Cold Resistance Training

Making Friends

A long time ago...when I was five years old, I clearly remember walking to school in the cold December winter. It was perhaps minus 20 degrees out and the wind whipped down the lanes and bit my face. It hurt, and I can remember thinking that since I lived in Canada, and winter was inevitable, I had better learn to like this weather or half of my life would be spent in misery.

This would be easier said than done.

Skiing

Building on ideas from Master The Art of Climbing Your Inner Fences, I realized that this mental shift was crucial to enjoying winter sports. Now, I could enjoy the cold and even look forward to it. I loved skiing so much that the months of October and November were ok because they were necessary preparation for the cold skiing we could enjoy after. Building on ideas from Master The Art of Climbing Your Inner Fences, I realized that this mental shift was crucial to enjoying winter sports.

Ice Climbing

When I finished high school, I started ice climbing. My joy of climbing was balanced by the pain of climbing on the north side of the mountain in the depths of winter, and the extreme pain of thawing my fingers at every belay. This was surely masochism at its finest, I thought. I was not quite friends with the cold.

Japan

While my winter holidays were spent in pain, at least we had central heating so my time spent at work and at home was more or les comfortable from a temperature standpoint. Then I moved to Japan. No central heating. Cold floors and hot ceilings. Winter in Japan seemed harder than Canada as the housing is typically somewhat colder than Canada.

This Year I Discovered...

While I was browsing on the Internet a few months ago reviewing different breathing techniques (pranayama),I came across an article about the breathing techniques of a Dane nicknamed the iceman. Wim Hof. He had found some training techniques to make friends with the cold.

As I explored in Sweep Away Your Resistance, I wrote about this in more detail, but essentially Wim Hof's cold showers were a key part of his training.

No Gradual

I read about his cold showers and various reviews, but it wasn't until I wrote about this in Sweep Away Your Resistance that I felt confident to try them out. Since I have access to a shower at my workplace but there is no gas, I had no option but to go straight to cold shower with not hot warm up or warm down. Nevertheless, I did it.

3 Minutes

I started with a 3 minute duration as I had heard somewhere that the effects would not 'kick in' until you had reached that threshold.

Core Temperature

Sadly for me after about a week and a half of three minute cold showers it became apparent that they had two effects: the shock effect (where my capillaries learn to shut down) and the cooling core temperature effect where I am putting my body in a bad postion that was difficult to recover from. It often took my thirty minutes of excercise in a heated room to recover.

Now

Now I have changed my time to 30 seconds to one minute. This way I don't drop my core temperature, but I still get the shock value that my body can learn to adjust to. This relates to Master Workplace Emotions: A Simple Guide That Works, where I discussed the benefits of mindfulness techniques on emotional resistance. Similarly, I've found that cold shower training improves mood and energy levels.

Catch a Cold

This relates to Master Workplace Emotions: A Simple Guide That Works, where I discussed the benefits of mindfulness techniques on emotional resistance. Interestingly, I found that cold shower training also improves mood and energy levels. I say 'I think..' because I never got past the symptoms of a sore throat for the first five or ten minutes after waking up. I literally had no other symptoms. The sor throat was only for three or four mornings. I felt great from an energy perspective and I never got a drippy nose.

One Year

I plan to continue for the full year and evaluate after that but it may be difficult. What I mean is I may become accustomed to the benefits and no longer see them as benefits. I will just have to cross that bridge when I come to it.