“A Cold shower a day keeps the doctor away,” says Wim Hof. Wim Hof, or the Iceman, is an author, a motivational speaker, and a holder of the Guinness World Record for swimming under ice and one of the leading pioneers of cold-water therapy. He believes cold water has a lot of health benefits. Relying on cold water to boost your immune system is not like betting on casino online blik to make you rich though. The latter might work by chance, while the former is proven to work repeatedly.
According to him, immersing yourself in cold water every morning is the best way to strengthen your immune system and up its ability to fight diseases. While jumping in cold water in the morning is not a pleasant thing to do, doing it for a few days, you will notice that your body’s ability to fight diseases has gone up.
What does science say about cold water therapy?
Wim Hof is not the only one advocating cold showers. In fact, science has the same opinion. According to science, cold water therapy helps boost the immune system in many ways.
First, cold showers help strengthen the immune system through increasing the number of white blood cells in the body. A few recent studies have shown that cold water therapy is beneficial to the immune system. Researchers leading the study found out that cold showers boost the body’s white blood cells, the very type of blood cells responsible for protecting the body against viruses and diseases. The scientists believe that the increase in blood cells happens because cold water increases the body’s metabolic rate, which triggers the body’s immune system and forces it to work at its full capacity.
The second way cold water therapy helps boost the body’s main fighting mechanism is through stress reduction. Stress destroys the immune system’s ability to defend the body against viruses. When the body is stressed out, it releases a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol suppresses the body’s ability to produce lymphocytes or white blood cells. As mentioned above, lymphocytes are responsible for protecting the body against viruses. When they are suppressed, the body becomes vulnerable, and any virus can attack it. Cold water helps reduce stress through what is known as “hardening.” Hardening is putting the body under a small amount of sudden and intermittent stress to strengthen it. While prolonged stress destroys the body’s immune system, shorts bursts of stress, every now and then, strengthens it.
Obesity is another reason that could weaken the immune system. Obesity increases inflammation in the body, which shuts down the immune system completely. Cold water therapy is extremely helpful in that case as well. Cold showers are proven to help rid the body of excess fat. When you take a cold shower, your body’s metabolic rate goes up. This helps melt fat at a faster rate. Cold water also triggers the body’s ability to produce brown fat. Instead of storing calories, like regular fat does, brown fat burns them.
Cold showers are a revolutionary technique to boost the immune system and improve your overall health. While cold showers may be a little challenging when you introduce them to your daily routine for the first time, especially in winter, if you try them for a few days, you will reap many of their benefits. They not only boost your immune system but also make you lose weight; keep you alert and reduce your anxiety and depression.
