When you plunge yourself into cold water, two things happen. 1) Cold shock; you gasp for air, your heart starts beating like crazy and your brain goes numb before very clear thinning kicks in from the boost of oxygen. 2) All the skin pores and blood vessels all over your body clench up and push your blood back to your vital organs. To maintain body heat all our cells work even faster to burn calories and produce warmth, kind of jump starting slow mitochondria to do that!
Cold plunges are used as a low dose of external stress for a good result. It's sort of a survival method typed into our DNA; fasting, training our bodies to endure different temperatures, and even working out are all examples of strengthening yourself through discipline. Cryotherapy, ice cold showers, and cold plunges (submerging yourself in frigid water) are all used for the same benefits:
Blood circulation: Our increased heart rates and contracting blood vessels force blood to pump more efficiently though our bodies, delivering extra oxygen to the brain (thus improved cognitive function.) When your body starts heating up again your blood vessels expand, the oxygen rich blood can now flow farther back into your tissue and flush out inflammation, dead cells, and increase your nerve sensitivity. The kidneys can filter blood faster and are cleaned out in the process. This flushing and cleaning though the skin and organs helps give relief from skin conditions, and I’ve used it to greatly lessen my hereditary psoriasis.
Burn energy more efficiently: Cold shock proteins are released from your liver in response to the sudden change in temperature. These proteins speed up the repair being done in our cells and cause the mitochondria to burn energy even more quickly. We start burning a lot of energy just to maintain our body heat without shivering like crazy, and brown fat (what’s considered the “good fat” in our bodies where the most mitochondria are) work more efficiently to burn calories. When this is done often it can help boost your metabolism and retrain your body to burn fat.
Immune boost: Cold shock activates and increases T cells in our blood that fight against bacteria and infection. Strangely enough, getting really cold for a short amount of time actually helps keep you from getting sick. However you obviously don’t want to stay freezing cold for an extended amount of time, the loss of energy used to stay warm can no longer be used to help your body fight infection (that’s why we can get sick and exhausted from being wet/cold and active for so long.)
Mood boost: When all that oxygen is being pumped around and we’re still experiencing cold shock, endorphins (naturally occurring peptides) are released in our brains. These endorphins reduce pain sensation and boost mood levels, making you feel way more alive and excited. While you might not feel happy in the cold water, you’ll definitely feel good once you’re out! No one can get out of a cold shower and stay in a bad mood.
Improve sleep: Cold shock burns a lot of energy, and can kickstart your day by giving you rendered energy (because afterwards everything else seems easier.) It promotes the body’s need for rest and repair so that when you do lay down you’ll sleep much more deeply.
It’s comfortable to not work to maintain our body temperature, we live in very sheltered conditions with air conditioned houses and cars, but this makes the cold and heat even worse to experience because our bodies aren’t trained to deal with it. And when we don’t have to burn extra calories to stay warm our metabolisms slow down significantly!
Before our bodies adapt to the change in temperature, both heat and cold work as a stimulant. I’ve used stepping outside in the cold- without bundling up- to boost my energy and focus on day’s when I’m mentally exhausted, and cold showers in the morning to prepare for physically strenuous days. Honestly it makes a huge difference!
Want to challenge yourself? Unless rolling in the snow is a favorable option, the best place to start using cold shock is at the end of your shower. After you’re cleaned up and relaxed in the heat, step out of the water stream, crank it to cold, take a deep breath and plunge in. To start with all you need to do is endure ten seconds of this. Reduce the stress by controlling your breathing and calming down while experiencing the cold shock, your body will adapt faster. (You don’t have to torture yourself with ice water if you know you can’t handle it.) Once you see that you can handle the little burst of extreme temperature, you can work up slowly from there and find a comfort range for the short length of time to endure the cold!
https://youtu.be/dkWxTMaizk4?si=gXvTJN0w5_sKYmfN Barbara O'Neil Reveals: The Body Benefits of Cold and Hot Water
https://youtu.be/xTVMGyJ8cZU?si=p6EtyczwhdV0YKKs The 7 Benefits of a Cold Shower– Dr. Eric Berg
Did you learn anything from this post? Leave me a comment if you’ve ever used cold showers as a way to wake up in the morning!
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