I built a home made Ice bath.

🐄 Cattle stock tank
🧊 Hydroponic chiller
⛽ Mini pool pump
🪵 Cedar enclosure

I love the process of building physical things, and I love using it.

There are tons of health benefits (apparently), but that isn’t really the reason I love it. That’s kind of in the abstract.

I love it for a 4 reasons:

1. It puts you in the moment. An absolute focus on the now. That presentation on Monday? No longer matters. You’re just dealing with the cold.
2. We rarely encounter physical discomfort anymore — it’s a very grounding / bodily experience.
3. It’s a (rare) forced refuge from my phone and digital distractions
4. It sucks

It’s uncomfortable. But afterwards, I feel good.

To do something difficult that you don’t want to do, and come out the other side feels great.

It’s satisfying. You build confidence, and resilience to difficult things.

It’s like the Japanese ritual, Misogi (禊).

The practice of Misogi has a rich history that dates back to Ancient Japan, where it was used as a method of purification and spiritual development.

Japanese Shinto culture, Misogi involved submerging oneself in cold water — often standing underneath a waterfall — to cleanse the mind and body.

In modern times, its evolved way beyond just cold exposure, to people trying to do an extremely challenging (and memorable) thing each year that has a profound impact on the other 364 days. Like an ultra marathon, or climbing a mountain.

The principle is the same though: In order to be constantly getting better, you need to do something difficult. Mental toughness grows though adversity.

It’s about pushing oneself to the limits in order to dig deep and find a new level of strength, determination and resilience.

It’s also a great for mindfulness practice. Being able to control your emotions in response to (uncomfortable) stimuli is powerful.

We can observe something that’s uncomfortable, witness it, but not be swept away.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

Reminds me of a scene from one of my all time favorite movies, Lawrence of Arabia.

T.E. Lawrence favoured pinching a burning match between his fingers to put it out.

When asked by his colleague William Potter to reveal his trick, how is it he effectively extinguished the flame without hurting himself whatsoever, Lawrence just smiled and said…

“The trick, Potter, is not minding it hurts.”