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My goal is only to convince you to try taking one, perhaps a week of cold showers, and see if you like it and want to keep going. 1) First off, if you're not e
by jasonshen 13y ago
My goal is only to convince you to try taking one, perhaps a week of cold showers, and see if you like it and want to keep going.
1) First off, if you're not exercising much, you should probably spend your willpower on ramping that up. In general, research has shown that willpower acts more like a muscle than a purely "fuel tank" model and taxing your willpower in small increments can actually strengthen it in the long run. [1] But in general, your shower time is already allocated for, and happens at a regular interval, so after exercise (which takes up time that people sometimes say "they don't have") it is a good place to do some willpower strengthening.
2) In the book, I actually explain that I start cold for 3 minutes and then end warm/hot. It's actually better than just going warm right away.
3) I admit that when the water is cold, you are not able to think about much. But if you turn it back to warm after a period, you still can spend the rest of the shower thinking. Also I find that clearing your head via the cold means the rest of your day's thinking is more clear, which may be worth the trade off.
Ultimately, you should just try it once, go through it, and see if it serves you.
[1] http://blog.bufferapp.com/what-the-research-on-habit-formation-reveals-about-willpower-and-overall-well-being http://blog.bufferapp.com/what-the-research-on-habit-formati...
- ctietze 13y agoThe book 'The Willpower Instinct' is citing research which supports this claim. There are ways to increase your overall willpower, if you like to think of it as a resource.
- jasonshen 13y agoThat book is fantastic.
- diminoten 13y agoI've got a weird question regarding this idea of "flexing the will muscle": Do you write at all about stoic philosophy, and where it fits into your whole... outlook, or whatever the sum of your book and blog posts represents? Because the idea of subjecting oneself to unpleasant experiences (mostly in the form of denial) is a significant part of stoicism.
- jasonshen 13y agoI've read a tiny bit of stoic philosophy (Marcus Aurelius's Meditations) but have not written much about it, mostly because I just find other things more interesting.