To be honest, I went to bed last night fully intending to take a cold shower. The universe, God, Yawm Saub, my guides, they all are pushing me to do this cold shower thing. It was first introduced me to a few months back by a classmate of mine when we discussed keystone habits. A keystone habit is a practice that help us jumpstart our day and points us in the proper direction to achieve our goals and dreams. He raved about the benefits of taking cold showers first thing in the morning. I filed it into my memory as something “to try…someday.” This thought was quickly filed into the subconscious and forgotten consciously.
The second attempt by the forces that be to get me to try this practice came when Andrew Huber of Huberman Labs at Sanford University talked directly about the medical and psychological benefits of taking a cold shower. Not only can you train your mind to be calm and focused during moments of adversity, it helps you increase your metabolism. Of course, I wanted to do my own research because I didn’t want to just believe in blind faith. Many days later, I performed a search on the National Institutes for Health website for any research supporting these claims. Of course, Dr. Huberman was correct. Carol Torgan, Ph.D. concluded in her article “Cool Temperature Alters Human Fat and Metabolism” that, “After a month of exposure to mild cold, the participants had a 42% increase in brown fat volume and a 10% increase in fat metabolic activity. ” As Andrew Huberman stated in his instagram lecture, brown adipose tissue is different from white adipose tissue in that the cells of these tissues are loaded with mitochondria which aids the fat loss process. But I still said, “Ok, I’ll try it…..soon.”
That leads us to last night. My plan included waking up early to take this beneficial cold shower. Just to make sure I wasn’t going to interrupt the sleep cycles of my two very young children who need their rest, I set my mental alarm clock to wake up early. As expected when I give myself suggestions during that prime hour of receptiveness, this morning, I woke up early. I proceeded to check email…ahem…quickly. Ran to the grocery store to pick up milk for the kids (they truly were running low, this was not an excuse). And when I got home, they were already awake. I told myself, “I guess I can’t do it now,” even though I knew I totally could.
I got into the bathroom after breakfast with the kids. I took off my clothing and got into the shower. As I automatically reached for the hot water knob, my body froze (the only thing to freeze this morning) and prevented me from turning on the cold water. The shower stayed warm and I let it. In that frozen moment, I took a look at why I had all of this subconscious resistance to taking this cold shower. I started listing the reasons why I should not take this shower:
- It’s COLD. Isn’t that enough?
- It might be painful and I’m very comfortable right now.
- I remember what it feels like to be cold. I lived most of my life in that frozen tundra we call Minnesota. I moved away from it for a reason.
- And then the reasons ran out….
What I was really experiencing was anxiety. The APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders classified anxiety as “mental and physical reaction to perceived threats. In small doses, anxiety is helpful. It protects us from danger, and focuses our attention on problems. But when anxiety is too severe, or occurs too frequently, it can become debilitating.” Threats do not always have to be physical. Threats can come from a psychological, emotional or even social places. We also learn from this manual that the more times we avoid the thing that creates anxiety within us, the larger the anxiety can grow. The best way to reduce anxiety is to face the perceived fear we may have around a certain topic (with proper safeguards in place). Only when we truly face these fears, can we truly prove to ourselves that they were nothing more than a perceived threat.
If anxiety is something that you suffer from and need help with, please do reach out to me here at Hypno-Elevate. I welcome the opportunity to work with you and to lower your anxiety to a manageable level.
Now that I properly identified the root cause of my resistance, I made a plan to be armed and ready to fight off this anxiety. Tomorrow, I will walk into the shower armed with the knowledge that this cold shower “ain’t got nothin’ on -20 degrees Fahrenheit you’d see every winter in Minnesota”. I’ve survived that, year after year, without much fear of death. Furthermore, I’m going to remind myself of the wonderful benefits of a cold shower in the morning: a thinner, sexier body that is stronger mentally. With that knowledge, I’m going to conquer this anxiety and dive head first into the beautiful promise of my wonderful future. I shall conquer the frozen shower and rise up from it victorious! I know that as soon as I realize it’s really not that bad, I can use the cold shower as another tool for my personal development.