Image courtesy of UCLA Health.
Burning fat is hard work, and it can be helpful to find easier ways to do it sometimes. Some fat burning methods are far more strenuous than others, and some might seem a little too good to be true. For instance, would you expect a simple shower to burn fat? Probably not, but it is possible. Cold showers in particular can have an effect on how your body burns fat, and when you know the how and why of it, and when to employ this tactic, you can use it to your advantage at any time during your weight loss journey.
The Benefits of A Cold Shower
A cold shower can come with many benefits. One of them might be fat loss, but there is also so much more than that. Cold showers can give you several different benefits that make fat loss feel like just one of the many. It can impact your skin, your immune system, your brain, your muscles, and more. Here are all the things that can be positively impacted by cold showers.
- Immune system boost
Cold showers can give your immune system a bit of a boost. It does that by basically providing a “shock” to your system that improves your brain’s focus levels. Cold water on your body will provide a spike of adrenaline, helping to increase your heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate. All of these levels being elevated combined will spike your adrenaline, which is something that will make your brain overall more alert, leading to a better functioning immune system.
- Reduced muscle soreness
One benefit to using cold water in the shower is the reduced muscle soreness. Cold water helps to decrease some of the inflammation that causes soreness. Cold water reduces inflammation and makes the blood vessels tighten up. Once the blood vessels tighten up, inflammation is reduced to a big degree. This is something that also increases the circulation in the blood. On top of that, taking cold showers can help reduce chronic pain in the joints as well. You might not expect that, but cold water can reduce the stiffness in joints the same way that ice packs can. Cold water showers can also help with muscle spasms.
- Boosts mood
Cold showers can boost your mood. This isn’t a phenomenon that has been extensively researched as of yet, but it is something that researchers have observed before. Professionals are looking into the benefits of cold water therapy, and eventually they will compile a lot more valuable information on it.
- Relieves stress
Cold showers can also relieve stress. One reason they can do this is because the rush of cold water on your skin will release endorphins, which are known to bring about positive feelings. Exercise helps mental health because of the endorphins it releases. Endorphins activate the body’s opiate receptors which causes a feeling of well-being. Endorphins are known as the body’s natural painkillers. They often relieve physical and mental pain. This helps to reduce feelings of sadness and anxiety over time, leading to better overall mental health.
- Increased alertness
One thing that cold showers are really good for is for starting out your day. Cold water is known for waking you up by stimulating the senses, while hot water does the opposite and relaxes your senses. Cold showers have this effect because they stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, and when the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated, the body will go into fight or flight, increasing your heart rate, cortisol, and blood pressure. That is what causes you to feel overall more alert, and what makes cold showers so great to take in the morning.
Cold Showers and Fat Loss
Do cold showers burn fat? The short answer is yes, and there are many reasons for why that is the case. And it's not just cold showers that burn fat. Showers in general burn fat, but cold showers happen to burn more fat than any hot or even warm shower can. We can let you know exactly why that is and for just how long you need to stay in a cold shower to burn enough calories. An average shower can burn around 60 calories every fifteen minutes, and a cold shower can burn even more fat within the same amount of time.
Cold showers can manage to burn fat, but they don’t necessarily do that in a straightforward way. Cold water doesn’t directly burn fat. What it does is activate the production of brown fat cells, which in turn burn fat to create energy. Brown fat cells burn the regular fat cells to make energy, and there aren’t many brown fat cells in the body, but the few there are work to break down the regular fats. This isn’t a method that would lead to a ton of fat loss during any given shower, but you will lose some fat. It might not be enough to burn a significant amount of fat, but you could burn a little bit at a time with each cold shower.
Cold temperatures can also cause shivering, something that can burn a small amount of calories. Shivering involves muscles contracting in a way that generates heat. The contractions will generate heat and act like a tiny workout. It won’t have the same effects as a really strenuous workout, but it also increases your metabolic rate as well as burns calories. When your metabolic rate is boosted, it causes your body to burn a lot more energy than it would if it were lower. And while the amount of fat you burn from this energy use won’t be significant, small amounts of fat loss can still add up in the long run, so it's a good idea to take every useful opportunity to make some progress.
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Should You Take Cold Showers?
While cold showers won’t make you lose major weight on their own, the calories can certainly pile up. And while the calories pile up, you will also gain a long list of major benefits that make taking cold showers really beneficial over time. So many of the factors you need to motivate you to lose weight can be gained from regular cold showers that can lead into a snowball effect that helps you get and maintain good health.
And if you want the benefits of regular, cold showers, you will need to keep in mind the downsides of it. The main downside of a cold shower is feeling cold, which is pretty minor. But although it is quite a minor side effect, feeling cold can be a deterrence towards getting the benefits that a cold shower provides. A cold shower can be uncomfortable, but you can work to manage it and reap the benefits anyways.
Cold Shower Routine
When you want to take a cold shower and minimize your discomfort, there are a couple of things that you should do. You don’t need to torture yourself to burn a few extra calories here and there. Here is how you do it:
- Start with warm water
If you want to comfortably take a cold shower, don’t get right into it. Stepping into really cold water can feel like a shock to your system if you do it right away. It will make cold showers seem overall unappealing and make it harder to get into one in the future. So that is why you start with warm water and then work your way up to cold water. When you enter warm water you will simply bring it to a cold temperature over time. When you do this gradually the transition into cold showers is much easier.
- Keep it short
When you first start taking cold showers, don’t push yourself to stay in cold water for a long period of time. Start short and then work your way up to longer showers so you can get properly adjusted to them. During your first cold shower, you can stay in for just 30 seconds and then add 30 seconds more each time or two after that. Over time you can build up to a five minute cold shower and eventually maybe even fifteen.
- Don’t push yourself
You need to make sure not to push yourself to limits that you can’t handle when getting yourself adjusted to cold showers. As time goes on, you will eventually get used to it, but pushing yourself too hard before you’re ready is something that can hinder your progress rather than help you with anything.
Burning fat is a tough goal to manage consistently, so any way you can squeeze it in will be beneficial. Enjoy as many cold showers as you can squeeze in so that you can reap all the benefits that come with taking cold showers.
