The primary challenge I’ve had with taking hormetic approaches is that it looks very dose-dependent, but there’s not much guidance in how to find the right dose. We know that taking cold showers that are too cold is a bad idea that leaves you worse off than taking warm showers. But what’s too cold? How cold is the water that comes straight out of my cold water tap?
So if you grab your thermometer and check how your body temperature changes based on the temperature of your shower, you can find the sweet spot. But that’s a more complicated plan than just “take cold showers!”
We know that taking cold showers that are too cold is a bad idea that leaves you worse off than taking warm showers.
We do?
I’ve always interpreted the idea of cold showers (in this context) as brief but intensely cold, preferably preceded or followed by hot showers. It’s the same idea as running out of a sauna, rolling in the snow, then running back in (highly recommended, by the way).
I thought I had come across an article on this on Getting Stronger, but I’m having difficulty finding it at present. The main thing I’m seeing now is this comment:
The key here is adaptation: It’s dangerous and silly to expose yourself to water or air temperatures beyond your adaptive range.
There are probably two different things going on here.
One is staying cold for a fairly long time (many minutes, hours?) at the around-shivering levels, which your link seems to be talking about. The main effects would involve hormonal adaptation, brown fat, etc.
Two is a cold shock—very cold, but very briefly (seconds, maybe a minute or two) -- the response to which is likely quite different, mostly vascular and with a different set of hormones.
Also, I expect the “adaptive range” of humans with respect to environmental temperatures to be pretty huge :-)
Yes, cold shock is only one component of the benefit of cold showers, but there’s still ways to do cold shock wrong—my impression is that it’s a bad idea to dunk your head in cold water under most conditions, which rarely makes it into any recommendation for cold showers (and only sometimes makes it into discussions of saunas).
Also, I expect the “adaptive range” of humans with respect to environmental temperatures to be pretty huge :-)
That’s not what he means by that; he means that specific person’s range. If someone is unused to immersing themselves in 10 degree water, they probably shouldn’t start there, but work to it gradually. What should an optimal ramp look like? That’s the advice I want to see.
Hmm, any links? I could see this leading to headaches/migraines in susceptible people, but otherwise why not?
...otherwise? If it’s giving you a headache, that seems like a good reason to suspect damage. I have mostly seen anecdotal reports; headaches for showering, and this person claims that their Finnish friends recommend against submerging their head during a jump into the lake during the sauna. (Perhaps some Finns here could chime in?)
Otherwise in the sense of if you know you’re susceptible, don’t do it, but otherwise—if you know you don’t get headaches from that—are there any other reasons to avoid?
Beneficial health impact?
Quantified as what? When you are optimizing things, it’s useful to have a numeric value that you’re trying to maximize (or minimize).
Quantified as what? When you are optimizing things, it’s useful to have a numeric value that you’re trying to maximize (or minimize).
Sure, but I doubt that the optimal ramp for brown adipose tissue activation is that much different from the optimal ramp for mood / energy adjustment, or the optimal ramp for immune strength, or so on, and by optimizing for one of those things rather than none of those things you give yourself enough of a feedback loop to prevent ramps that are harmful overall.
I would find it difficult to optimize in the short-term for mood due to noise and confounders, and pretty much impossible to optimize for immune strength since I have no easy way to measure it.
In my experience ramps are not needed at all, so I would expect that even for people who would like one it would take time on the order of a couple of weeks which is way too short to optimize for something that you can’t easily measure directly.
The primary challenge I’ve had with taking hormetic approaches is that it looks very dose-dependent, but there’s not much guidance in how to find the right dose. We know that taking cold showers that are too cold is a bad idea that leaves you worse off than taking warm showers. But what’s too cold? How cold is the water that comes straight out of my cold water tap?
So if you grab your thermometer and check how your body temperature changes based on the temperature of your shower, you can find the sweet spot. But that’s a more complicated plan than just “take cold showers!”
We do?
I’ve always interpreted the idea of cold showers (in this context) as brief but intensely cold, preferably preceded or followed by hot showers. It’s the same idea as running out of a sauna, rolling in the snow, then running back in (highly recommended, by the way).
I thought I had come across an article on this on Getting Stronger, but I’m having difficulty finding it at present. The main thing I’m seeing now is this comment:
There are probably two different things going on here.
One is staying cold for a fairly long time (many minutes, hours?) at the around-shivering levels, which your link seems to be talking about. The main effects would involve hormonal adaptation, brown fat, etc.
Two is a cold shock—very cold, but very briefly (seconds, maybe a minute or two) -- the response to which is likely quite different, mostly vascular and with a different set of hormones.
Also, I expect the “adaptive range” of humans with respect to environmental temperatures to be pretty huge :-)
Yes, cold shock is only one component of the benefit of cold showers, but there’s still ways to do cold shock wrong—my impression is that it’s a bad idea to dunk your head in cold water under most conditions, which rarely makes it into any recommendation for cold showers (and only sometimes makes it into discussions of saunas).
That’s not what he means by that; he means that specific person’s range. If someone is unused to immersing themselves in 10 degree water, they probably shouldn’t start there, but work to it gradually. What should an optimal ramp look like? That’s the advice I want to see.
Hmm, any links? I could see this leading to headaches/migraines in susceptible people, but otherwise why not?
What would you optimize for?
...otherwise? If it’s giving you a headache, that seems like a good reason to suspect damage. I have mostly seen anecdotal reports; headaches for showering, and this person claims that their Finnish friends recommend against submerging their head during a jump into the lake during the sauna. (Perhaps some Finns here could chime in?)
Beneficial health impact?
Otherwise in the sense of if you know you’re susceptible, don’t do it, but otherwise—if you know you don’t get headaches from that—are there any other reasons to avoid?
Quantified as what? When you are optimizing things, it’s useful to have a numeric value that you’re trying to maximize (or minimize).
Sure, but I doubt that the optimal ramp for brown adipose tissue activation is that much different from the optimal ramp for mood / energy adjustment, or the optimal ramp for immune strength, or so on, and by optimizing for one of those things rather than none of those things you give yourself enough of a feedback loop to prevent ramps that are harmful overall.
I would find it difficult to optimize in the short-term for mood due to noise and confounders, and pretty much impossible to optimize for immune strength since I have no easy way to measure it.
In my experience ramps are not needed at all, so I would expect that even for people who would like one it would take time on the order of a couple of weeks which is way too short to optimize for something that you can’t easily measure directly.