by Jay Hiller, November 22, 2022
Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash
Cold showers are easy to take in the summer, especially in Austin. I started doing them two summers ago, when I read about the benefits. They create a state of temporary stress that turns on your longevity genes. I also got a little faster at getting into cold swimming pools, the lake and Barton Springs. Every winter, I blow it off. It’s harder to do.
Of course, this would be the week, with temperatures in the 40’s, that I read about the benefits again in a book I’ve mentioned a couple of times, Death by Comfort by Paul Taylor. Besides the reminders of how good cold showers are for your health, he pointed out that if you can’t take a 30-second cold shower, how are you going to handle the serious events that are bound to happen to you. So at the end of my shower, I turned the water all the way to cold and counted slowly to thirty. It was hard to do and I’m glad I did it.
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