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A Cold Shower A Day Keeps The Doctor Away! by Ali Skylar


So a couple of weeks ago, my husband, my son and I started getting into taking cold showers in the morning.  Thanks to the teachings of Wim Hof.  It’s taken about 3 weeks to get used to slowly and progressively turning the hot dial on the shower colder and colder setting, but I have to admit, I’m starting to have a whole new relationship with the cold – thanks to Hof.

According to Wikipedia, “Wim Hof, also known as The Iceman, is a Dutch extreme athlete noted for his ability to withstand freezing temperatures. He has set Guinness World Records for swimming under ice and prolonged full-body contact with ice, and still holds the record for a barefoot half marathon on ice and snow.”

The best part about doing this practice is that even though our son is many states away, we have a practice that we do together that keeps us connected metaphysically! It keeps us collaborating together to bring consciousness to a cleaner, healthier, powerful level that flows into every area of our lives.  

My crazy kid (young man about to turn 22), thought it would be fun to call me from the shower yesterday as he was making primitive noises immersing himself in the cold water, thinking I would enjoy 5 minutes of wild sounds emitting from him as the cold water washed over him.  I couldn’t see him, but I sure as hell heard his cries of either ecstasy or pain- which I know he was exaggerating to get a rise out of me. (I was laughing the entire time – a much needed break from Zoom Fatigue). Kids!! LOL!

One of the benefits of this cold shower technique is reducing inflammation. Lots of athletes sit in ice baths as a therapeutic treatment. A couple of years ago when my son sprained his ankle, our chiropractor told me to get a bucket of ice and immerse his foot into it.  Took a while to get the foot in, but after 5 minutes of this cold therapy, I was amazed at how the pain and swelling had decreased.

On a deeper level, I believe that as we do this cold water therapy every morning as part of our daily practice, we are reducing the inflammation in the subconscious memory of our family history.  We are not just clearing our body of gunk, but since we do it together, we are clearing our family history of gunk that is no longer serving our collective family well-being. (We’re trying to get our daughter to join the practice to really get the family ju-ju on the upswing!)

Learning Hof’s breathing/cold shower/mindset techniques actually came at the perfect time.  I was hating the cold. I was actually even fantasizing about moving to a warmer climate, something I never do and yell at hubby about each year when he suggests for the past 5 winters that we move to a place where snow isn’t spoken about as a dirty, four letter word.

As most of us Tri-state area folks experienced a couple of days ago, we had a ton of snow that was unusual and put life on hold for a while as we were all outside shoveling, due to the 30-35 inches that poured down on us incessantly for a couple of days.

With my newfound appreciation and physical ability to tolerate colder temperatures, I was out there shoveling, breathing deeply and taking in the cold with a new mindset as to the benefits of freezing my ass off.  Actually, I didn’t freeze my ass off as much as I used to because I didn’t go out into the cold expecting to.  My perception and mindset changed and so did my physical response to the cold. 

Check out Wim Hof at www.wim hof method.com. For free, he shares his 3 step process based on his teachings.  Each video is maybe 5-10 minutes long.  He’s down-to-earth, funny and authentic. And his story of how he came to develop his practice is astounding, inspirational and one that will go down in human history as another normal person courageously proving that we are truly superhuman beings able to leap glaciers in a single bound..:)

 

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