Eight unexpected, guaranteed, and moderately awesome benefits to cold showers

Strangely I can’t find the article that inspired me to start taking cold showers. There are quite a few here on Medium, but this one had amused me because it was more realistic: Nobody can guarantee that cold showers actually work. But then again, people do it. So why not?

I embarked on my experiment following the guidelines suggested:

1. 30 seconds of warm water before and after. At least 3 minutes of “cold”, preferably 10.
2. It’s totally fine to distract yourself with podcasts, audiobooks, whatever (thank you, waterproof iPhone!).
3. Have something good waiting for you after, to put things in a reward-framework. A mug of hot steaming coffee handed to me by my skeptically smiling partner worked well for that.

Now, it hasn’t put me to sleep, my skin isn’t magically softer, and the “energy benefits” are as likely to be psychosomatic as anything else. But I have discovered a few undeniable and repeatedly provable effects, to get you doubters out of the H and into the C.

Here’s the list:

1. Your partner will never get upset with you for using up all the hot water.
2. Getting into a swimming pool? No big deal.
3. +2 advantage for a…