So, in a nutshell, I’ll call my experience of hardening practice 🛀))

I previously heard about the advantages of hardening, such as improved immunity, thermoregulation, digestion, and in general “superhuman capabilities” in stressful situations 🦸))

I usually feel cold, therefore, throughout my life I treated this procedure with SPECIAL alertness and fear. Although once, about 5 years ago, I even plunged into the hole of cold water without any preparation. But then I worried for a long time about the consequences of such a rash act)). In general, I started trying to harden with Sasha's light suggestion this summer. I will write about the method of mastering this craft.

! Half baths. The first steps were, as Dada calls them, "half baths" in the morning: I washed my face, neck, arms, stomach and back behind my stomach, and feet with cold water from the tap. In addition to this, I splashed cold water in his face 10 times with his eyes open. The most “squeezing” and “goosebump-creating” was, perhaps, cold water to wet your stomach and water into your open eyes, but gradually it stopped straining. Further, after getting used to the conditions at home in Moscow, where the water is much warmer due to the laying of pipes, I began to try to make "half-baths" in the country. In the morning, the water is icy there, that's why it was a new experience, with which it was so easy and focused after breathing during pranayamas!

! Cold and hot shower. A new method of hardening after half-baths has become a contrast shower, when you wash your body first with hot water, and then with cold. I began to master this practice every day in the evenings. By priority, when switching to cold water, the whole body shuddered, and all the external organs wanted to clog up and hide closer to the internal organs)))) It took me about 10 seconds.) Abundant rubbing quickly warmed me up after. But the discipline led to the fact that this procedure ceased to be an excision. And now, I could already do it for 30-40 seconds). I fell asleep after a contrast shower, by the way, much better 😴 And yes, I became less afraid of cold water, because until the end of August I continued to swim in the Moskva River and in a quarry in the country, and in early September in the mountains of Kabardino-Balkaria I bathed in cold narzan springs with an outside air temperature of 5 degrees.

! Cold shower. The final form of the contrast shower naturally became a cold shower without the foreplay of a hot shower). I launched such a cheerful pastime in the mornings, starting from the end of summer. Immediately after sleeping out of bed, doing this was painful, difficult, uncomfortable and at the same time exciting and defiant. The face was added to the washing of the body. Rhythmic and rapid breathing, trembling of the body with goose bumps, numbness of arms and legs, I withstood for 10 seconds max, taking into account the fact that the water in the pipes becomes completely cold by winter. But nothing else woke up the body and head like those 10 seconds. Gradually I began to adapt my breathing: you need to take a deep breath to the collarbones and the same exhalation to the lower abdomen (everything is like in ujjayi breathing, only cold)). Normally, Bhastrika still started to enter - the inner fire, after all, warms the outside as well)))) For today, my time is 1.5 minutes 🥳 But after this time the neck begins to stiffen, blood seems to flow more slowly to the head, fingers and toes they're starting to "twist" quite a bit. But after the procedure, the body and face are red and saturated with fresh blood, sharp rubbing warms up very quickly.

Summarizing the effects I observed from a cold shower in the morning:

- cheerful awakening and high spirits during the day 🤪

- overcoming drowsiness and mental laziness

- a boost of energy until the evening

- there are fewer wrinkles on the face, and acne on the body

- enhanced digestive process

- immediately after a shower, I want to have breakfast even more, and the breakfast itself after a shower becomes even more delicious

- so far I haven’t been sick with anything (although earlier November-December-January was constantly ARVI).

BUT immunity is a complex thing, it’s hard to say yet how hardening has affected, a longer observation is needed. All in all, cold showers have become an integral part of my daily routine, becoming an indispensable second most important wake-up event. In the first place, of course, is the alarm clock!