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Six years ago, I started taking Scottish Showers, which are ice cold then finish with a warm rinse. By the end of the year, I abandoned the warm rinse altogether and stayed ice cold the entire time, even during the mountainous Utah winter.

Cold showers still take my breath away on extremely frigid days, but I love how they make me feel. In addition to the scientific skin, blood circulation, and immunity benefits of cold showers, the act cools me off after a hard workout and gives me a free energy boost at the start of each day.

But there is another benefit of cold showers I absolutely love and take advantage of once or twice a week: they turn my hot showers into a built-in hot tub or steam room. For example, on Sundays I always take a relaxing hot shower. I did this yesterday and felt like a Turkish king.

Additionally, I sometimes take hot showers after an extra fatiguing day of soccer with friends or after I pull a muscle or something. Again, this turns my shower into a free therapy station. But even then, if I know I have to be somewhere, I’ll finish with an ice cold rinse to get me going.

Now some of you might be thinking, “Uh, Blake, you realize you can take hot showers everyday in the developed world?” Of course I do. But after taking ice cold showers virtually everyday for the last six years, the benefits far outweigh the discomfort.

I’ve become so addicted, I get disappointed while showering closer to the equator, because there is no such thing as cold showers there. 😭 In a world filled with mindless “life hacks,” this one truly is a keeper.