Cold showers are almost universally loathed – but what if they could be used as a tool for healing and well-being? It might make you cringe, but many yogis and other wellness experts say they can. Ishnaan, or cold- water therapy, is touted with producing a wide range of benefits for both the mind and body.
Ishnaan as Hydrotherapy
Imagine this: the alarm rings, or you wake to your own body clock. It’s the start of a day. You head to the bathroom. Start a shower. Dry brush your skin. Massage your body with soothing oil. Turn on the water. And instead of finding that good temperature of lukewarm to hot-as-you-can-take, you keep it cold.
The thought of a cold shower first thing in the morning can be shocking at first (unless, of course, you’re one of the 43% of people worldwide without the luxury of hot water). Known as Ishnaan in the East, and popularized by Wim Hof, Tony Robbins, and the world of Kundalini Yoga, cold showers are a form of hydrotherapy with proven benefits for good health.
The resistance can be tough to overcome. But the grit it takes to do so carries over and gives us the courage to face the challenges of everyday life.
How does it work?
Research supports that different temperatures of water impact our physiology and mood. Take a cold swim or a cold shower, for example. Once we get over the initial shock of the cold, it can be very invigorating! Coldwater causes our surface vessels to constrict, making blood move from the surface of your body to the core and back again, as a means to conserve heat.
When the cold water hits your skin, blood rushes to the major organs to protect them and keep them warm. It also reflexively bathes the brain and vital organs in fresh blood and flushes the capillaries. This is both energizing and detoxifying for the body. It is an automatic defence mechanism that we self-induce. It keeps the skin radiant, and the blood chemistry balanced and clean. Cold showers boost the lymphatic system, energize the glandular system, and strengthen the nervous system.3
Warm water has its own therapeutic benefits, but warm and cold showers are ideally not to be mixed. Warm water makes the vessels vasodilate (relax), which brings blood back to the surface.4
Benefits of Cold Shower Therapy
- Delivers blood to the capillaries
- Cleans the circulatory system
- Reduces blood pressure on internal organs, flushing internal organs and refreshing the blood supply
- Strengthens the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems
- Contracts the muscles and causes them to eliminate toxins and poisons more quickly
- Strengthens the mucus membranes
- Keeps the skin young and shining
- Balances the glands
How to Take a Cold Shower
For those willing and wanting to brave it, follow these steps for the first (and major!) victory of the day.
Wear loose fitting shorts to cover your thighs. Avoid skintight, polyester shorts to allow the skin to breathe. The shorts protect the genitals, thighs and the femur from sudden changes in temperature.
The femur bone is an immune system powerhouse. The thigh bone is the longest bone in the body and a storehouse for bone marrow, where the immune system and blood cells are generated. As the longest bone in the body, it acts as a mineral reservoir, working in sync with the kidneys, blood, and other bones in the body to keep the pH and minerals in the blood stable. The inner thighs are home to meridians that flood the internal organs with energy and blood, specifically the kidney, liver, and spleen meridians.
Dry brush your skin. Dry brushing is an Ayurvedic practice aimed to increase circulation and stimulate the lymphatic system. Dry brushes are available online and at most health food stores. When dry brushing, brush lightly towards the heart.
Massage your body with oil. You will not be greasy after the shower! In fact, oil makes the skin soft and creates a natural glow. The oil nourishes the skin and creates a barrier to make the cold-water temperature less shocking. We recommend almond oil, which contains healthy minerals. Jojoba, grapeseed, coconut, or avocado oils are healthy alternatives.
Run the cold water. Step into the shower.
Start with the extremities – massage your hands, arms, feet and legs under the stream of water. Rub your right foot and calf with your left foot and vice versa while you use your hands to first rub each other under the cold shower, then massage your arms. Your upper arms relate to your stomach, your forearms to your intestines, the upper inside of your wrists to your heart and your wrists to your liver. Rub it all vigorously.
Then massage your whole body under the water. Massage your breasts to get the lymph moving and prevent tumours. Your thighs should go in the cold shower last, or only once you’ve adapted a little more to the temperature.
Once you’ve massaged your whole body, moving vigorously the entire time, jump out of the water and massage your body again until it gets hot. And then jump in again for more massage. Keep jumping in and out for as long as you can – 12-15 minutes is optimal, but if three minutes is all you can do, it’s better than nothing!
The effects
When we massage ourselves in a cold shower, we open up our capillaries and get the circulation – rich with the prana generated by our deep breaths – moving around the body. It flushes out toxic and fatty deposits. And once we step out of the shower, that revitalised flush of blood heads straight towards our internal organs, energising them, flushing them with prana, like crops getting a delicious downpour of fresh rain. The glands respond by resetting their hormonal secretions, balancing the blood.
Once you get out of the cold shower, pat yourself dry vigorously with a rough towel to bring the blood to the surface of the skin and make the body shine. Get dressed for your yoga practice. Your body will heat up quickly, and you’ll have the best day EVER!
Cold showers can be intimidating, but those who have taken the plunge often report that the body starts to crave them. Cold showers are often referred to as “free energy,” a yogic substitute for the morning cup of coffee. The ideal is to build this into the daily regimen, but once a week is a good place to start. If you cannot take a full cold shower, try washing your hands, elbows, face, ears, and feet with cold water.
If you really love hot showers, wonderful. There are benefits to them as well. But better to take them at night or another time for relaxation, or for washing your skin and hair. The morning shower is for energy, circulation, and the stimulation of the nervous and glandular systems.
Contraindications
Women should not take cold showers during menstruation, or after the seventh month of pregnancy. Cold showers are not recommended for anyone with a fever, rheumatism, or heart disease.
