Video

Transcript

now I recently did a video on the

benefits of taking cold showers but of

course those benefits only occur if you

actually take a cold shower a lot of

people in the comments section just you

know kind of chickened out because

taking cold showers can be very very

uncomfortable so today I want to discuss

some tips how to do this and get the

benefits without the incredible painful

uncomfortableness that comes along with

taking cold showers the first thing you

need to know about cold shower is just

like any type of stress is that when our

bodies are too comfortable when we get

rid of too much stress our bodies weaken

and so adding a little stress in your

life if it’s not overwhelming is a very

very positive thing whether it’s

exercise intermittent fasting or even

taking a cold shower so let me just kind

of recap on the benefits

first thing and this is quite big is

your immune system greatly responds you

would think if you’re out in the cold or

let’s say it’s raining or something that

you would get sick but in fact if the

stress is not overwhelming if you’re not

outside too long you can actually

strengthen your immune system to the

point where you can resist pathogens so

there’s huge immune benefits to cold

therapy okay that’s number one now also

attached with that is inflammation now

I’m not just talking about inflammation

from an infection I’m talking about

inflammation from an autoimmune disease

talking about inflammation from

especially arthritis if you have

arthritis stiffness okay or pain cold

therapy can be huge for you and if you

combine several things at once you can

really strengthen your immune system as

well so if you combine exercise with uh

fasting and this cold therapy you can

basically bulletproof yourself against a

lot of pathogens and a lot of people

with Lyme disease get benefits from

doing this as well we have the immune

system benefits we also have brain

benefits I’m talking about both with

your mood and your cognitive function so

people who are depressed have anxiety

can benefit from this greatly also

cognitive benefits whether you want to

increase your focus your concentration

get more attention be more productive

cold therapy can help now when you’re

exposed to cold therapy there is a huge

spike in certain neurotransmitters I’m

specifically talking about two

epinephrine and norepinephine okay now

epinephrine is also called adrenaline

okay now these two neurotransmitters

they act like hormones but they work

within the nervous system in the brain

and also in the adrenal gland through

the nervous system and part of the

adrenal the inside called the medulla is

all neurological tissue so your medulla

and the adrenal produces adrenaline or

noradrenaline as well as certain parts

of the brain and so when we think of the

sympathetic nervous system which is the

flight or fight a lot of times people

think cortisol and that’s one hormone

but the other two are adrenaline and

noradrenaline in fact cold therapy you

can increase these two neurotransmitters

up to 550 and so when you have more

adrenaline in the body you’re going to

be very very awake so it’s going to wake

you up very very fast and then there’s

all sorts of cascading effects that

occur from this adrenaline and nor

adrenaline you have increased production

of mitochondria that’s the energy

factories in the cell and so just by

taking regular cold showers you can

increase the number of mitochondria in

your muscle cells and that’s pretty wild

and so you’re going to have more

capacity for energy and also an

increased ability to burn things like

fat and so cold therapy is actually very

beneficial to help you lose weight

specifically activating something called

Brown fat

now brown fat is different than white

fat Brown fat is tied into thermogenesis

temperature regulation so when you do

cold therapy you actually stimulate more

production of your brown fat which

basically has more mitochondria and

doing that can elevate your metabolism

and that brown fat also Taps into

calories from the white fat helping you

oxidize a lot fat so there are other

things that go beyond just diet and

exercise as far as losing weight now the

other really cool thing about cold

therapy is that you can improve your

blood sugars and make insulin more

sensitive so many people have a problem

with insulin resistance and so in other

videos I talk about apple cider vinegar

talk about melanium carbs exercise but

you can also do this called shower to

help your blood sugars which is quite

amazing and then the last big benefit I

want to just mention briefly is

longevity certain genes that are tied

into living longer are skin emulated

when you’re out in the cold because of

the survival programs that are attached

to surviving when you’re freezing to

death now the other side note I want to

mention about cold therapy is that when

you sleep at night especially when you

get into the Delta wave sleep which is

the Deep Sleep the overall quality of

the Delta weight sleep is improved if

your temperature in your room is

slightly cooler

and it’s worsened if you’re trying to

sleep when it’s too hot out now

personally I like to just use a very

thin sheet and I like to be on the cold

side when I sleep I sleep much better

I’m a little bit cooler than if I’m too

hot and before I get into the tips

there’s just one last really important

point I want to bring up about colds

here would be in relationship to your

circulation roughly your body has about

62 000 miles of circulatory vessels

throughout the body including the veins

and the arteries and the papillaries you

have a lot of vessels and there is

muscle regulating the vasoconstriction

and the vasodilation of that system so

when you’re taking these cold showers

you are activating 62

000 miles of vessels which have muscles

and so you’re creating this interesting

effect of vasoconstriction and

vasodilation and getting more blood flow

to a certain parts of your body that

might need it so in other words there’s

a lot of positive things that are going

to happen if you can get up enough nerve

to do these cold cellos all right let’s

start with number one what you do in the

shower is you start with a very warm

shower okay so you’re taking a warm

shower and you’re turning up really

really hot and then what you’re going to

do is you’re just going to basically on

a nice gradient start cooling it down

okay slowly until your body gets used to

it and then you’re going to go colder

and colder and colder over a period of

time to do this very gradually so it’s

not so painful starting out because the

biggest barrier that we’re running into

is to ignore your body saying no don’t

do it so for some reason your body has

this great resistance against being too

cold for example I’m from Wisconsin and

they used to have this Polar Bear Club

in Lake Michigan in the winter they

would all run out there and jump in Lake

Michigan I mean it gets cold in

Wisconsin now at the time I thought

these guys were crazy but now that I

know the benefits I probably would have

follow them and jump into Lake Michigan

at least I would attempt to do it all

right number two this tip can help just

um counter some of the shock to your

body so let’s say for example you have

your shower on cold and you expose a

certain part of your body let’s say your

chest okay you start to rub your chest

okay rub it as the cold is going on your

skin and that can help make things a lot

easier and because these cold receptors

are on the skin and they’re superficial

so if you’re rubbing them you’ll tend to

numb some of the intensity of that cold

shocking uh sensation all right number

three you’re going to go into this cold

water

with complete relaxation that’s the

opposite of what most people do they’re

kind of going into this uh with

exhilaration with this heightened fear

or whatever and they’re not relaxed and

so it just makes things worse so you

want to just kind of go into this with

total relaxation it’ll be a lot easier

for you to face this

um this change in temperature all right

and number four relates to number three

start slowing your breath down okay

breathing very slowly in for maybe four

to five seconds and out for four to five

seconds so the combination of being

relaxed and slow deep breaths can help

you push past the pain of this cold

number five turn on some music that you

really really like listening to certain

types of music can help you push through

the barriers it can also help distract

your mind from this sensation of being

very very cold number six is to do this

cold shower right after you’ve had some

intense exercise where you’re sweating

it’ll just help counter some of the heat

that you just generated so it’ll be a

little bit easier number seven is just

not to overthink the same not to start

to even talk yourself into it just do it

without thinking just jump right in

there in the morning kind of trick

yourself into just doing it all right

number eight ideally over time I’m

talking over weeks you should go from

maybe 10 seconds 20 seconds 30 seconds

to 45 seconds to a minute and then up to

two minutes okay once a day that would

be awesome if you could do that so

normally at 30 seconds things should be

a little bit easier you’ll start to feel

kind of a numbing effect and you’ll

start to tolerate it more but that first

30 seconds is the hardest all right

number nine is just jump in the cold

shower but end with a very warm hot

shower they take away the

uncomfortableness of what you just

experienced so if you’re going to take a

cold shower just in your mind realize

that it’s going to end with some nice

comfortable pleasure moment okay number

10 when you go into this cold shower

just do one part of your body whether

it’s your legs okay or maybe your left

arm and shoulder this is what you’re

doing in a nice gradual gradient where

it’s not too intense there’s certain

parts of your body and then just keep

adding another part each time you do it

to make it easier and the last one

number 11 is just to turn the shower on

for a few seconds and then turn it off

for a few seconds on for a few seconds

off for a few seconds and that way

you’re doing some type of intermittent

type exposure which definitely will

break up the intensity and the pain from

this uh cold sensation all right so now

I hope you have enough nerve to attempt

these cold showers okay now if you

haven’t seen my other video on cold

showers and the benefits I think you

should check that out I put it up right

here