About eighteen months ago, I wrote a short post about taking cold showers as a way of building discipline and structure into my life.
I had no idea what that post would start.
Since then, Cold Shower Therapy™ has taken on a life of its own.
Cold Shower Therapy™ by The Numbers
- My TEDx talk on Cold Shower Therapy™ has been viewed over 45,000 times.
- Over 7,500 people have watched me demonstrate how to take a shower.
- Almost 20,000 people have watched video 1 and video 2.
- Hundreds of people have actually taken the Cold Shower Therapy™ challenge.
- I’ve received more hate mail about CST than about anything else I’ve ever written.
- I’ve had COUNTLESS people yell at me and tell me how stupid I am for talking about this concept. I’ve had the pleasure of reading hundreds of insightful YouTube comments letting me know which wonderful things I should go do to myself. Pro tip: never read YouTube comments.
- Several people have had 200+ long cold shower streaks. One person even had 500+ days of cold showers. What?!
As a general rule, if you’re making some people mad, you’re doing something right.
So We’re Doubling Down
One of my goals for IMPOSSIBLE going forward is to move people beyond words and towards action. Talk is cheap but your actions don’t lie.
As part of that, we’re going to create tools that make it easy for people to take action and to put into action the strategies we talk about here. First up, we’re going with the most basic of all the challenges we have here, Cold Shower Therapy™. Now we have it in app form.
>> Download The CST App Today <<
The Cold Shower Therapy™ App Is Available for iOS Today.
Here’s what you can do with version 1.1 of the app.
- Time your showers.
- Play a motivational song to help you through the five minutes (I recommend “Eye of The Tiger” and “Can’t Hold Us”).
- Set a reminder alarm to remind you to take your cold shower at a specific time.
- See your streak on a calendar (Seinfeld-style) and have a visual reminder to help you keep going.
- Share your streak with others.
Coming up, we’ll have a leader board, a few Easter eggs, and the continual refinement of the overall concept. We’ve also got an app for Android coming soon!
Getting Feedback & Making It Better
We’d love your feedback. Here are a few things to note.
- If you like the app, please rate it with a billion stars (or five) in the app store. Ratings are huge and solid ratings would help the concept of Cold Shower Therapy™ reach even more people.
- If you don’t like the app, you find a bug, or you want to let me know something, just shake your phone to submit a bug report or error.
- For those of you on Android, we have a version coming for you soon.
We’ll have more and more tools coming out in the near future, but, for now, I’d love your feedback on this. You can download the Cold Shower Therapy™ app right here.
Take the Cold Shower Therapy™ Challenge. Download the CST app from iTunes. I’d love to hear what you think!
>> Download The CST App Today <<
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I have the app, and am using it. Great app! This morning was my third cold shower in a row. I am 10% finished with the 30 day challenge!
I used to think I was crazy for considering this. Now? Well, I might still be crazy, really, it’s only cold. It’s not impossible!
Android my friend…
What about us Droid folks??
Read the full post! We have an android version coming!
My bad. Awesome, can’t wait!
Hey Numbnuts!!
Thanks for killing my phone. I took it in to my cold shower and now It’s not working 😉
Hey Joel,
Ran into your blog yesterday (came from NerdFitness) and decided to start doing cold showers. Today was day 2 our of 30. It’s awesome!
I don’t think I need the app, but what has worked well for me is putting on an awesome song and going all in when the chorus begins 🙂
Thanks for the nudge!
Best,
Mike
I took the cold shower for 5 minutes about a week ago. talk about brain freeze. I know I am alive. since then I have turn down the hot water by about 90% and the last 2 minutes I have cold water running.
I definitely think there should be additional “streak” functions. I mean, as long as you are taking a cold shower, streaking seems like it should be part of the package.
Hey Rebecca,
We’re gonna be adding in functions here pretty soon. There’s going to be a leader-board & more, but we wanted to get the first iteration out & share it with everyone 🙂
Dang Babbitt. It’s only for IOS 6 or later. You should update the article so those of us with old school iPods and no fancy smart phones don’t get our hopes up. Sounds awesome, wish I could utilize.
Awesome…I tried cold showers a few months back in the week leading up to my first Tough Mudder but then it kind of fizzled out. Need to get back on it.
One question, i’d be interested to know whether anyone else has the same problem…? My shower doesn’t actually get that cold (unless we’re out of hot water then its freezing!) so doesn’t quite feel like i’m doing it properly. But hey, it’s close enough I guess.
Thanks for the push to try CST! Man, it was invigorating!! I’ll check out the app.
– Ezra @EattheRat
I don’t have the app…although I am test driving an Android device right now…is it available? And I’m nearing on 3 straight years of CST every single morning. I stopped counting at 1000 days. Didn’t wanna intimidate anyone. 🙂
Hi Joel:
I love the app and I’ve been on a streak of about 33 days. In my business, it’s helped me to tackle head-on tasks and projects that I’d normally tend to avoid or procrastinate on. Thank you for making it happen.
I do have a problem though. While the calendar in the app shows I have an uninterrupted 33 day streak, the counter suddenly reset to 1 yesterday. Any suggestions? Also, sorry I’m putting this request here. I tried to shake my iPhone 6 Plus in order to report this problem, but that didn’t work.
Thanks,
Eddie