“The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” – Hunter S. Thompson
A friend recently asked me how long his cold showers should be:
“Should I just stay in until I can’t stand it anymore?”
Usually, I recommend 2-3 minutes — but this time I gave a different answer:
“Stay in until ~30 seconds after you can’t stand it anymore.”
Anyone who takes cold showers knows this game well:
1. We step under the cold water and our system freaks out
2. Adrenalin rises rapidly until we reach a mental breaking point
3. Our mind wants to turn the water off (“I can’t stand it anymore”)
And while there are plenty of physical benefits to cold showers (immunity, dopamine, etc), the deeper benefits, in my opinion, are unlocked in the moment when you think you can’t stand it anymore, and you stand it anyway.
The truth is, most healthy people can last ~10 minutes (or more) in cold water without a single negative side-effect.
So the limit to how long we can “stand it” is not in our body, it is in our mind.
And the simple practice of reaching your mental edge, and then pushing it a little further — in some small way, every day — might be the most potent developmental tool there is.
Most of us have no idea where our real limit is — our mind shuts us down long before we reach the outer edges of our capacity.
So the process of growing into our full capacity is very simple:
Go until you want to stop, and then keep going.
(in cold showers, exercise, internal practice, work, and life)
Enjoy 🙂
– T
P.S. Two (obvious) disclaimers:
1. Don’t go full sicko-mode every time you do anything — just pick a few key activities and push them a little bit further than your mental limit, each day (ego games not necessary).
2. Don’t do this with dangerous activities (ie. bench pressing without a spotter, taking an hour long ice bath, etc).
Obvious, I know.
But some of y’all be crazy 🙂