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Tried it out: from cold shower phobia to a morning routine - thanks to your tips

18.7.2025

Translation: machine translated

A cold shower in the morning revitalises and strengthens the immune system. It's just stupid that I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Two months later, my failed self-experiment took a surprising turn.

Two months ago, I shared one of my most lengthy and, for me personally, most challenging challenges to date. The plan: start the day fit and energised thanks to a cold shower. After my successful caffeine- and mobile-withdrawal, vegan diet or daily back training, I didn't expect that a cold shower would cause me the greatest difficulties. But it was just too much to overcome.

If you haven't read my brilliant debacle in the first round yet, you can have a laugh here:

Background information
Cold showers – the «I did it!» health hack I couldn’t manage
by Anna Sandner

But the good thing is that as soon as I had got my failure off my chest, the Community came up with a whole range of good tips and concrete instructions in addition to a few, let's say, «demotivating» comments («How little discipline do you have to have that you can't even take a cold shower???»):

I take a cold shower at the end of every morning. But very hot before that :-) I started by taking a hot shower, then switched to ice cold and started with the right leg, then the left. Then the right arm, followed by the left. And finally the centre of the body, head and back. At first it was only three or four seconds per spot, but now I'm at just under two minutes.

Communitymitglied natalie8000

I've never been able to stand cold water, now I've been taking contrast showers every morning for 20-25 years and it's essential for a good start to the day. I don't stand under the hot shower, by the way, but massage my whole body with a hot but gentle and wide jet.

Communitymitglied ApfelKwaX

I do this without going down gradually. Briefly a little warm, then straight to ice cold. It helps if you were active beforehand.

Communitymitglied Hirsim

What becomes clear: There are very different approaches and opinions on this. While many recommend warming up with warm water first to make it easier to bear the cold, there is also the faction «Immediately and only cold». I was also advised to alternate between cold and warm showers and to massage the body with a warm jet of water.

The cold shower pros among you had convinced me: now I was motivated to try again.

With your help to the perfect strategy

However, as life goes, the tide turned while I was still busy planning - more on that in a moment. So I came up with an optimised strategy: start with warm water, massage the body thoroughly with the water jet and then? Would it be better to choose option 1? Set the water to ice cold in one go and slowly work my way through body part by body part, as community member natalie8000 recommends. Or I could go for option 2, where I gradually make the water colder and colder, as ronnylevol did.

I immediately ruled out the variant where you start directly with cold water. PadWorks had recommended this, but I had already failed with this method long enough. But here was another great tip: [[quote:It is very important to consciously control your breathing, exhale more slowly than inhale and relax your muscles. Mentally accept (and enjoy) the cold."Communitymitglied PadWorks"]]

Breathing is crucial, I realised that nine years ago in the delivery room. And what can keep the pain of labour in check (at least a little) should also help with cold water.

And suddenly it just went by itself

While I was still wondering whether I should fight my way through body part by body part or turn the shower down degree by degree, the first hot days arrived. And the heat solved my problem all by itself. Because, as I had hoped in the first part of my experiment, after the first hot, sweaty night I no longer felt like taking a hot shower anyway. And despite all the planning, I suddenly found myself doing the actually disqualified option: I just stood under the cold shower and enjoyed it!

And so, contrary to expectations, I followed the tip from A//S after all: [[quote:The trick is actually to just do it and not even think about it beforehand. "Communitymitglied A//S"]]

Now the heatwave hasn't lasted forever and, unfortunately for me, even the summer weather in my adopted home of Hamburg has the potential to freeze. So after my big breakthrough, I still had the chance to try out the various strategies.

Background information
Cold showers – the «I did it!» health hack I couldn’t manage
by Anna Sandner

Slow approach: which strategy is more comfortable?

Once I'd done it, the cold shower lost its terror and so I was able to set about finding the best strategy for me over the next few weeks. Spoiler: Variety is my tool of choice. I tried everything: Start hot, then slowly reduce the temperature until it's just about bearable and hold out until it starts to hurt. Or: start cold and work my way up bit by bit - first my arms, then my legs, then my torso and finally my head. And: I also tried alternating showers - warm, cold, warm, cold ...

And the result? In the end, each of the options has something going for it and I haven't been able to identify a clear favourite strategy yet. Heating up the body first has the advantage that the cold feels more pleasant afterwards. I find the slow approach, body part by body part, pleasant because it provides small intermediate goals («Yeah, I've already managed one arm»). On the one hand, classic alternating showers are nasty because I have to get over myself again and again. On the other hand, the cold water loses its horror with the constant back and forth because I always know it's about to get warm again.

But one thing is clear: no matter which strategy I chose, two points were crucial:
Breathing: When the moment of overcoming a challenge comes, it helps me enormously to concentrate on deep, slow breathing. This calms me down and distracts me from the cold water because I focus on breathing.
The right mindset: If I hesitate before the shower, I've already lost. I have to be sure that I'm going to go through with it and visualise how good it will feel (afterwards). Then it works.

I've always found it easy to take a cold shower in summer at the lake, in the outdoor pool or by the sea. Imagining these situations before my morning ice shower helps me.

And what has it all done for me now?

I've already described the health benefits in part one - and yes, the attempt to overcome it has paid off. A cold shower after a tropical night is priceless. For me, this has become the gold standard of cold showers: Sweat away, cool down and I'm always ready for the day. I can actually enjoy these showers now.

But even on cooler days, I now turn the regulator to cold at some point. How quickly, how long and how cold depends on my mood at the time. Because if I don't feel like it at the moment, it's probably not necessarily good for my body either. I no longer want to miss the effect: I feel awake and fresh and don't feel cold for the rest of the day.

This is getting me through the summer. We'll see what happens when winter comes. With any luck, the cold morning showers will have become a habit by then and I'll just keep going.

You can read about my other trial weeks here:

Background information
I did it! Healthy habits put to the test
by Anna Sandner

Header image: ANTHONY PAZ/Shutterstock

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Anna Sandner

Senior Editor

Anna.Sandner@galaxus.de

Science editor and biologist. I love animals and am fascinated by plants, their abilities and everything you can do with them. That's why my favourite place is always outside - somewhere in nature, preferably in my wild garden.

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