When Dr Michael Mosley died in June, while on holiday in Greece, he was working on Just One Thing, a television version of his hugely popular BBC podcast/radio series of the same name, which had been running since 2021. He filmed enough for just two episodes, and this look at the benefits of cold showers is the first. Each instalment of the podcast was a short slice of simplicity. In less than 15 minutes, usually, Mosley would examine the idea that one easy shift in habits could improve your health. From doing yoga to eating nuts, from dancing to scoffing (a small amount of) dark chocolate and drinking coffee, his warm approach to discussing body and mind made change seem easy, understandable and, crucially, possible.
Here, he sticks to the Just One Thing format, but it’s longer and has visuals, so we get to see the effects of his single, simple change – what he refers to as a Just One Thing Challenge – on the volunteers who have signed up to try it out. First, he takes a classic early podcast episode about cold showers and uses single mother Jayne, from north Wales, as his guinea pig. Jayne explains that she is “permanently knackered” and that she is recovering from a year of colds and infections that saw her end up in hospital. The scare was, she explains, the “kick up the bum” she needed to pay more attention to her health.
Which is why she ends up agreeing to turn her usual hot shower to cold, initially for 10 to 15 seconds, with the aim of building up to 30 seconds. Unless you’ve already done it, Mosley advises, this can be “quite hardcore”, and the shrieks from Jayne’s bathroom suggest she is certainly feeling the chill. She ropes in three of her friends to join her in the challenge, and as well as the home-chilled method, they also try cold showers on the beach, water tubing in the River Dee, and, eventually, inevitably, wild swimming (presumably in a rare stretch of water not currently polluted by the sewage that water companies are dumping into them at a staggering rate).
Does it work? Well, as anyone who swims outdoors on a regular basis will be eager to tell you, it is very likely that it does indeed do you good. The daily cold shower proves to be energising, the women’s bodies slowly adjust to regular immersion in cold water, and the resulting stress relief is exactly what Jayne has been looking for. The prospect of a cold shower might be a hard sell in October, when the jumpers are coming out and the heating is going on, but overall, this is just as convincing as the podcast, and it is nice to see the sheer joy that Jayne and her friends get from splashing around in the great outdoors.
Sara Cox does the voiceover that Mosley was never able to record. Whenever you hear her voice, delivering the safety information, the disclaimers and the summaries of studies which suggest this impressive statistic or that potential area of future research, you are reminded, by way of Mosley’s absence, that this is an unfinished project. It is surprisingly poignant. So, too, is the scene in which Mosley immerses himself in a bin filled with ice water in his garden, where he is filmed by his wife, Dr Clare Bailey. “In theory this is doing me all sorts of good but it doesn’t feel that way,” he shivers, smiling at his wife as she points her phone in his direction.
Mosley’s brand of broadcasting was always so upbeat and can-do. I first came across him when he took psilocybin, or magic mushrooms, on television as part of a BBC Four documentary about the brain, and it was so fascinating that I kept up with his work ever since. Over on Channel 4’s Secrets of Your Big Shop, earlier this year, he would test out internet health trends with an impressive level of dedication, only to report back that, hmm, perhaps TikTok’s insistence on shoving raw garlic cloves up your nose to stave off a cold isn’t all that effective, or that upping your beetroot intake is probably as good an idea as everyone says it is.
We are bombarded with fads and faux-science today, particularly when it comes to the wellness industry, and Mosley had an invaluable ability to cut through the noise. There were supposed to be 10 episodes of this, and inevitably, it feels unfinished, both in episode and series form. But, as Cox suggests, it is a fitting tribute to the impact Mosley had on many viewers, and one final, warm suggestion that just one change could make all the difference.
Michael Mosley: Just One Thing aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now.
