Do Cold Showers Work The Mental and Physical Benefits TAPP 175
00:00[Music] from years of anxiety to Warrior and Mentor Bradley Robinson created the anxiety project to help you end your anxiety naturally let's mold the new you and let's end anxiety together hello and welcome to episode 175 of the anxiety project podcast I am Brad Robinson CBT coach and NLP Master practitioner who specializes in anxiety all things anxiety and so how can you get out of the chaotic anxiety Circle that you're in that is my objective with this podcast this is a recovery Community this is not a coping Channel now today cold showers is a phenomenon there's Wim Hof the Iceman who's blowing up like mad people are talking about the health benefits of
01:00cold showers but which I will talk about in this episode but the mental aspects of a cold shower are ginormous and it was for me especially when I was really sensitive and struggling with health anxiety cold showers helped me build that mental strength if you haven't followed me yet on Spotify the podcast is available there I have had some issues with Spotify all the episodes weren't uploading but now that is resolved all the episodes are available on Spotify and will continue to come out on Spotify week after week so listen there it's on Apple podcast it's on Google podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts I am there now before we dive more into cold
02:00showers I want to see and hear what you have to say about previous episodes starting with sumera 65 I often feel that the news is necessary in my life now they're talking about last week's episode the media and mental health it's difficult to break from it but as I lesson my news intake I noticed my stress lessening absolutely I agree Patrick says I've had media blackout for three years especially news it made me very angry all day I would wake up angry about something they were saying I will say I've been watching select media ever since Ukraine was invaded and yes I get angry and aggravated with all of the bickering and cheap shots I find myself thinking all day about something someone
03:00said remember that the news creates a lot of emotion right there's a lot of a lot of bias involved but we live in a time where there are less there is less crime and murders and War than ever before in human history but when you watch the news you get engulfed and drawn in to the negativity that the news provide then the news feeds off of that it feeds off of our anger and frustration and it becomes easier to shake our fists up in the at the world and blame others and well I noticed when I started to lessen news and completely cut it out from my
04:00life I do not listen to any news I notice that if there is something important in my life that I need to know I will find out even though I do not watch the news how well if it's that important I will find out from a co-worker I will find out from a family member that has always been the case for me and I've gotten through covid not listening to the news I've followed procedures I listened to powerful podcasts of doctors and people who talk about covid but I don't watch mainstream news I get my sources from from people that I trust podcasters that I trust now like I said before I just completed two months of this cold shower challenge sometimes I don't take a cold shower
05:00every day and so the two-month challenge was a challenge where I would get up early in the morning do my morning routine and then I would take that cold shower around 6 30. and it's a challenge at this time of year because it's minus 15 all the time here in Canada and so this was a real challenge for me to get in there the water was ice cold sometimes I would be cold you know it's cold mornings I'd be shivering before I got in there so it was a real challenge to do that every single day now how I came across this cold shower phenomenon was through Wim Hof if you don't know who Wim Hof is I highly recommend him he does this powerful breathing exercise that is absolutely relaxing that
06:00activates your rest and digest system and it allows you to tap into the deeper parts of your brain but he is the Iceman he exposes himself to these extreme weather conditions he swims in ice water he takes ice baths he climbs mountains like Mount Everest in his Shores he went up to the death zone I think it was in Mount Everest in his shorts uh he's done a lot of crazy Feats which I highly recommend you check out but I saw him in on an interview and his Spirit his mannerisms his livelihood his energy was so encapsulating because I was at the time suffering and overcoming my anxiety disorder and I started to draw myself and pull myself towards these spiritual teachers
07:00so being intrigued by Wim Hof and the benefits that he was promoting by taking cold showers sharing his life story how he dealt with pain and suffering through the cold that really motivated me and pushed me and drew me towards the cold showers and then when I stepped into that cold shower for the first time it was only for 10 15 seconds and I got out and it was a real challenge because I noticed my fingers and toes would be purple and that would heighten my anxiety even more because I was very sensitive over over my health and any unknown thing that would pop up in my existence I would react to it with strong emotion especially something on my body so this was daunting right I stopped taking cold showers for a small period of time
08:00because of that specific thing I felt like something was wrong when I was exposing myself to the cold what are the mental benefits of a cold shower why does it make the Mind stronger well the stress response activates when there is threat of pain and when you bypass this strong resistance you build and raise your pain tolerance because well your mind will come up with a thousand different reasons why you shouldn't go on that cold shower it's going to hurt your fingers and toes will be purple your skin will become all red there's a lot of reasons right and the mind will be like no no I can't do that and you well it'll prevent you from facing the pain but when you bypass this strong resistance
09:00you build and raise your pain tolerance that you can face pain and not die this will increase the probability of you confronting difficult and challenging situations elsewhere in your life because once I started to continue the cold shower exposure therapy and and confront the redness of the skin the the purple fingernails and toes the rapid heartbeat the pain of the the cold I noticed that I became more comfortable with having those experiences I became comfortable with the purple fingernails I started to realize that
10:00this is part of this therapy that it's a change in blood flow which I will talk about later in this episode and then I also saw in the mirror someone who is capable of much more than they thought they were every thought was doing what it could to prevent me from going in and I said no to those thoughts these same thoughts are what drive you out of the shopping mall or avoid work so cold showers is an opportunity to shut down that nagging self-limiting voice when in times of discomfort the Mind
11:00always wants to take the path of least resistance the Mind always wants to take the easy Road so I was building on my comfort in uncomfortable situations I was building on my comfort and I was attaching safety to these bodily changes rather than distress or anxiety the more I kept exposing myself you can look at it the same way as going to the shopping malls going somewhere that makes you feel anxious and staying there and desensitizing yourself from that uncomfortable feeling from the fear same idea cold showers can break obsessive
12:00thoughts it can break Temptations and it can break urges so if you are doing nofap or if you're trying to break an addiction jumping into a cold shower will change your thought pattern because once you get in there you're not thinking thinking about anything else but the cold it's a therapeutic that way so if you're obsessing over an illness if you want to just change your daily pattern you've been running the same anxiety cycle for so long you jump into a cold shower what happens all you think about is is the cold rather than the stress of work rather than that potential illness rather than the symptom that you Googled very very very powerful it's a great tool and so the more I started to take cold showers
13:00and watch my mentor Wim Hof I realized that not only he him but other enlightened people they have the same traits there are common traits between all of these enlightened people and I have a YouTube video on my channel the common traits of the enlightened mind where I talk about this in further detail but I noticed that when you go into a cold shower you there's an acceptance of the pain and this is a great practice a meditative practice for letting go letting releasing stored energy accepting pain accepting that you're in an uncomfortable situation and William Hoff and other enlightened
14:00people they all understand that exposing yourself to what's uncomfortable and accepting that you will transcend the fear the anxiety what are the health benefits I am really on board I'm more on board with the mental benefits of a cold shower but I do want to express to you there are health benefits as well the neurotransmitter norepinephrine which increases blood flow that increases 200 percent this drops inflammation mitochondria increases which increases your energy T cells increase which helps prevent viruses and infections and an increase
15:00in antioxidants there is also a decrease in muscle and joint pain cold showers helps warm up the body rather than hot showers that cool down the body you become less sensitive to the cold weather weather and I notice ever since I started taking cold showers I wasn't as cold or the cold weather in Canada bothered me way less I used to hate the cold dread the winter complain about the winter and now I embrace it I take a cold shower and then when I go outside I am way way less sensitive to the cold it's a miracle I thought it was a miracle the first winter I experienced this I was blown away by that also a cold shower increases alertness
16:00it speeds up reaction time it increases breathing which helps to de-stress the body those who are in stress mode they do not breathe as much as they should and they do they do breathe in a very shallow manner breathing activates and opens up the vagus nerve which is the boss of the parasympathetic nervous system your rest and digest system this helps improve mood digestion heart rate and it reduces tension I notice when I get out of a cold shower it's my mind is on a different state of alertness I am awake I am ready to conquer the day and if you take a cold shower in the morning which I highly recommend you are doing something
17:00challenging first thing in the morning and that drive of accomplishing that thing it's not a small thing that Drive-In motivation it snowballs into the rest of your day you are more likely going to be more willing and accepting of the future challenges that are inevitable that are going to come your way throughout the day and you're more willing to face them head on because you voluntarily expose yourself to situations that cause you pain and that's where I'm going to leave you on today's podcast episode do you guys take cold showers I want to hear your story in your in the comment do you have
18:00you listened to Wim Hof uh he's such a Powerhouse of a person his spirit is so beautiful and I recommend you listen to his podcasts and you read his book The Wim Hof method absolutely powerful and I hope this podcast has helped you to understand cold showers and the mental and physical benefits of a and lastly do not let anxiety Define Who You Are I will see you on the next podcast episode bye for now Brad's powerful anxiety recovery program is now available at unplug anxiety.com the anxiety project program is downloadable and puts the power of insurgent recovery in your own hands visit unpluganxiety.com for more details