Cold water stimuli engender improvements related to vigilance and cognition

Abstract

Introduction Some recent studies have shown that cold water stimuli engender an increase in the critical flitter frequency and a decrease in the P 300 visually evoked potentials. Methodology Eighteen healthy test persons—6 of them with a mean age (AM) of 28.4 years and 12 with a mean age of 26.1 years, were randomly divided into two trial groups (cross-over design). Group A was first subjected to a 15–25 s 10–12 °C cold stimulus (so-called Kneipp face shower) and, 6 h later, to a warm stimulus (Kneipp face shower 34–36 °C). Group B was subjected to the same treatments in reverse order. The D2 vigilance and cognition test (high test quality criteria) was used to assess speed and accuracy of the test persons working behaviour 20 min before and 20 min after treatment. This test draws on visual stimuli; the parameter measured is the simple error-corrected performance result (GZ-F) which correlates highly with the cognitive abilities. Results Cold stimuli engendered a significantly larger GZ-F increase than warm stimuli: With cold stimuli, GZ-F increased from (Mean±SE) 557.13±16 to 599.56±16 (increase 42.43) (p<0.001) whereas, with warm stimuli, it increased from 577.75±17 to 605.38±16 ((increase 27.53) (p<0.001). The±values of the GZ-F differed significantly (p=0.04) between warm and cold applications. Conclusion The application of cold water stimuli to the face region is able to engender a significant increase in the vigilance and cognitive abilities.