It started 70 days ago. I was sitting with my friend near Lviv's National Opera after university, and he told me that he was taking a cold shower every day. I was impressed and recalled that I was trying to implement that habit in my life last summer, but I was struggling to do that every day because eventually my passive dopamine sources ate that habit, like a lot of other cool habits. But now I was in another situation where I had additional energy for anything because I reduced social media time so much. When I started, I had around 4 hours of social media per week, now I have zero.

One more try

And this time I decided to try again but with an absolutely new approach. I didn't force myself to do that in the best way every day, you know, by instructions like I used to do to earn maximum from the habit. I had a rule that I should just feel uncomfortable in water every day even if it's just a little bit colder than normal, or I could use cold water only for my lower body for some days when I didn't have enough motivation and energy for something more.

And that way of doing habits is a very effective way to keep the chain and reach such a big streak like mine. Actually, I have skipped two days during these 70, but I don't want to underrate that achievement, because that is actually big, and I don't know people who have the same streak as mine or similar, and it makes me so proud of myself.

I had such "soft" rules, but I used them less than 10 times, because when you are already under the water, it is much easier to make water colder and colder because "Why do I stand here then?". I have never experienced something like that. I had always been thinking that I should always control my habits, especially such difficult habits like this one, but the disappearance of social media from my life and such a soft approach just changed the game. And love it.

Feelings

Actually, a cold shower and especially a cold bath can increase dopamine levels up to 250%. And it is much more than food, sex, or social media, but the key difference between them is that a cold shower increases it slowly, and that is why we aren't doing that like American rappers doing drugs.

But sometimes when I mixed a cold shower with power training, I experienced such a strange feeling when I was going outside and a smile on my face suddenly appeared and I was feeling so happy without any reason, and I don't understand why. I was trying to hide the smile, but it was coming back. That is probably good, yeah? I think that is that mix of neurotransmitters in my brain after these two activities. Or I am just a joker.

But sometimes it has another effect. Sometimes I become so calm and feel like my brain just doesn't think about anything. I noticed that only two times, so we can say that it's just an anomaly that is triggered by something else, but it was interesting and very similar to expressive writing after-feeling.

Aftertaste (so happy)

Five days ago I was tired and didn't want to do cold shower and I thought that it is the end of this "cold story", but on the next day I just couldn't go outside without a cold shower session, and that is awesome really. Also, i have noticed that last several days water becomes colder and colder, and i am so happy to see that now I can use such a cold water. And thanks to my friend for giving me idea of comeback to the habit without any motivation words just by showing good example.