If you’re like most men, there’s a gap between your intentions and your actions. You know what you need to do to get what you want, but have difficulty in following through. Want to get better with women? Interact with more women. Want to get in shape? Eat less, move more. Want to make more money? Leverage your time and focus on income producing activities. Sounds pretty simple when I put it like that, but simple does not mean easy.
Not too long ago, I found it difficult to crawl out of bed in the morning. I was always tired and barely had the energy to stay awake, let alone go to the gym, cold approach women, and build a business. I was caught in a downward spiral, breaking out of which required a tremendous amount of will. Thankfully, I realized that the root cause of my problems could be narrowed down to the simple fact that I lacked discipline. Now, I’ve come to believe that self-discipline is the missing link between everything you are and everything you’re capable of being. I believe that self-discipline is the only difference between success and failure in every aspect of life.
In this article, I’ll discuss the #1 way I’ve found to develop my self-discipline and skyrocket my energy, mood, and focus in the process.
Cold Showers: The Secret to Sending Your Discipline Through The Roof
Picture this: You finally realize the power of rising early and set an alarm for 5:00am the next day. The next morning, you groggily wake up to the sound of your alarm buzzing and a part of you tries to convince you to hit the snooze. The decision you make in that moment – whether to get out of bed or to hit the snooze – is the decision that makes all the difference.
Self-discipline is the ability to do what needs to be done regardless of whether you feel like it or not. Getting out of bed at 5am, even though you don’t feel like it, sets the momentum towards taking right action despite what your emotions tell you. It’s the same with taking a cold shower. When you enter your shower and think about turning the knob to “C,” you will hear the same voice trying to talk you out of it. But when you turn the knob anyway, you have effectively overcome that lower part of yourself and are letting your mind know who’s in charge. Then, later on in the day, when that voice tries to talk you into skipping a workout or reaching for those cookies, you are less likely to listen.
Having taken cold showers relatively consistently over the past couple of years, I know for sure that the days I start with a cold shower are always more productive than the days that I don’t. True freedom is impossible without a mind made free through discipline, and starting my day with a cold shower is the best way I’ve found to practice my willpower, develop my discipline, and learn to associate pleasure with doing the hard things in life.
Can Taking a Cold Shower Boost Your Testosterone?
As a reader of RoK and the manosphere, you’ve probably heard about cold showers in the context of boosting testosterone. Having researched this topic in-depth (check out my ultimate guide here), I’ll be the first to tell you that there is no definitive evidence to back this claim up.
Does this mean that cold showers don’t boost testosterone?
No. What it means is that there are currently no studies that have observed the phenomenon. Understand that the majority of scientific research is driven by economics. Since cold water is cheap and nobody owns the rights to it, there is no financial incentive to drive the research. This is where anecdotal evidence (personal accounts) becomes important – and there is no shortage of that. A simple Google search for “cold shower benefits” will reveal countless testimonials from men who’ve experienced profound transformation by implementing cold showers as a regular part of their life.
Although the direct link between cold showers and testosterone has not been studied, there are a bunch of mechanisms through which cold exposure can indirectly affect your T.
The Scientifically Proven Benefits of Cold Showers
Anyone who’s taken a cold shower before can attest to the increased levels of energy and focus they feel afterwards. The reason? It all comes down to a hormone called norepinephrine.
Cold water exposure stimulates the fight-or-flight response in your sympathetic nervous system and causes a massive release of norepinephrine. In this study, 1-hour of cold water exposure at a temperature of 57°F (14°C) caused a 530% increase of norepinephrine and a 250% increase of dopamine – both of which go hand-in-hand to cause a massive lift in energy, focus, and mood. On the flip side, low levels of norepinephrine and dopamine correlate with diminished focus, drive, and depression. In fact, part of how antidepressants work is by increasing the uptake of norepinephrine and dopamine in your brain. The positive effect of cold exposure on mood is so profound that researchers have begun studying it as a possible measure against depression.
Furthermore, cold water exposure has also been shown to boost immune function, increase fat-loss, and even speed up muscle recovery.
Conclusion
All in all, starting your day with a cold shower is a quick and easy way to boost your immune system, speed up your fat-loss, increase your energy levels, and massively develop your self-discipline in the process.
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Read More: The Ultimate Morning Routine For Higher Testosterone Levels
is impossible to get a cold shower half of the years where a live when the climate temperature is 110F, the water is always warm.
Bath + ice packs are your friends.
Take a look a t the Wim Hoff method.
I use a bucket and towel, I leave the bucket outside at night and keep it in a cooler during the day. When it’s really hot I add Ice. The reason I use the bucket is so that I can add epsom salts and borax, which seem to help with my old guy aches and pains. During real hot weather I cool off multiple times a day with it.
I think the cold water is also a way of speeding up the metabolism, to burn more calories . I think a guy can get a rough idea of metabolic rate (calorie burn?). When working outside in cold weather, I’ve noticed a much better tolerance for cold for about 4 hours after excercise – the cold water has a similar effect.
Nice article.
Actually, cold showers work because they cool the testicles.
Plenty of research on this.
Testicle hang away from the body to stay cooler, drop lower when you’re hot, and contract just before orgasms.
Why?
Optimum sperm production happens around 89 degrees.
You know that you live in hell when the US is a police state and you are not allowed to say it.
The US is a bankrupt warmongering police state, but Americans think everything is just fine.
Anyone who challenges the narrative will be called a nutjob or racist and will be banned, get an IRS audit, be arrested, or be killed.
Doesn’t the collapse of the US bother you?
How can you sleep at night now?
Are you going to speak up while the USA collapses or are you just another mindless zombie?
Those who stay silent today are no better than the elites who have turned the US into a bankrupt police state, are pushing for a civil war, and are doing everything they can to start WWIII.
I live in Canada
A warm shower and cup of coffee in the morning is all I have lol
Jajaja. Well said, Clark.
This article is fucking vullshit for nofappers incels who are afraid to talk to girls and people in general and think it’s because they lack few millimeters of chin or because they watched a porn movie 2 weeks ago
Just fucking be a man and do the shit you want and need to do for your well being and to improve your life but dont fall in these traps for autists like cold showes theories or whatever or you’ll end up rationalising your failures with “aw shit I didnt take enough cold showers”
Words of wisdom from an ex retard who tried ALL these shit advices in the past
I can tell you speak for experience, and I agree.
t. also an ex-retard who rationalized his failures with such bullshit.
Carpe Diem I guess.
Actually, you’re not an EX-retard
Spotted the actual retard
Sauna or steam room use is
better. Heat shock protiens.
In Finland we perfected this already ages ago.
First go to sauna, then jump into snow or into a lake (sometimes frozen).
contrast showers are the best. you start from water as hot as you can take, then switch to the coldest. look it up. it’s addictive too. doing for over 20 years.
Is that Obama in the water fall picture?
Anything that warms up your sac will ultimately reduce your testosterone.
That is precisely why nature makes the balls to descend out of the body so that they may have a lower temperature, which is maximal for sperm production and testosterone generation.
Also, sacs generally do not have hair on them, compared to the other parts of the genital area. Hair traps heat, just as feathers do. So nature makes sure that sacs do not trap unwanted heat through sac hair.
The sperm does not generate testosterone; but the cells that are involved in sperm generation (Spermatogonia) are located very close to those cells (Leydig cells) which produce testosterone, so there.
Men who take warm baths in hot tubs tend to have lower sperm count and possibly lower testosterone levels.
See: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303627104576411630724741052
I have never seen anyone suggest that the location of the testicles has anything to do with testosterone; they always talk about sperm.
Some male mammals not to mention other vertebrates have internal testicles or they only descend during breeding season, which suggests it’s all about sperm.
The book by Wim Hoff is his take on cold exposure. He’s into COLD exposure though as in cut a hole in the ice and jump in kinda cold
I’ve taken cold showers for years.
Even through European winters–that uniquely harsh and sharp pain of such water in the morning.
I no longer do it.
Why?
Because if you read the actual studies, and not just people’s claims and interpretations, you will learn that such an unnecessary shock to your body spikes cortisol levels (stress hormones).
Cortisol is the reason marathon runners look 50 at 30.
Cold showers also lower testosterone since cortisol and testosterone exist in a tug-o-war relationship.
I already know I can endure an ice bath on the drop of a hat, I no longer need to prove it to myself every day.
@Red Pill
You say “such an unnecessary shock to your body spikes cortisol levels”.
and “Cortisol is the reason marathon runners look 50 at 30”.
I believe we have to vastly different types of ‘shock’ here. Marathon is of long duration, and allows the cortisol to do its damage.
Weight lifting can be argued as similar type of ‘unnecessary shock’. Should lower testosterone too, no?
The point when it comes to cortisol, is the long duration it requires to do the damage. I believe (still) in cold showers, but in moderation, and certainly not one hour in 14 deg C as the article suggests.
I’m getting sick after every time I try to take a cold shower. Any tips to avoid it?
You are getting sick because cold shower is a bullshit advice spread on the web.
I haven’t been sick in 10+ years. Start eating REAL food instead of poisonous foods (junk food). The corpoations don’t give a fuck about you or me hence why every health problems has increased by 50-200% in the last 100 years. 1 in 3 die from cancer today (due to eating poisonous food full of toxic chemicals) as well as 1 in 5 from heart disease!
Cold showers have got a history. There was a beautiful lady, one of the many who made King Louis XII (or XIII) of France happy. Her wonderful skin was outstanding and all the
other ladies could not get her secret (cold showers). American actresses take cold showers also.
I use cold showers as a bitter medicine for my cold feet. I suffer from cold feet because my blood pressure is so low. And my body dislikes cold showers very much. It defends
its dislike by producing more moderate heat. That is now the solution, no cold feet anymore.
Whether my manliness has improved by my cold showers I do not know. My wife is happy as before (she taught me the tantra style)
Recommanding “cold showers” is a total nonsense, and a stupid advice for the newbies in the self development.
Cold shower is a simple bullshit. The body is triggered and switch on the immune system.
You know why immune… because it is bad for the body.
This is why most of cold showers fans can’t handle the long term, they all stop it, because it hurts the body.
Over the years I’ve found that I feel best after a 15-20 minute sauna session followed by a COOL shower. I tried cold showers a few times after hearing about their supposed benefits (I’m still unsure) and just couldn’t stand it. Really hot showers dry out my skin and make my scalp itch.
No thank you. Cold showers and ice baths are what they use to treat mental illness with.
Shocks of Cold increase cholesterol levels and lipid quantity in the blood, which can cause heart problems related to weight gain. It does not cure or limit depression and will eventually negatively adapt to the stress.
The testicles produce hormones and sperm; but work only within genetic limits.
Find a stunning 18year old Czech girl and watch your testicles swell with endless waves of jizzibility.
Spend time with a MeToo supporter and watch your balls shrivel into raisins.