Showering

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Red
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Re: Showering

Post by Red »

@brimstoneSalad I think my showerhead is already low flow. I don't turn the water all the way on anymore, and I shampoo less (I use a showercap since it's a pain in the ass to dry my hair, and it's irritating to have it even slightly wet).

@Jamie in Chile Thanks for the advice, I'll take it into account.

I just wanted to know, is it healthier to take cool/cold showers? I'm gradually preferring them more the more I do them.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Showering

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Red wrote: Tue Jun 18, 2019 7:25 pm I just wanted to know, is it healthier to take cool/cold showers? I'm gradually preferring them more the more I do them.
Some people argue it is, and to take them less frequently, to preserve the oils on your skin. Hotter and more frequent showers may disrupt that.
It seems like a pretty weak argument to me, but you may be able to find more info on it if you search.
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Re: Showering

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Red wrote: Tue Jun 18, 2019 7:25 pm I just wanted to know, is it healthier to take cool/cold showers? I'm gradually preferring them more the more I do them.
It is healthier, it improves blood flow into your skin through capillaries. Natural reaction of body is to restrict blood flow into skin to prevent temperature drop in your core. After shower, when you massage skin by drying it with towel, the body dilates capillaries and pumps more blood to skin. Same effect applies to muscles and is good after exercise, because it helps flush metabolic waste from muscle out, and bring nutrients in.

Your body also learns how to deal with cold shock response and how not to overreact to it and if you take cold showers for 3-5 minutes, then over time body also improves in generating chemical heat (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10825419). It is not as good as winter swimming, but it is better than hot shower.

It also can help to improve your mental health (maybe even with depression https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371197/). Also enjoying long hot shower maybe indication of poor mental health.

But back to the original topic. I live in Europe, so the climate here is mild. Last year I started with winter swimming and part of that is showering in cold water. Over colder months I shower after exercise (usually every two days) in warmish shower (because I sweat a lot) with cold water at the end and keep it under 10 minutes. Over summer, I take shower every day. Cold water helps me with timing, also I turn the water of when using soap. I'll try to measure, what is my usual water consumption over one shower.

What is your overall daily water consumption? I live alone in a flat and trying to stay under 80 liters a day. Average consumption in my area is 107 liters a day.
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Re: Showering

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brimstoneSalad wrote: Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:21 pm
Red wrote: Tue Jun 18, 2019 7:25 pm I just wanted to know, is it healthier to take cool/cold showers? I'm gradually preferring them more the more I do them.
Some people argue it is, and to take them less frequently, to preserve the oils on your skin. Hotter and more frequent showers may disrupt that.
It seems like a pretty weak argument to me, but you may be able to find more info on it if you search.
If you are using soap (and what soap) have much bigger impact on preserving skin oils, than temperature of water itself. That is why I'm using soap / shampoo on hair, private parts, armpits and feet.
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Re: Showering

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It's been a while since I posted on the forum but I am back!

I forgot to tell you guys about a teacher I had in high school who didn't shower. Well, he did shower, but he only showered once a week and he kinda smelled not good. I guess the best way to describe it is that oily scent your hair gets when you don't wash it, but like 20 times more potent. I mean, he was kinda overweight IYKWIM, so maybe that played a part?

He was a nice guy, good teacher, intelligent, but this was a questionable thing per se. He was a health teacher (as well as the biology teacher) and he told the health class that the reason why he didn't shower a lot was to save water. I question this, since isn't pretty much all of the water we use going to be recycled anyway? The water we drink has been consumed by organisms for like a billion years, and there is a very tiny amount of drinkable water on this planet that organisms can access, so if it all dried up, I doubt life would've thrived. I mean sure, in some instances, water is wasted, but unless you live in an area that is susceptible to droughts, it's virtually impossible to waste water if I'm not mistaken. Maybe I'm missing something?

I probably should've told him that there are more effective ways of saving water, like not eating meat since like a thousand gallons are consumed for just a pound of beef, (but I thought that would've been confrontational) or instead of only showering once a week, just take a quick 3 minute shower every other day.

Has anyone met someone who didn't shower?
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Re: Showering

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Right, unless it's in an area that has water shortages, moderate household water usage isn't really an environmental issue.
Irrigating huge grass lawns can become one just because of the huge volume, but showers barely take anything.
Meat is a much bigger issue than taking showers, and not just for the water. I know what you mean about not wanting to be confrontational... not taking showers and smelling bad isn't courteous, though, and it can also affect your prospects in many ways. Who knows, he might have appreciated (and benefited from) some correction on that issue. He might not have accepted it from a student, though.

It's really just the HOT water that's the issue, because that's energy down the drain.

Here's a thought: in the winter you can plug the tub and let that hot water sit there until it's cold (and the heat will release into your house, lowering your heating bill a tiny bit, and the humidity will stay in your home too, which is usually needed in the dry winter air).
In the summer, obviously doing that would just heat your house more which is something you don't want and waste more energy on air conditioning.

So there's one idea: hot showers in the winter but let the water cool in the tub before you drain it to keep most of the heat in your house, and cold showers in the summer.
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Re: Showering

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brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 6:29 pm Irrigating huge grass lawns can become one just because of the huge volume, but showers barely take anything.
Honest question, I agree that lawns should be removed from Earth, but how do you think we should go about getting rid of them?
I guess we can make it legal universally to allow gardening on lawns, then create programs for people to come in and garden on your lawn for you if you don't like exercise, might create a few jobs.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 6:29 pmMeat is a much bigger issue than taking showers, and not just for the water.
Well yeah, but I mentioned that specifically because that's what we was concerned about.
I do think he believes climate change is real and manmade, but I don't think he thinks it's a huge threat to humanity since the climate has changed before. :roll:
I don't really hold that against him too much, since he's a biology teacher and this isn't necessarily his area of expertise (I've told everyone about my earth science teacher who denied climate change), but I would expect that a man of science would follow what the experts say. He is also the scientific inquiry teacher, which is a class for scientific literacy, but whatever.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 6:29 pm I know what you mean about not wanting to be confrontational... not taking showers and smelling bad isn't courteous, though,
Yeah but it's rude to tell someone they smell like ass. Social norms are weird.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 6:29 pmWho knows, he might have appreciated (and benefited from) some correction on that issue. He might not have accepted it from a student, though.
I don't think he would have appreciated it. The last few days of class, we watched a few episodes of Penn and Teller's Bullshit!, and we watched the one on PETA (which I dreaded) and he said that one was a particularly important one.
It's funny now, since Penn basically went vegan, albeit for health reasons.
brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 6:29 pmHere's a thought: in the winter you can plug the tub and let that hot water sit there until it's cold (and the heat will release into your house, lowering your heating bill a tiny bit, and the humidity will stay in your home too, which is usually needed in the dry winter air).
I don't have a bathtub. ;(
brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 6:29 pmIn the summer, obviously doing that would just heat your house more which is something you don't want and waste more energy on air conditioning.
I know this makes me sound sanctimonious, but I don't like the temperature in my house to be too cold. I like a nice 72 degrees, but my mom always wants it at 67, and she gets angry at me if I try to change it.
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Re: Showering

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Red wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 7:07 pmHonest question, I agree that lawns should be removed from Earth, but how do you think we should go about getting rid of them?
I guess we can make it legal universally to allow gardening on lawns, then create programs for people to come in and garden on your lawn for you if you don't like exercise, might create a few jobs.
Just overruling *requirements* to have lawns either through legislation or the courts would be a big start, then beyond that you could institute steep taxes on sod and grass seed as well as various weed killer products meant for lawns. Use the taxes to subsidize climate appropriate local plants and trees, and encourage family gardens.

A program where urban farmers could rent sections of lawns would be pretty cool, yes.
Red wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 7:07 pmYeah but it's rude to tell someone they smell like ass. Social norms are weird.
An anonymous letter or online petition might work; the latter could count signatures, limiting it to one per IP so he could see that multiple students and peers feel that way.
Red wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 7:07 pmI don't think he would have appreciated it. The last few days of class, we watched a few episodes of Penn and Teller's Bullshit!, and we watched the one on PETA (which I dreaded) and he said that one was a particularly important one.
It's funny now, since Penn basically went vegan, albeit for health reasons.
It's such a lazy episode, they made it out like PETA was for and against euthanizing stray animals and contradicting themselves.
There are plenty of problems with PETA without making things up. You might want to direct him to some criticism of that episode and explain that you don't think it's appropriate to share clearly biased anti-animal-rights propaganda in class.
Red wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 7:07 pmI know this makes me sound sanctimonious, but I don't like the temperature in my house to be too cold. I like a nice 72 degrees, but my mom always wants it at 67, and she gets angry at me if I try to change it.
67 in the summer? Yikes.
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Re: Showering

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We have a lawn and there is no way I am going to let the grass die because neither wife nor landlord would agree to it. There is a sprinkler system and the grass is something like 1000-2000 sq metres and uses up more than the whole household use probably to water it.

There is some lake some miles from here that dried up and I saw a post on facebook where someone had an arial photo and posted all the gardens with lawns around the dried up lake to try and shame them into letting the grass die in summer. It can be grown back of course in the winter.

In some places, such as Europe north of the alps, you can maintain a lawn without watering it. In the UK 3 weeks in a row without a single drop of rain would be very unusual, even in summer.
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Re: Showering

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Jamie in Chile wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:18 pm We have a lawn and there is no way I am going to let the grass die because neither wife nor landlord would agree to it. There is a sprinkler system and the grass is something like 1000-2000 sq metres and uses up more than the whole household use probably to water it.
I feel for you, that must be very frustrating.
Maybe you can plant more drought tolerant grass and let it take over? There are lesser of evils out there.
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