January 04, 2006
Cold Showers
Strange weather here the last couple of days.
Yesterday it rained and rained, and was around 6 or 8 degrees Celsius... mid forties, for the Americans. For January in Bucharest, that's pretty warm and wet. It was cooler today, down to 2 or 3 Celsius, but still raining. Walking around, it felt like a brisk day in March.
It has the flowers fooled: this morning I saw green shoots poking through the ground by our front gate. Oh, dear. Can you hold that for two months, guys?
This is peak cold season. I fully expect to waste at least a week of the next month shuffling, wheezing, and sniveling miserably. I generally do. I'm guzzling orange juice and zinc tablets prophylactically, but the historical record is depressingly consistent: in winter, I get colds.
This has made me desperate enough to try the Uncle Hubert Remedy.
Uncle Hubert is Claudia's maternal uncle. At the annual family reunion/Christmas party this year, he told Claudia that he had not had a cold for seven years. This despite his being well into his eighth decade.
Why? Because at the end of every hot shower, he turns the water to maximum cold for some period of time. This brisk douse has a tonic effect. How it works is unclear, but Uncle Hubert says that work it surely does: he simply never gets colds any more.
Yes, I know. But like I said, I'm desperate.
So far, I'm up to about 15 seconds. It may help if I tell you that I love long, sybaritic showers, vastly wasteful, with the heat turned up to near unbearable and the pressure on "firehose". So this is... something of a departure.
How long will I keep it up? Until I get a cold, of course.
Meanwhile: has anyone ever heard of this odd practice? Does it have a name? Or any evidence whatsoever that it works? (Hah.) Everyone around the table nodded sagely when Uncle Hubert described the practice, but that may just be the expression of, shall we say, a certain underlying German attitude towards brisk physical sensation.
Yes, and then for my arthritis I spank myself hard for five minutes with a paddle made of dried Swedish reindeer leather.
Ah, that sounds like it would work.
Anyway. If anyone knows anything about this, I'd be interested to hear.
Posted by douglas at January 4, 2006 04:24 PMDoug,
Like you, when the weather gets cold, I tend to get colds. Or, what I thought were colds; all sore throat, runny nose, messy ugliness. As a swimmer, which has a winter season, this puts rather a damper on the breathing, which is crucial to the sport.
So, freshman year, I went over and I got checked out; apparently, I'm disposed to getting a bad sinus infection during cold season. Now, I have a nasal injector and some antibiotics that I take which keep the whole thing at bay from November through March.
Cheers
L
Posted by: Luke at January 4, 2006 06:27 PMAre you sure the cold shower isn’t followed by a schnapps? That would explain it :)
Good luck
Posted by: Stefan at January 4, 2006 06:33 PMYou have my sympathies. I, too, like a nearly scalding shower in the morning, possibly moreso even than my caffeine fix. Cold 30-second showers were the most detestable part of Basic Training for me. And I'm subject to near-constant winter colds as well. It might, as previously mentioned, have something to do with dry nasal passages and sinus infections. Have you considered a humidifier? Or moving back to the tropics?
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at January 4, 2006 07:43 PMMy grandfather is in his early nineties, and never gets colds either. My thought is that by now, he's gotten all the viruses in this part of the world and is immune to them all. It's as least as plausible as the cold shower, right?
Posted by: Carrie at January 4, 2006 10:02 PMMy wife introduced me to the 30-seconds of cold after a normal shower. At the expense of seeming odd, I admit that I actually like it and sometimes just go with a 100% cold shower -- if only because I don't like wasting 90 seconds worth of water it takes for the hot water to arrive up from the cellar.
That said, after I related this to brother in the States he looked at me like I was an idiot. Then again he catches more colds than I do.
Posted by: Karl at January 4, 2006 10:07 PMWell, I just had to look this up. I found no real scientific evidence, but a whole lot of anecdotes about the benefits of hot-cold showers. Here is a link to one page: http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/showers.html
Of course, none of the stories made me really want to take a cold shower of any kind. I'm too wimpy. The "paddle made of dried Swedish reindeer leather", however, sounds very interesting. :-)
Hope you remain cold-free.
As far as I know, they are called "Scottish Showers", but the idea was to alternate between hot and cold. I do that for some time now because it tonifies the muscles, and I also rinse my hair with cold water in the end. The technique may seem barbarian, but I was the only one of my friends who didn't scream when showering with almost cold water while lodged in peasant's homes in Vama Veche :))
Posted by: Tina at January 5, 2006 11:45 AMI've heared of that hot/cold shower when I lived in The Netherlands. I believe it also (amongst whatever else) improves blood circulation. It reminds me alittle of Japanese Baths, where you soak in a tub full of rather scalding water (you get used to it after awhile), and after hopping out, you douse yourself with cold water.It's very refreshing and energising. I guess the concept exists all over, we just don't realise it. :-)
Posted by: kadhine at January 9, 2006 03:27 PMI a 62 year old man,have been taking 5 minutes of cold showers followed by hot showers for six months, no colds, which i usually get a lot of. I have been having arthiritic problems with my shoulders, maybe I am staying in the cold to long
Posted by: gus soeth at March 26, 2007 04:56 AMI a 62 year old man,have been taking 5 minutes of cold showers followed by hot showers for six months, no colds, which i usually get a lot of. I have been having arthiritic problems with my shoulders, maybe I am staying in the cold to long
Posted by: gus soeth at March 26, 2007 04:57 AM