I have not had a hot shower in over a year. A few hot baths, but most always followed by a cold showr.
Ever expanding inexplicable magnificence as the waters turn icy cold with the approaching Winter. So cold at times I don’t want to get out of the shower.
Sometimes it is so cold it feels like it is burning.
An icy shower is better than morning coffee; not blasphemy, an inconvenient truth for the weak of stature.
I hear you.
“Who takes baths?” some accuse, “Those tubs are so tiny. No one takes baths.”
Well… I do. Very seldom but I do.
It would be really nice to have a deep soak tub though…
A man too can dream.
For all those of you bad mouthing cold showers, cold water therapy, I believe that is the topic today, for all of you naysayers, I have two choice words.
Wim Hof
It is dangerous to promote unsanctioned health these days so I will refer to his work in this regard.
Yes Wim Hof is a person, a man.
As Wim Hof teaches, the cold exercises a vast micro-muscular system that regulates our arterial system. So all the tiny muscles rally to keep the cold out and the core warm. You may have seen images of Wim Hof hiking up Mt. Everest.
When combined with breathing exercises a conditioned arterial system can restrict the spread of a pathogen, keeping it from progressing through the body, as tested true in Wim Hof and his adherents.
Modern society is bent on degrading this micro-muscular system. We do not tolerate the hot or cold, heavy weights or even walking any substantial distances.
Weight lifting, as I see it, builds up pressure in the muscles you are exercising, so that the same tiny muscular system has to compensate to keep a steady healthy pressure through the rest of the body. People with good muscle mass general live longer.
Walking! There you go working all those tiny muscles in tandem. The whole system creates a rhythm to optimize the proper pressure for your heart, brain organs etc. when we are walking. All those muscles coordinated, synchronized. Sounds healthy to me. People do not live long after they loose their mobility, at least not without modern interventions.
I imagine the greater your muscle mass the more robust results this synchronization exercise creates.
So modern life is killing us all? By design? If money can be made.
Don’t get me started on the food.
There was a story some years ago about a cricket player who was struck just under the edge of his helmet. Pressure on an artery sent a sudden rush of blood into his brain causing damage. he died.
Not sure how fighters train to receive hits; train for a proper micro muscular response.
Does striking something with the sudden resistance at the strike, train the body to be struck? Or is it one of the necessities of sparring; to learn to take a hit?
Jump roping? No idea, but rebounding is very healthy in that it stimulates the proper and vigorous flow of the lymph system.
Walking, building muscle and cold therapy, I hope I have opened some eyes to the different ways one can work an unacknowledged system to become healthier.
I imagine High Intensity Interval training (HIIT) would also exercise the arterial system with its ups and downs. I will right a post on that but in regards to a different benefit.
Saunas, heat, red light, chromatic therapy? I will have some experience there to share in the near future.
Sleep is also very healthy and still my Achilles’ heal, as I do not see myself getting any significant sleep any time soon. I have gotten off my CPAP machine, not totally successfully, and will write about that in time this coming 2022.
Yes, this blog is back.
This is the story that made me a great admirer of Wim Hof.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holy Days, to everyone.
Thank you for reading.
Happy New Year!
Really, have a Merry Christmas.
