How Choosing the Best Shower Temperature Can Improve Your Health

Better blood circulation

Most of the time, none of us are super eager to jump into a cold shower. But what if doing so just happened to be the best way to improve your blood circulation?

When your body feels cold water, primal instincts kick in and increase your heart rate. This is an ages-old instinct that helped our ancient ancestors to survive in freezing temperatures. While you don’t need to turn your shower into the Ice Age, getting under some cold water boosts your circulation because it causes your heart to pump blood throughout your body smoothly and efficiently.

Again, we understand that jumping into cold water doesn’t sound very fun. But since poor circulation is even less fun, a cold shower may be just the thing for your body.

Relief for your bones

We’ve all heard folksy phrases about pain that runs “bone-deep” before. However, some people experience this pain very literally, including athletes who have sports-related bone injuries as well as those who suffer from arthritis.

The good news is that a cool shower can help. How, though, does the cold water help those with pain in their bones? The short answer is that most of the bone-related pain is due to inflammation. Cold water reduces inflammation, which will ease your pain and (as an added bonus) help you recover from temporary injuries.

Easing a stiff body

Many who don’t have a diagnosed illness still suffer from stiffness of the body. This is the kind of stiffness that can make it hard to move around, and you may find such commonplace tasks as bending over and tying your shoes to be difficult at different points throughout the day.

If that sounds familiar, you should know that a hot shower can help ease your stiffness and improve your mobility. That hot shower will be beneficial no matter when you take it, but you’ll get the best results if you do it before exercise or other physically demanding tasks that will require added mobility.

A hidden detox secret

It’s not hard to see why detoxing is all the rage right now. Toxins have become so commonplace in everything from our food to our air, and it often feels there is no good way to keep them out of our bodies. Fortunately, detoxing techniques can help show those toxins to the door while making you feel better than ever before.

As it turns out, a hot shower can actually help you detox for the simple reason that the hot water opens up the pores all over your skin. Obviously, pores that are open are easier to clean than pores that are closed, so hot water makes it very easy to clean the toxins right out of your skin.

Before you hop out of the shower, be sure to run some cold water first. It may not feel great, but that cool water closes the pores back up, offering you increased toxin protection after you leave the shower altogether.

Revive from fatigue

Ever notice there are days when you get plenty of sleep but still wake up feeling as tired as you were the night before? Fatigue can drag your entire day down. However, a quick, cold shower may be the perfect solution for unwanted fatigue.

One way we know this is from a recent study in which regularly taking cold showers helped those who were suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. Even if you don’t suffer from that syndrome yourself, cold water can help your tired muscles recover from the stresses of the day.

Throw in the fact that the cooler temp also helps your body recover energy and you have some solid reasons to turn the temperature down in the shower.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with temperatures

By now, you’ve probably noticed that we didn’t recommend any exact temperatures, preferring instead to simply say “cold shower” or “hot shower.” There’s a reason for that: simply put, everyone’s preferences are different.

In order to get the most out of these health benefits, you’ll need to experiment until you find the best temperatures for both hot and cold showers. Once you do, though, you can look forward to taking showers that are just as comfortable as they are soothing.