Cold Showers - Page 2

December 22, 2007
Breakthroughs, tips and trends
John Naish
Cold water cure?

GOT the glums? Jumping into a cold shower could give your grey matter just the boost needed to spark it into a festive mood, claims an American brain-scanning expert.

Nikolai Shevchuk, a researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University's radiation oncology department, believes that short, cold showers may stimulate a part of the brain stem called, appropriately, the "blue spot", or locus ceruleus.

This region is the brain's primary source of noradrenaline, a chemical that may mediate depression, Shevchuk says in a research paper scheduled for publication in the journal, Medical Hypotheses.

He believes that regular cold showers may stimulate the blue spot by giving it a mild but intense sensory shock, thanks to the fact that we have a high density of cold sensors in the skin - around five times more than those registering warmth.

Shevchuk suggests that modern life lacks sufficient physiological stressors, such as sudden changes in body temperature, to keep our brains sparked up. He suggests that twice-daily cold showers of three-minute duration should do the trick. In another paper, published in Behavioral and Brain Functions in October, he says the practice may also alleviate chronic fatigue syndrome.

The theory may sound like a boost for the public-school philosophy of "snap out of it and buck yourself up", but it has other antecedents. Research by the psychiatrist Thomas Wehr, of the National Institute of Mental Health, has shown that people who chronically suffer from depression in summer benefit from frequent cold showers.

Traditional Chinese medicine has also long prescribed cold water swims for lifting dismal moods. Shevchuk cautions, though, that you should check with your doctor first, in case the shock might be a little too much.