I go hot for the muscles, pores, and lungs. At the end I wind it down to freezing or as close as I can get, a bit at a time. Typically ends in some kind of barbarian spiritual catharsis involving grunting. Then I picture polar bear club and want to die.
I like to do the same and put myself face first into the cold ass water and act like I'm some wild man standing under a freezing waterfall and gasping for breath.
Exactly! I recently installed a double showerhead, so now when I look straight up, it's immersive and horrible! I start taking meditation breaths right before ratcheting the temp down.
I have easier ways to provoke a fight or flight response from my brain, such as receiving a phone call from an unknown number, or having to schedule an appointment in advance
Jokes on you, I can disable the old card and order the new one though the mobile app now! Which happened at least once already. Welcome to the future, where we automate away the human contact and I'm all for it
Cool thing is you can train your flight or fight response with things like cold plunges to be more useful. Cold showers might be a way to reduce your unneeded response to harmless things like phone calls.
Only time I intentionally took a cold shower was after a long bike ride, wearing formal clothing, in the middle of summer. It was freeing and very cold.
The trick is to start at the end of your limbs and move slowly inward until you think you had enough, and definitely not so fast you start to pant: The calmer you are, giving time for the body to switch to the change, the more you'll be able to take, so take it slow. Also don't feel obliged to use only the cold tap, especially in winter that can be rather extreme. Just up to elbows and knees more often than not get you that nice metabolism boost and that's a perfect pre-coffee, OTOH some days are torso days and even others are head days.