96 MARCH 2020
ODE
to
COLD SHOWERS
By James ParkerI’d wake up, smoldering and
sighing, reel out of bed and
into the kitchen, and put
the kettle on. Then I’d think:
Well, now what? Time would
go granular, like in a Jack
Reacher novel, but less excit-
ing. Five minutes at least until
the kettle boils. Make a deci-
sion. Crack the laptop, read
the news. Or stare murkily
out the window. Unload the
dishwasher? Oh dear. Is this
life, this sour weight, this bag-
gage of consciousness? What’s
that smell? It’s futility, rising in
fumes around me. And all this
before 7 a.m.
Here’s what happens now.
I wake up, smoldering and
sighing, reel out of bed and
into the kitchen, and put the
kettle on. And then I have a
cold shower.
I don’t want to go overboard
here, reader. Life-changing,
neurosis-canceling, enlighten-
ment at the twist of a tap—I
don’t want to make these claims
for the early-morning cold
shower. But if like me you have
a sluggish seam of depression in
your nature, and a somewhat
cramped brain, and a powerful
need, throughout the day, for
quasi-electrical interventions of
one sort or another, reboots and
renewals—or if you just want
to wake up a little faster—can I
most devoutly recommend that
you give it a shot?
Do it first thing. As soon
as you get up. Don’t torture
Here’s
what used
to happen.
yourself with postponement.
And don’t muck around with
hot-to-cold transitions, tem-
perature tweakings, etc. Fling
wide the plastic curtain, crank
the tap to its coldest, take a
breath, and step right in. Not
grimly or penitentially, but with
slapstick defiance: Holy Mother
of God! Cowabunga! Here I go!
(If it’s too early in the day for
slapstick defiance, try a head-
shake of weary amazement.)
The water hits, and biol-
ogy asserts itself. You are not a
tired balloon of cerebral activ-
ity; you are a body, and you are
being challenged. You gulp air;
your pulse thumps. Your brain,
meanwhile, your lovely, furry
old brain, goes glacier-blue
with shock. Thought is abol-
ished. Personality is abolished.
You’re a nameless mammal
under a ravening jet of cold
water. It’s a kind of accelerated
mindfulness, really: In two sec-
onds, you’re at the sweet spot
between nonentity and total
presence. It’s the cold behind
the cold; the beautiful, immo-
bile zero; a flame of numbness
bending you to its will. Also—
this is important— you can still
lather up in a cold shower, and
get all your washing done: hair,
body, everything.
Then you get out, and
you’re different. Things have
happened to your neuro-
transmitters that may be asso-
ciated, say the scientists, with
elevated mood and increased
alertness. You’re wide awake,
at any rate. Your epidermis is
cool and seal-like. Your nervous
system is jangling—but melod-
ically, like tiny bells. And from
the kitchen, you can hear the
kettle starting to whistle.James Parker is a staff writer at
The Atlantic.