How to get healthy with only cold water??? You are in a right place!

What is Zakalka? Generally speaking it is a method to improve your health and overall well-being. For me and many others Zakalka is done through cold showers. That is the reason why I call it Cold Water Therapy. The Cold Water Therapy (cold showers) is basically taking cold shower for a short period of time in the end of your regular hot shower. For instructions on how to perform Cold Water Therapy go to the page "The Method ( how to...)" on the left side bar.

I have been doing Zakalka in different forms for over 10 years. I do swim in frozen lakes and cold pools. Unfortunately and even though if done properly it can benefit your health, swimming in frozen lakes might have its own disadvantages and effects on your body. It is also somewhat extreme, and perhaps for some people, might be even dangerous. Therefore I will not cover that subject on this website.

Other forms of Zakalka may include: Rubbing snow on skin, running in cold-rainy weather, and more...

Note that Cold Water Therapy, as I see it, is not a spiritual procedure but rather physiological-psychological.

Benefits of Cold Water Therapy (Zakalka):

Psychological benefits:

- Remember that when you do it regularly you train your mind and body to exercise. And like other exercises (running, cycling, swimming, martial arts...) Cold Water Therapy will boost your self-esteem and help you develop stronger character.

- It also acts as Anti-depressant.

Physiological benefits:

- Strengthen your immune system

- Improves blood circulation

- Reduction in muscle soreness (ever heard of athletes treated with cold tubs?)

- Better skin(less wrinkles)

- Strengthen nerve system

- Increases oxygenation of the body

- Improves quality of sleep

- Help lose weight (according to some studies)

More things to consider:

Cold Water Therapy should be one of the forms of your healthy life style. What do I mean by that? Here are some essentials(I will not get into details but you can find a lot of articles and books about each and one of them) :

- Think positive and believe in yourself. Remember that it all begins in our thoughts (imagination).

- Healthy diet.

- Exercise regularly.

- Good amount of sleep and rest.

- Avoid too much alcohol. Avoid smoking and drugs.

I strongly suggest doing the above mentioned as a whole set.

Researches and articles:

watch?v=bW67zFufRio

"Exposure to cold is known to activate the sympathetic nervous system and increase the blood level of beta-endorphin and noradrenaline and to increase synaptic release of noradrenaline in the brain as well. Additionally, due to the high density of cold receptors in the skin, a cold shower is expected to send an overwhelming amount of electrical impulses from peripheral nerve endings to the brain, which could result in an anti-depressive effect" (Shevchuk 2007).

"Losing weight with cold showers is possible, according to the 2008 study, "Human Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Uncoupling Is Associated With Cold Induced Adaptive Thermogenesis." This means that human brown fat tissue can increase fat burning in response to cold temperatures. One simple way to do this is to take cold showers."

More quotes(simplified) :

Cold showers may: increase blood level of beta-endorphin and noradrenaline and increased synaptic release of noradrenaline in the brain as well (Shevchuk, 2008), stimulate the peripheral nerve endings to the brain, which could result in an anti-depressive effect (Shevchuk, 2008), improve the sympathetic nervous system (Shevchuk, 2008), reduce muscle soreness after running a marathon (Liang et al, 2001), improve quality of sleep (Onen et al, 1994), help with antioxidative adaptation (Brenke et al, 1994), improve tone of the skin and muscles (Mergeay et al, 1990), and decrease of uric acid level in blood plasma (Brenke et al, 1994).

Cold Water Therapy

Dr. Oz Demonstrates Cryotherapy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW67zFufRio

Dr. Oz Demonstrates Cryotherapy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW67zFufRio