There is a version of me, somewhere, who has taken a cold shower every morning since August. She is smug, slightly shivering and probably very awake. That version does not exist, and never will. But before you file me under “excuses,” hear the rest of it: my individual emissions still went down this year, and the cold shower had nothing to do with it.

The cold shower is having a moment. A recent study followed 719 adults who turned their showers as cold as they could tolerate for twelve weeks, and the results were more interesting than the wellness headlines suggest. Participants who stuck with it reported feeling more alert, took pride in enduring the discomfort, and called in sick 31 percent less often than the control group. Environmentally, each person cut roughly 15 kilograms of CO2 over the twelve weeks, about the same as driving 100 kilometres. A single 40-litre shower cooled from 40°C to 15°C saves 1.3 kWh, enough to run a washing machine load.

That is real, and I respect it. I also want to name what the study’s author, psychologist Dr Lena Glaser, points out: the changes that last are the ones where people feel a personal benefit instead of a sense of loss. Many participants quit within the first two weeks; those who stayed gradually got used to it. Which tells me the discomfort was never the point. It was the price some people were willing to pay.

Why the coldest habit gets the loudest applause

Cold showers are photogenic. They fit into a video, a 30-day challenge, a before-and-after. Eating differently and moving differently are slower, quieter and harder to film, which is probably why they get less attention even though the arithmetic dwarfs the shower’s.

Consider the numbers. The most comprehensive analysis of food production to date, published in Science in 2018, found that a shift away from meat can cut the emissions of a person’s diet by up to 73 percent, and that going meat-free does more for an individual footprint than almost any other consumption change. Livestock production accounts for roughly one in seven tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted globally, according to FAO.

Then there is transport. Public transit moves a passenger with a fraction of the emissions of a solo car trip, and in a city like Brussels, where I live, the difference between driving and taking the metro is not a sacrifice. It is twenty minutes of reading. I am not always consistent about it, which is exactly the point: Glaser herself says the water does not have to be equally cold every day, because we do not feel equally brave every day. Flexibility is a good quality.

What I actually did

I stopped eating meat. I take public transport as often as I possibly can. But no cold showers.

The meals were easier than I expected, because I replaced food rather than removing it: legumes instead of mince, more cuisines that were never built around meat in the first place. The transport part required occasional early mornings and one memorable heatwave on a tram, but it also handed me reading time I did not know I had. Neither change asked me to feel brave.

I am not arguing that cold showers are pointless. If cold water is what makes you feel like a person who takes climate action, take it, and enjoy the alertness. But for the many of us who flinch at the tap handle, the study’s real message is liberating: motivation comes from the win, not the wince. Choose the uncomfortable thing you can live with.

Your turn

So here is my question to you: what would you actually consider changing? Not in a hypothetical future with a heat pump and an electric car. This week. One meal, one commute, one small renegotiation with your own comfort.

Tell me in the comments, I am curious which action you would take.

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