Maintaining personal hygiene is a form of self-care to stay healthy. The most frequent and easy activity to do to maintain personal hygiene is bathing. Taking a cold shower in the morning provides many benefits for the body. Besides being able to make the mind immediately focus, it turns out that bathing with cold water also has many positive impacts on the body.
1. Improve Concentration
Usually when we wake up in the morning, our brains and minds are still not fully focused. Cold water used for bathing in the morning helps to increase alertness immediately. When the body is poured with low temperature water, the mind will automatically focus.
Water that is poured into the body makes the body startle and this triggers an increase in oxygen levels in the blood. When you stop breathing because of the cold water, your lungs will automatically open and inhale more oxygen. The intake of oxygen that enters the body then makes blood circulation smoother. This ready body condition will make it easier to start activities in the morning.
2. Keep Skin Moist
Cold water tightens the skin pores and closes them. These tightened pores lock the moisture in our skin. Cold water does not make the natural oils on the body’s skin disappear just like that. Our body’s natural oils keep skin moisturized and feel tight. Therefore, taking a cold shower does not throw away the body’s natural moisture as a whole and instead keeps the skin moist.
Moreover, showering with cold water can also reduce itchy skin. The cold water can reduce itching so that scratching activities can be reduced and even stop.
3. Keep Hair Shiny
As well as skin moisture is maintained, bathing with cold water also has a positive impact on the beauty of the hair. The cold air makes the hair cuticles tight. This makes hair firmer and shiny. The natural lubricating layer on the scalp protects the hair moisture.
4. Improve Immunity and Blood Circulation More Smoothly
The lower water temperature makes the heart beat better. The heart pumps blood flow throughout the body more efficiently. The body becomes fresher so that the activities carried out will feel more optimal.
The performance of the heart increases because the body needs to neutralize its natural temperature. Because the performance of the heart has increased, the blood flow in the body becomes faster and more efficient.
5. Helps Us to Lose Weight
The benefits of showering with cold water also have a positive impact on body weight. Splashing cold water on the body can activate brown fat tissue in the body. Brown fat in the body acts as good fat whose job it changes to keep the body warm. The heat energy that is burned by brown fat in our bodies and then converted as body heat is what can then trigger weight loss.
6. Relieve Muscle Pain
Taking a shower after exercising makes the body feel fresh and clean. Muscles that feel tight when exercising can relax again after a shower, even with cold water. Cold water has regenerative properties. This helps to calm muscles that are tense due to exercise.
7. Stress Reducing
Endorphin hormone is a hormone that can give pleasure. If this hormone increases, feelings of happiness will appear more easily and easily felt. Bathing with cold water helps the production of this hormone better. By feeling happy, stress can be reduced so that life becomes happier.
Although showering with cold water provides many benefits, unfortunately showering with cold water has some drawbacks. People who have cold sensitivity or allergies cannot take a cold shower. The cold sensation that spreads throughout the body causes a surge in the work of the heart which is beneficial for smooth blood circulation. However, this increase in heart performance can harm people who have a history of heart disease or elderly people whose organ performance has decreased significantly.
People think that taking a cold shower in the morning helps reduce sleepiness more quickly. When the air temperature in the morning is quite cold, showering with cold water actually makes the body temperature drop. As a result, the body feels cold and it is difficult to raise the body temperature to keep the body warm. Hence, you can catch cold if you keep showering with cold water.
Also, cold showers are not recommended for people who are sick. The cold water temperature also lowers the body temperature. The body’s ability to increase body temperature so that the body stays warm for longer. The immune system can also become weak. Even so, cold showers still have many positive effects on the body. However, it is also important to pay attention to the right time to take a cold shower. Also, pay attention to who can shower using cold water.