108 Cold Showers Later
I took a cold shower every single day for three months. 108 of them. I filmed the whole thing and reported back month by month, and the results got picked up by LADbible and MSN.
Here's the written version — including the parts that didn't live up to the hype.
The full experiment, filmed:
Why cold showers and not an ice bath
Ice baths are the version everyone posts. They're also a hassle — you need a tub, you need ice, and you need twenty minutes you probably don't have. Cryotherapy costs money every session.
A cold shower costs nothing and takes no setup. If you already shower, you can do this today. That accessibility is the entire reason I picked it: I wanted to test something a normal person would actually keep doing.
Month 1: it is genuinely awful and that's the point
The first two weeks were the worst. Not "uncomfortable" — there's a real physiological panic when cold water hits your chest and your breathing goes ragged. That's the cold shock response, and it's involuntary.
The thing I noticed first had nothing to do with my body. It was that every morning started with doing something I actively didn't want to do. By week two I'd stopped negotiating with myself about it, and that carried into other things — the gym, editing, the stuff I'd normally put off until the afternoon.
The immediate physical effect was real but short: an alertness spike that hits within seconds and lasts maybe an hour. It's a genuine jolt. It's also not magic — it's a stress response flooding you with adrenaline and noradrenaline.
Month 2: your body adapts faster than you expect
Around week five something shifted. The water wasn't warmer, but the panic reaction faded. I could step in and breathe normally almost immediately. This is documented — repeated cold exposure blunts the cold shock response over time.
What I noticed in month two:
- Getting out of bed got easier. Not because of the shower itself, but because the hardest thing in my day was scheduled at 7am and finished by 7:05.
- Less post-workout soreness. Modest, but noticeable.
- Better tolerance for being cold generally. Charleston winters stopped registering.
What I did not notice: any change to how often I got sick, any visible change in my body, or the dramatic mood transformation the internet promises.
Month 3: honest assessment
By month three it was just a habit. Neutral. Which is worth saying plainly, because the content around cold exposure is built on the idea that it stays hard and therefore stays meaningful. It doesn't. It becomes a normal part of showering.
The benefits I'd actually stand behind after 108 days:
- Alertness. Consistent, immediate, and the most reliable effect by a wide margin.
- Discipline spillover. Hard to measure, easy to feel. Starting the day by doing the unpleasant thing changes how the rest of the day goes.
- Some recovery benefit. Real but small.
- Cold tolerance. Definitely.
The claims I can't support from my own experience: immune boosting, fat loss, depression treatment, testosterone. Those show up in every cold-shower video. I didn't see them, and the research on most of them is thinner than the confident headlines suggest.
One thing worth knowing before you start
Cold water immersion isn't risk-free. The cold shock response raises heart rate and blood pressure sharply, which matters if you have a heart condition. Gasping underwater is how cold water kills people — which is why a shower is meaningfully safer than jumping into a lake. And if you have Raynaud's or any circulatory condition, talk to a doctor first.
For a healthy person in a shower, the realistic worst case is that you hate it. That's a fine reason to stop.
Am I still doing it?
Not every day. I end warm showers cold most mornings, which gets me the alertness without the ceremony. If you want one recommendation out of 108 days: that's it. You don't need the whole shower to be cold. The last 30 seconds does most of the work.
Keep reading
- What Happens to Your Body During a 7 Day Water Fast — the other experiment, and a much harder one
- Water Fasting Mistakes I'd Avoid
I'm a YouTuber in Charleston, South Carolina. I took all 108 of these showers myself and filmed the results — the experiment was covered by LADbible and MSN. More about me.
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