This conflict can cause heart rhythm abnormalities and potentially sudden death. But there is also a “diving response” when submersed in cold water, where the body automatically decreases heart rate and instinctively you stop breathing (in contrast to flight-or-fight responses). In addition, according to Mike Tipton, an expert on human physiology at the University of Portsmouth, submersion in cold water can be connected to an increase in breathing as well as heart rate. If anyone has fatty deposits in their arteries, a rapid increase in heart rate could potentially cause some of the deposits to fall off and block the artery leading to a heart attack. This can have a negative effect for those with heart disease as it could precipitate a heart attack or heart-rhythm irregularities. As mentioned above, it also stimulates the flight-or-fight response which increases heart rate and blood pressure. Having a cold shower can be a bit of a shock. Therefore, a 15 second cold shower at 12☌ should be sufficient enough to experience any health benefits. They found that the length of the cold shower was irrelevant. However, the only research study which has explored the duration is the one mentioned earlier from the Netherlands. In the programme, Hof recommends participants to increase the duration of the shower each day. A study looking at cold-water immersion after exercise found that, after four weeks, blood flow to and from muscles had improved. Some scientists think that this could improve circulation. When the cold water stops, the body has to warm itself up, so there is an increase in blood flow as the blood vessels increase in size due to dilation. When exposed to cold water, the skin blood vessels constrict (get smaller), reducing blood flow. This is what most likely causes an increase in heart rate and blood pressure observed when people are immersed in cold water, and is therefore linked to the suggested health improvements mentioned by Hof.Ĭold water immersion has also been shown to improve circulation. When this is activated, such as during a cold shower, you get an increase in the hormone noradrenaline. Health Check: do ice baths after sport help recovery or improve results? There is some evidence that cold water activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is the part that governs the “ fight-or-flight” response (an automatic physiological reaction to an event that is perceived as dangerous, stressful or frightening). When you have a cold shower, your heart rate and blood pressure increase. He says: “We go to the gym to work our muscles, but inside our bodies we have millions of tiny muscles in the cardiovascular system – and we can train them by simply taking a cold shower.” In the BBC programme, Hof suggests that cold water activates the cardiovascular system and therefore improves its function. Interestingly, the duration of the cold water did not affect the sickness absence.īBC presenter Michael Mosley is also a fan of very cold showers. The largest study with 3,000 participants was carried out in the Netherlands and found that people who took a daily cold shower (following a warm shower) of either 30 seconds, 60 seconds or 90 seconds for one month were off work with self-reported sickness 29% less than those who had a warm shower only. There is not much research looking at the health benefits of cold showers, so the literature is limited. Watching the reaction of the participants under the cold shower shows you that it is not a pleasant experience, at least at first. He asks celebrity participants on the show, including sports presenter Gabby Logan and singer Alfie Boe, to have a cold water shower of 12☌ every day, increasing the duration of the shower over time from 15 seconds to two minutes. You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, here. Hof, who set a Guinness World Record for swimming under ice, says that a “cold shower a day keeps the doctor away” by decreasing stress and increasing energy levels. Anyone watching the BBC programme Freeze the Fear with Wim Hof may be starting to wonder whether there’s really “power in the cold shower” as extreme athlete Hof claims.
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