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Keepin’ it Cool

How cold showers and ice baths can help in maintaining circulation, immunity, lose weight and increase athletic performance.

Keepin’ It Cool

Overview

<p>Taking a cold shower every day for just two minutes can have huge benefits for your health and well-being. Here are just some of the ways taking a cold shower could help make you healthier and happier:<br />
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<h5><strong>Helps Reduce Inflammation</strong></h5>

<p>Inflammation is a protective response of the body to injury or infection. It involves a cascade of chemical reactions that cause blood vessels to dilate, limiting blood flow and causing swelling. This makes it easier for white blood cells to reach the site of injury, which destroys invading organisms and clears away dead or damaged tissue. The resulting redness, heat, and swelling are signs that inflammation has occurred.</p>

<p>Cold water can help reduce inflammation because it increases circulation to the skin&rsquo;s surface, allowing more oxygenated blood &mdash; and therefore more white blood cells &mdash; to reach injured tissues. It also increases your heart rate (which sends more oxygenated blood around your body) as well as constricts your muscles&rsquo; blood vessels (which diverts excess nutrients away from them). Together, these two effects prevent lactic acid build-up in your muscles after exercise, preventing muscle soreness or stiffness.<br />
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Benefits of  cold shower

<h5><strong>Improves Circulation</strong></h5>

<p>The benefits of cold showers for circulation were first discovered by the Japanese. The Japanese know that a cold shower will increase your heart rate and blood flow, resulting in increased metabolism. This is caused by our body trying to warm itself up again after being exposed to such a sudden change in temperature. Your body has to work harder to keep your internal organs warm than it does when you&rsquo;re used to a hot shower.</p>

<p>The best way to take a cold shower for circulation is to go straight for it! Don&rsquo;t let yourself get used to the temperature before decreasing it or else you won&rsquo;t be able to get any benefit from it at all!<br />
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<h5><strong>Strengthens Immune System</strong></h5>

<p>In a recent study in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine &amp; Science in Sports, researchers found that subjects who took ice baths showed an improvement in their immune systems compared to those who took warm baths.</p>

<p>One possible explanation for this improvement is that cold showers may reduce inflammation. Inflammation is a common reaction to disease or injury and can cause pain, swelling, and redness. It&rsquo;s also thought to be involved in many chronic diseases like heart disease <a href="https://merisehat.pk/disease/arthritis">and arthritis.</a> (And you know what else is related to inflammation? The common cold!)</p>

<p>Another possible explanation is that cold showers cause your blood vessels to constrict &mdash; a process called vasoconstriction &mdash; which helps increase circulation while reducing swelling and inflammation throughout your body. This can make it easier for oxygen-rich blood cells called red blood cells to reach every part of your body faster than usual during exercise, giving you more energy overall during workouts or races.<br />
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<h5><strong>Boost Athletic Performance</strong></h5>

<p>Ice baths have been shown to have several benefits for athletes. For one, cold showers or ice baths can help increase blood flow to your muscles, which may help you perform better when it counts. Cold also has a number of other benefits for athletes: it can reduce muscle soreness, improve your body&rsquo;s ability to recover from exercise, and build up a tolerance to colder temperatures.<br />
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<h5><strong>Promote Weight Loss</strong></h5>

<p>If you&rsquo;re looking for an effective way to lose weight and body fat, ice baths maybe it. Cold water can help you burn more calories than warm or hot water, which is why some people will turn the temperature down in their homes during the winter months.</p>

<p>A study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that taking cold showers can increase your metabolic rate by up to 30 percent. That means that when you take a cold shower, your body burns more calories just while showering.</p>

<p>The same study also showed that this increased energy expenditure lasts for at least an hour after finishing a cold shower or ice bath.<br />
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<h5><strong>Wake The Body Up</strong></h5>

<p>Cold showers are an effective way to wake up in the morning. The cold water can shock your system and help you feel more alert, which is especially useful if you go to bed late or have a long commute.</p>

<p>Cold showers can also help improve your mood since they activate the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). This part of the nervous system controls our fight-or-flight response, which increases heart rate and blood pressure when we&rsquo;re stressed out or anxious. When activated, it also causes us to sweat more and flush our skin pinker than usual &mdash; all signs that we&rsquo;re feeling really excited about something. It&rsquo;s no wonder then that a recent study showed that taking regular ice baths helped participants recover from depression faster than those who didn&rsquo;t participate in this type of therapy at all.</p>

<p>Finally, cold showers can help people focus on tasks at hand by increasing activity within certain areas of the brain responsible for memory storage and retrieval.</p>

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<h5><strong>Help Manage Stress And Anxiety</strong></h5>

<p>Cold showers can help you cope with stress in a variety of ways. The cold water triggers your body to release endorphins, which make you feel relaxed and happy. It also boosts your energy levels, so when you step out of the shower, you&rsquo;ll find yourself feeling more awake and readier to take on the day.</p>

<p>Even better, not only will cold showers improve your mood and energy levels, but they may also help prevent anxiety attacks. In fact, there&rsquo;s evidence that ice baths have been shown to reduce anxiety as well as depression &mdash; and even alleviate symptoms of schizophrenia!</p>

<p>Taking a cold shower or ice bath every day can be very beneficial to your health and well-being because it will help you wake up faster in the morning, improve your circulation and immune system, reduce inflammation, and even boost athletic performance.<br />
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Bottom Line

<p>We hope you found this information helpful. If you&rsquo;re not already taking cold showers, try it out! You might be surprised at how good they feel. And if you already do take cold showers, keep up the good work. We wish you all the best in your health and well-being, no matter how much time you spend in the shower or bathtub.</p>

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