Cold Shower Therapy™ (daily five minute cold showers) has become one of the most interesting things I’ve talked about since starting IMPOSSIBLE. I’ve received more stories and more hate mail about this one concept than about almost anything else I’ve written. Here’s the premise of CST:
If you can’t do something uncomfortable and difficult for five minutes in the shower, how the hell are you going to do something uncomfortable or difficult in real life?
If you’re clueless about what CST is, here’s your CST starter guide.
Since I’ve started writing about CST, over 23,000 people have taken a cold shower with me. I was asked to do a TEDx talk, which I made about CST. I almost backed out as the idea of speaking at a TEDx event was intimidating and public speaking always makes me feel a little nervous.
But I took my own advice, took a cold shower, sucked it up, and did the talk. It was to a small group of people in an auditorium at Loyola University in Chicago and, while people enjoyed it, I didn’t expect what happened next.
Eighteen months later, that talk has been viewed over 100,000 times on YouTube (and has received way too many scary internet comments). If you haven’t seen it yet, here it is:
And to think that I almost didn’t do the talk because I was nervous. Cold Shower Therapy™ really does work (and I really do use it!).
The Cold Shower Therapy™ App
We’re now working on expanding outside of the blogosphere to create real tools to help people. Our sister site Ultimate Paleo Guide just released a paleo food app (Paleo.io) and today we’re releasing a new version of the Cold Shower Therapy™ app.
We’ve given the app a new design and a few extra features that people were asking for. It now has a leaderboard and a streak tracker, which will help you to keep practicing being uncomfortable on a regular basis. On top of that, we’ve got a whole slew of updates coming soon, as well as an Android version. And, of course, as we get more feedback, we’ll be adding more requested features along the way.
This is just the start. There are a lot more tools like this up our sleeves and there are a few new projects coming soon that you might have to take a cold shower to prepare for.
Download The Cold Shower Therapy™ App.
Then take a cold shower (and leave a review if you liked it).
I’m going to be using the app myself to get ready for my upcoming challenge. It’s the toughest challenge of my life so far and I’ll need a cold shower (or thirty) to be ready for it.
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Am a huge fan of CST (bought the course and got a lot of value from the daily emails). The leaderboard aspect of the app looks fun. If you’re not an iPhone user and looking for an alternative for Android to track your streaks, search for “Habit Streak Plan” for free version, and there’s a paid version to “Habit Streak Pro” in Google Play store. (Didn’t include links for fear of being dismissed as spam – I’m a real person and do use the app to track my showers and other habits I’m tracking). Great work on the TED talk Joel – watched it many times.
I feel bulletproof when I’m done with my cold shower. Very few things I’ve tweaked in my life have had such an amazing and immediate impact as doing this challenge has. So thank you for the knowledge!