeds out throughout your day right so now you're more likely going to you're more likely going to confront painful and uncomfortable situations during the day because you've already set yourself up with the cold shower in the morning the second reason why you should take cold showers is that it strengthens the mind and
08:00it builds on that pain tolerance right so you go into the cold shower you bypass all of those negative thoughts and then you're in the shower it's freezing cold but you voluntarily choose to stay there and all you have to do is stay there and just feel the cold water coming onto your body and it increases your pain tolerance you're more likely going to confront the challenges life throws your way throughout your day because you've been practicing at home in your own shower strengthening your mind and it makes you more independent as well you're not dependent on people throughout the day your family your friends your co-workers whoever they are you're more independent now you're more willing to handle those painful situations yourself
09:00rather than put it on to your wife husband family friends other people around you so that's absolutely crucial as well and also cold showers helps you to let go the letting go technique is where you surrender and you let go and you feel the whatever comes up within you right anxiety sufferers don't want to confront their true feelings how they feel and so what cool showers does so beautifully is that when you get into the cold shower just feel the cold feel the cold and feel the pain feel the discomfort and let it rise up within you and then let it go let let it go surrender yes it's painful but i'm sticking to it i'm going to witness it i'm going to just notice it and it subsides
10:00and your body adapts to the cold and and when you start to take cold showers continually you'll get to a point where you're in there for five minutes and you can stay in there right and your because your body is now adapted to it it's just it's unbelievable and that's why i love cold showers is that no matter how many times i take it i never want to go in there i never do so three years of taking cold showers i don't want to go in there this morning i don't want to but i do it anyways because i know that it's strengthening the mind i know that it's making me it's improving my mental toughness and i'm more willing to forthrightly take on those challenges throughout the day and so
11:00the next reason why you should take cold showers are the health benefits when you step into the cold shower what happens you breathe deep right you breathe deep your body's getting more oxygen that's a great thing it's also stimulating the blood vessels so when you get out of the cold shower your body's all red and it's stimulating the blood flow throughout your body that's a great thing your heart is beating faster it's strengthening your heartbeat i remember when i started to take cold showers my fingernails they're actually purple right now that my finger fingernails were purple in my toes and that would freak me out right i was like oh my god why am i i've never seen my fingers purple before that's not natural but actually it is the blood flow is actually going from your fingers up in into your chest region region to keep you your your core body temperature warmer right so your body's adapting by
12:00the blood flow is going from your toes and into your chest region and so it's natural process but at first i thought i was sick or something was terribly wrong but no it's not so actually cold showers not now that i think about it it's improving how the health anxiety sufferer views themselves and their own health right so i would say oh my god i'm unhealthy because my fingers are purple but i would still go in the cold shower anyways and what you're doing is you're just proving to yourself that you can confront that pain and then survive because anxiety suffers when they're out in public they think they can't survive when they get those sensations or when they feel uncomfortable they won't survive so to strengthen the you put yourself in situations where it tests you it makes you feel pain but then it also you're proving to
13:00yourself and your anxiety response that hey when i'm in this situation i'm not going to die right so i started to view myself as this person that can handle tough situations and survive so your perspective over yourself begins to shift it's absolutely amazing so if you haven't already start taking a cold shower start by taking a 20 second cold shower jump in there jump out right but do it every day and you'll you'll see that you become braver and that your body actually adapts to the cold it's amazing and you begin to bypass all of those negative thoughts that are preventing you from going in there and then you're more willing to bypass those negative thoughts throughout the day it's absolutely amazing and that's where i'm going to leave you on today's video
14:00thank you so much for being here if you haven't already please subscribe to this channel i post videos weekly i post a podcast here weekly so it'll notify you when when those episodes are out and lastly do not let anxiety define who you are i will see you on the next video or it could be a podcast bye for now make sure you hit that subscribe button and that bell so that whenever a new video of mine appears you will be one of the first to know namaste