Skip the Energy Drink. Wake Up With a Cold Shower Instead.

There are plenty of other ways to get yourself energized in the morning even if you’re trying to cut down on caffeine and energy drinks, writes Gabe Kapler at Kaplifestyle. One notable example is one that comfort-lovers like myself normally dread: the cold shower.

Kapler writes that the benefits of taking a cold shower in the morning or after a workout go beyond the abstract of personal energy. He cites two articles that illuminate the work of medical researchers who found that cold showers both boost the efficiency of one’s circulation system and offer mood-lifting benefits due to “the stimulation of the dopaminergic transmission in the mesocorticolimbic and nigrostriatal pathway.” That’s a fancy way of saying that mood-enhancing hormones tend to emerge when exposed to cold water. No wonder taking a plunge into a cold swimming pool elicits such a wild feeling of mirth.

So if you’re looking to cut down on the amounts of sugar, caffeine, and other energy-boosting ingredients you put on your body, there are plenty worse ways to get started than with an ice-cold shower in the morning.

Below, Big Think expert Gretchen Rubin explains how habits are formed and why kicking bad ones isn’t as easy as some think: