I don’t know why I’m doing this challenge. I have never seen a study or lifestyle YouTuber advise taking cold showers. I’ll be honest: I’m running out of challenges at this point. If I’ve ever heard anyone recommend any lifestyle tip, you can be sure that I’ll be seizing it for this column.

Apparently, cold showers increase blood circulation and improve metabolism. I can confidently say that I noticed no improvement in the latter, and the former was not worth it in the slightest. For me, a shower is a relaxing experience before bed. I put on a podcast or some music, turn the heat right up and leave feeling chilled. And I mean chilled like the feeling of relaxation, not chilled like a bottle of white wine. Shivering under a stream of freezing cold water doesn’t quite have the same chilling effect as a hot one. For the minority of you that didn’t follow that virtuosic exhibition of synonymy – cold showers are bad.

Like my no-phone week, this challenge had me reverting to a time before modern technology. Yes, I am aware that humans have had hot water as long as they’ve had fire. I’m referring to when the heating of water became commonplace, following the invention of the first instantaneous domestic water heater that did not use solid fuel in 1868 by Benjamin Waddy Maughan. But I’m sure you knew that already, anyway.

Unlike the no-phone challenge, which I think is probably a positive backwards step, the cold shower challenge is most certainly a negative one. Not only does it do nothing for me – physically or mentally – it is disrespecting the legacy of Benjamin Waddy Maughan. And the legacy of Benjamin Waddy Maughan is, quite frankly, something I take very seriously. He didn’t go to such great lengths to warm our homes and our bodies, just for us to throw him and the baby out with the bath (shower) water.

I’m getting distracted. I’m supposed to be well on my way to being the perfect student, yet my progression to perfection is being hampered by a seemingly simple challenge. I am creeping back into imperfection like the heat dial on my shower kept creeping slowly back up to scalding. Maybe I just have to accept that I’m an average student. Maybe I just have to accept that I like my showers really hot. I’m just an average, really hot student. What a shame.

“The ability to turn up the temperature was irresistible.”

I was hoping that by the end of the week, I would be a convert. My initial scepticism would wash down the drain and I would be the next new member of The Church of Cold-Showertology. But it was not to be. Every time, my resolve faded after about four seconds. I have jumped into the cold English sea before, Wim Hof-style, and I quite liked it. But there was something about being able to choose the temperature myself that curbed my enjoyment in the shower. No doubt if I had the option to turn the Atlantic up a few degrees too, I would. As far as I’m concerned, keep the CO2 coming. In the shower, the heat increase does not have to take millions of years. The ability to turn up the temperature was irresistible. It was like the marshmallow challenge, where they give toddlers one marshmallow but if they don’t eat it after ten minutes they get two. Except this was with hot water. And I didn’t get a reward for sticking it out. And it was with me instead of toddlers. To be honest, it wasn’t really like the marshmallow challenge at all.

Those lifestyle-tubers would probably win the marshmallow challenge. And I bet they’d vlog about it too. It would probably be a sponsored video by Haribo. How do they do it? In regard to this particular cold shower challenge, they don’t. But, in general? How do they put their mind to something and just achieve it?

If I didn’t know so much more than them about the inventor of the first instantaneous domestic water heater, I might even be jealous! But Benjamin Waddy Maughan or not, there’s no need for jealousy. For all their millions of views, I think I prefer being an anonymous member of society – like a bottle of white wine, or a hot shower: chill.