Latest news with #coldshower
The Sun
01-07-2025
- Health
- The Sun
Why you should never take a cold shower in this heat & the exact temperature to set your water to to keep cool
TAKING a cold shower now that the temperatures are scorching has become a daily ritual for millions of Brits. But according to one expert, as cooling as the water may seem, jumping into cold water during hot weather is not a good idea. 3 3 Dr Sophie Bostock revealed that instead, you should be doing the very opposite - and there's a specific temperature you should be setting your shower to. While many reckon that a freezing cold rinse is tactical before bedtime for the ultimate sleep, Dr Sophie said it's amongst one of the worst things you could do - only topped by taking an ice bath. ''Getting into ice cold water gives your nervous system a bit of a shock,'' she explained. Chatting to This Morning's Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley, she went on: ''Your immediate reaction in cold water is for your blood vessels to constrict - because it's trying to protect you.'' So, what should you do instead? According to the doctor, who specialises in sleep, you should focus on ''lots of blood flow going to your extremities'', such as hand and feet. ''Research suggests that a lukewarm bath or shower actually helps with the blood flow to your skin.'' This, she went on, means that when you get out of the shower, your body is going to lose heat more easiliy. Struggling to fall asleep in the hot weather? There are more hacks that many swear by - including a freezer tip that will give you the best night's sleep. Posting on social media, an expert at EarthKind, a luxury and sustainable bedding company, revealed four 'easy steps to stay cool this summer.' I bought two splash pads from Temu and TikTok shop for £9.99 for my kids to compare - one of them is HUGE for the price The first step is all about your hygiene habits and it appears that hot showers are now out of the question. The pro advised: 'Take a shower 20 to 15 minutes before you go to sleep to cool down your body temperature.' Next up, the sleep guru shared how a flannel could be the answer to sleepless summer nights. The pro suggested: 'Take a flannel and run it under some cold water - this can be used to dab your face throughout the night to cool you down or as a cold compress on your head.' How to keep cool in hot weather Most of us welcome hot weather, but when it's too hot, there are health risks. Here are three ways to keep cool according to the NHS... Keep out of the heat if you can. If you have to go outside, stay in the shade especially between 11am and 3pm, wear sunscreen, a hat and light clothes, and avoid exercise or activity that makes you hotter. Cool yourself down. Have cold food and drinks, avoid alcohol, caffeine and hot drinks, and have a cool shower or put cool water on your skin or clothes. Keep your living space cool. Close windows during the day and open them at night when the temperature outside has gone down. Electric fans can help if the temperature is below 35 degrees. Check the temperature of rooms, especially where people at higher risk live and sleep. Not only this, but it's also important to ensure sunlight doesn't invade your home where possible. 'Make sure all your blinds are down so the sunlight does not warm up your bedroom,' the expert stressed. Finally, the EarthKind employee shared her 'favourite' piece of advice for hot sleepers. Not only will it change how you make your bed, but it'll work in just 10 minutes too.
Daily Mail
01-07-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
I've started throwing a cup of cold water over my husband every time he keeps to his lazy bathroom habits - I've been called 'bitter' but I'm tired of his excuses
A woman who began launching a cup of cold water over her husband as payback for his not switching the shower head has been criticised as 'bitter'. For 20 years, the unidentified woman has been asking her husband to switch the shower valve - the rod that sprays water from the shower head when up, and fills the bath from the tap when down. Most mornings, she steps in expecting the water to come from the tap and heat up there but, as she told the popular Reddit forum Am I The A**hole, she is instead met with a spray of freezing cold water. In an expletive-filled post, the woman wrote: 'For nearly twenty. f***ing. years. I have been asking him to push that down. Since I was literally a teenager, I have been asking him to push that f***ing thing down. 'At least twice a month I have a VERY unpleasant wakeup/cold shower, because I turn the water on, and I get a cold spray from the shower. And every f***ing time he's apologetic, and then a week or two later, it happens again. 'He will do better for a while, and then it slips in again. He is always telling me that he's working on it, and hasn't he been better about it lately. But somehow he's always working on it, always improving, but it never f***ing stops. 'Today I had just f***ing had it. I stepped into the shower, turned it on and had a very cold and rude awakening. 'I couldn't f***ing take it anymore. I grabbed the cup by the sink and filled it about 3 inches with cold water, and walked out to where he was standing naked. He had just taken off his pajamas and was going to take his shower after mine. 'Without warning, while he was looking down, I held that plastic cup firmly in my hand and I jerked that mother***er in a 45 degree angle to get that cold water all over his torso and face.' The woman told her husband she was tired of listening to him 'congratulate himself for "getting better".' She continued: 'I told him that from now on, every time I'm taking a cold shower, so is he. 'That I refuse to be a second class citizen in my own home any longer, and if he refuses to make changes to treat me better, I will instead make changes to treat him worse, because I will not tolerate this any more. 'I'm going to continue to surprise-throw a cold cup of water on him every time I get a surprise cold shower. 'I'm tired of f***ing begging for basic f***ing respect and not getting it, with the implication that I have to f***ing put up with this forever. 'So, I know I'm probably an a**hole... but am I a justified a**hole?' Obviously at the end of her tether, the woman's post sparked furious debate and racked up over 10,000 comments. Many were arguing that she was justified in refusing to tolerate insensitive behaviour any longer, while others felt she could easily fix the issue herself. One person wrote: 'For nearly 20 years you could have learned to take two seconds to look at it yourself. This is a you problem, not him.' An apparent majority of commenters shared this view, questioning why the woman steps into the shower immediately. One comment read: 'I'm honestly scratching my head at getting into the shower before the water goes on. 'Even if it's coming out of the tub faucet hot, the initial shower water will be cold. Plus, who wants to stand there naked and cold waiting for the water to heat?' But others were sympathetic, arguing that her behaviour is not pure hysteria, but the culmination of decades of harboured frustration. A commenter said: 'Can we consider the possibility that, when someone has reached the level of throwing a cup of cold water in their spouse's face, that it's not about the one minor annoyance? 'The post is pretty clear here. This is not "my husband is a caring and supportive member of the household 99 per cent of the time, but has this one blind spot". 'This is "I have spent 20 years turning myself inside out to get this person to make baby steps in pulling his weight, and nothing ever gets better." 'She feels trapped and powerless, so she's behaving like a petty a**hole. She should have left long before she got to this point.' Even responders who empathise with the woman's situation are aghast at her unusual bathroom habit of standing in the tub while the water heats up. 'You get in the shower or the tub and then turn the water on?' asked one incredulous commenter. 'You don't run the water for a few seconds to let it warm up? This makes zero sense to me. 'In my over 40 years on this planet, I have never gotten into a shower or the tub and then turned the water on because I know 100 per cent of the time, the water will be ice cold. 'So, either I am standing in ice cold water in the tub because the diverter is down, or I am jumping out of the way because the diverter is up. 'All of this, literally ALL OF THIS could have been avoided if you simply turned the water on before you got in. I can't be the only person who finds this bizarre.'
Daily Mail
27-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- Daily Mail
Expert reveals four easy steps to stay cool this summer - and one involves placing an everyday item in your freezer for 10 minutes
With temperatures on the rise and summer heatwaves setting in, staying cool is more important than ever. Thankfully, an expert at EarthKind, a sustainable bedding company, has revealed four 'easy steps' to beat the heat this summer on @earthkinduk TikTok. The footage - which racked up over 120,000 views - was captioned: 'How to cool down in bed.' The sleep expert advised that the best way to stay cool at night is to take a cold shower before going to bed. She said: 'Take a cold shower 15-20 minutes before you go to sleep to cool down your body temperature.' Next, she shared how a wet flannel could be the answer to sleepless summer nights this year. The expert explained : 'Take a flannel and run it under some cold water - this can be used to dab your face throughout the night to cool you down or as a cold compress on your head.' Another tip was to close your blinds during the day to ensure sunlight stays out of your home. 'Make sure all your blinds are down so the sunlight does not warm up your bedroom,' the expert stressed. Finally, the EarthKind employee shared her 'favourite' piece of advice for keeping cool this summer. 'Take your pillowcase and put them in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes and trust me, you will have the best night sleep with these hacks.' Many took to the comments to share that they plan to try the hacks themselves - but others were sceptical. One person said: 'I'll try it!' Another added: 'Showering before bed with cold water is bad as it makes u feel energised and increases adrenaline.' If you can't sleep in the heat, scientists may have a counterintuitive solution. Although it might seem bizarre, putting on a pair of socks before you head to bed could be the key to drifting off peacefully. Studies have shown that this simple hack can help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and get a better night of rest. Wearing socks has even been proven to be effective at bedroom temperatures up to 23°C. This strange trick works because our bodies' sleep and temperature regulation systems are deeply linked. Professor Eus van Someren, head of the Department of Sleep and Cognition at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, told MailOnline: 'The brain not only regulates body temperature, but also reads out skin temperature. It may interpret warm feet as the right moment to fall asleep.' Our core body temperature has a day-night rhythm, starting to drop in the evening to reach its lowest point around four in the morning. That means the best time to sleep is when the core body temperature is on its way down. Normally, your body would cool itself close to bedtime by sending blood to the skin in a process called distal vasodilation, which makes the skin hot. Professor van Someren says this is like 'opening the radiator in the heating system in your home.' When you put on socks, this increases the temperature of your skin and creates signals that your brain mistakes for the warming caused by vasodilation. Your brain will then believe that it is time to fall asleep, and you will find it easier to drift off. But wearing socks also helps you get to sleep in a more counterintuitive way. When our skin becomes hot, the brain's temperature control system sends a signal to the body telling it to start venting heat by sending hot blood into veins near the surface. This causes an increase in vasodilation, sending blood rushing to the skin and dropping the core body temperature down to safe levels. Dr Michael Gradisar, head of sleep science and clinical psychologist and Sleep Cycle, says that wearing socks can trick the body into triggering vasodilation. This, in turn, causes the core body temperature to drop and helps you drift off to sleep. Dr Gradisar says: 'For people who need extra help warming their feet to assist their natural thermoregulation, socks can be helpful.' That might be especially useful if you suffer from Raynaud's phenomenon, poor circulation, or other conditions that interfere with blood flow to the extremities. A study published in 2018 by researchers from Seoul National University found that wearing bed socks significantly improved sleep even when the room was a toasty 23°C. Those who wore socks to bed fell asleep 7.5 minutes faster on average and woke up more than seven times less frequently during the night.
Daily Mail
25-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Expert reveals why cold showers on hot days could kill you
The first big heat wave of the summer has sent millions in the US looking for a way to cool down, but one expert says taking a cold shower could be a fatal mistake. A massive heat dome has trapped hot and humid air over more than half the US for days, sending June temperatures into triple-digits for the first time in decades for several major cities. Professor Adam Taylor from Lancaster University explained how trying to cool your body down by jumping into very cold water actually has the opposite effect. Instead of getting your body to release excess heat, suddenly shocking the body with a cold shower tricks the human body into thinking it should keep the heat trapped inside. According to Taylor, this can be deadly for people with high blood pressure and heart conditions. Moreover, there's a risk of organ damage when the body stays too hot for too long. While these events tend to be rare, there's an extremely common problem that washing in cold water can exacerbate - body odor and unclean skin. So, while a plunge into cold water may feel like relief in a heat wave, it might actually not be helping the human body at all. Our body's optimal temperature is around 98.6°F. This temperatures ensures our body systems can function properly. When the core gets too hot, the temperature regulating center of the brain starts sending nervous signals out to the blood vessels and muscles in or near the skin – telling them to start activating their cooling mechanisms. If our core stays at high temperature for too long (around 102.2-104°F), this can lead to organ damage. So to ensure our temperature stays optimal, the body uses multiple techniques to cool itself down. For instance, the body radiates heat into the surrounding environment by electromagnetic (thermal) radiation. Approximately 60 percent of our body heat is lost this way. Sweating is another mechanism the body uses. Around 22 percent of our body heat is lost this way. When the air temperature around us exceeds our body temperature, sweating becomes the dominant mechanism for reducing core temperature. Any remaining body heat is then lost through a mixture of convection into the air or liquid the body may be in contact with and conduction into solid objects that the body may be in contact with. To support these mechanisms, our blood vessels change diameter. The ones closest to the skin dilate (widen) to allow more blood into them so they can get close to the relatively cooler surface of the skin. The body then works to circulate the blood so that heat from inside the body can be moved to the periphery to cool off. Similarly on our skin, the hairs remain flat to allow air next to the body to cool and be replaced, helping to dissipate heat. Cold shower? Of course, when the weather gets really hot outside, these biological mechanisms just don't feel like they cut it. Although diving into a cold bath or shower straight after being out in the heat might feel nice on your skin, it isn't doing what is needed to reduce the core temperature of the body. It might also be risky for some people. When exposed to cold, the blood vessels near to the skin constrict – reducing the blood flow into these areas. So, in the context of cooling the body down, jumping into a cold shower does the opposite of what needs to happen, as less blood is now flowing to the surface of the skin. This will hold the heat in and around your organs instead of getting rid of it. Basically, you're tricking your body that it doesn't need to cool down, but actually needs to conserve heat. Depending on how cold your water is, sudden exposure could even trigger dangerous consequences for some people. Exposure to cold water that is around 59°F can trigger the cold shock response. This causes the blood vessels in the skin (those in contact with the cold water) to constrict rapidly. The shock increases blood pressure as the heart is now pumping against increased resistance. This response can be particularly dangerous in people with underlying heart conditions, such as coronary artery disease. The cold shock response can also lead to an irregular heartbeat and even death when going from very hot to cold. Thankfully, these events are rare – and probably won't happen if you're just taking a cold shower or bath in your home. However, you might want to skip the cold plunge or avoid taking an ice bath on a hot day for this reason. Hot showers are also a bad idea on a warm day. Although it's sometimes said that a hot shower helps the body cool down faster, this unfortunately isn't true. Water that is warmer than the body is going to transfer energy in the form of heat into the body. This again prevents the body getting rid of heat – potentially increasing its core temperature. On a hot day, a tepid or lukewarm bath or shower is the way to go, evidence suggests 78.8-80.6°F is most effective. This helps bring blood to the surface to cool, without being cold enough to cause the body to think it needs to conserve its heat. Another reason to skip a cold shower on a hot day is that it might not help you get clean. When we get hot, we sweat – and this sweat mixes with sebum, another skin product and the bacteria on our skin, which produces body odor. Cold water has been shown to be less effective at removing and breaking down sebum and other debris on the skin, compared to warmer water, which means bad body odor will persist. Cold water also causes the skin to tighten. This might potentially trap sebum and dirt within the pores, leading to blackheads, whiteheads, and acne. However, warm or lukewarm water can help dissolve and loosen material in the pores. As you plan your escape and recovery from the heat this week, a lukewarm or cool shower or bath, rather than a cold shower, is a safer and more effective choice. This will allow your body to dissipate heat away from your core without harm. Equally, if you do feel the need to go cooler, do it gradually so you aren't shocking the body's automatic temperature regulation system into action. Turning the temperature down gradually if you want to go cold, or slowly placing an arm or leg in at a time can help with this process. This article is adapted from The Conversation, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to sharing the knowledge of experts. It was written by Adam Taylor, a professor of anatomy at Lancaster University.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Even during a heat wave, taking a cold shower might be a bad idea. Here's why
Millions of Americans might think a cold shower could help them cope as temperatures hit dangerous heights this week - but experts warn that it could do more harm than good. While the cold water may provide a feeling of relief, the body may not actually be cooling down, Adam Taylor, a professor of anatomy at Britain's Lancaster University, explained in The Conversation. Instead, you may risk circumventing the built-in mechanisms that help humans to cool down. For example, when we get too hot, the brain instructs blood vessels to widen and allow more blood to flow closer to the surface, which in turn cools us down. But, when exposed to the cold, those blood vessels near the skin contract and blood flow is reduced. 'So in the context of cooling the body down, jumping into a cold shower does the opposite of what needs to happen, as less blood is now flowing to the surface of the skin. This will hold the heat in and around your organs instead of getting rid of it,' he explained. 'Basically, you're tricking your body that it doesn't need to cool down, but actually needs to conserve heat.' That's not the only thing you may need to worry about. You may unwittingly trigger a cold shock response. That can cause dramatic changes in breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure. 'This causes the blood vessels in the skin (those in contact with the cold water) to constrict rapidly. This increases blood pressure as the heart is now pumping against increased resistance,' said Taylor, noting that it may prove especially dangerous for people with coronary artery disease and other underlying heart conditions. The cold shock response can raise the risk for stroke and heart failure, potentially even leading to death, according to the National Center for Cold Water Safety. A cold shock response in people going from hot temperatures into cold showers is rare, however. But, there are also potential benefits to just taking a cold shower, right? UCLA Health says research has found they could bolster your immunity to common colds, improve circulation, reduce inflammation, and increase metabolism. The Cleveland Clinic also explains there could be similar benefits. But, both warn about the impact of cold shock, and urge people to be aware of the symptoms. 'These may include intense stress or fear, gasping, difficulty breathing, rapid heart rate or dizziness. If this happens, end your shower and warm up,' Cleveland Clinic family medicine physician Dr. Christopher Babiuch said. Heart experts have warned against cold water immersion for anyone with an underlying condition, as not enough research has been done. "I would caution against it for anyone with a cardiac history," Dr. Jorge Plutzky, director of preventive cardiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said.
