You may have heard of the benefits of a cold shower for those a little overly sexually excited - right? Well what if I were to tell you that a cold shower has even bigger benefits if you are feeling depressed?

Now while this may be a little easier to pull off in the warmer climates, recent studies show that people who were suffering from mild to moderate depressive symptoms benefited from taking cold showers vs. a typically warm or hot shower. Participants reported an elevated mood after taking cold showers vs. their typical hot shower.

Now evidently this is not anything new. Not in the eastern part of the world anyway. In India, taking cold showers to elevate mood is a quite common practice of people and alternative medicine practitioners.

Think of it this way -- you will save money on your energy bill and this is a relatively safe, pain-free, drug-free idea to add to your depression treatment plan.

When I read about this study, I remember how one summer many years ago when I took cold showers instead of hot ones because there was something wrong with my mom's hot water heater -- and feeling extremely good afterwards. I attributed it to just taking more showers that summer (it was hot!) - but after learning about these findings and comparing that particular summer to all the other years I took a lot of hot showers, I realize that this makes a whole lot of sense.

If you want to put it the most simplest of terms - the cold water probably revitalizes your sensory system in a way that hot water just doesn't - therefore altering your mood.

So just the other day, I decided to try it -- and there was no question that I felt a lot better afterwards. So I am going to start implementing cold showers into my own personal depression treatment plan (I suffer from dysthymia) and I look forward to a better start to my really tough mornings.

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Lisa Angelettie MSW, "GirlShrink" is a psychotherapist, published author, and online advice authority. Her site GirlShrink.com is the premier "Advice & Counseling" site for women on the web. COMING SOON! Lisa's all-natural depression treatment plan. Learn how to beat your depression the drug free way at: Naturally Depression Free!