❄️ Cold Plunge and Sauna 🔥

GM! Today we talk about saunas, where we sweat like Shaq at the free throw line 🥵 and cold plunges, where we chill out more than Leonardo DiCaprio at the end of Titanic ❄️ - minus the dramatic soundtrack!

Sauna

Think saunas are just sweaty dens filled with steam and the occasional overly relaxed stranger in his birthday suit? Think again! Beyond the haze and heat, saunas are secret wellness chambers, promising more than just an escape from the chilly weather outside.

Saunas mimic moderate aerobic cardiovascular exercise. It raises your heart rate, core temperature, and makes you sweat. If you hate running more than waking up to your alarm for work, this is a win!

This could be fantastic for if you are injured or disabled to capture some of those benefits of working out.

The real gold is that studies are showing it can give you up to a 40% lower risk of dying from all cause mortality (cardiovascular disease, stroke, dementia/alzheimer’s, etc). Much of this is because of heat shock proteins!

NERD ALERT 🤓: Saunas activate heat shock proteins. This is a stress response protein that helps protein inside your cells maintain their structure. It’s important because these help prevent proteins from becoming de-structured, which leads to aggregation, which forms plaques! Heat shock proteins can help prevent this plaque build up.

Here are some additional health benefits of a sauna:

• 🧠 Brain: Improved brain function and mental health (endorphins get released in the sauna helping depression/anxiety)

• ❤️ Blood Pressure/Heart Rate: lower after using the sauna

• 🦠 Toxins: heavy metals and other toxins are eliminated when sweat

• 🔥 Heat Adaptation: training camp for sweat glands, making you better adapted for hot days and tough workouts; basically a heatwave warrior

• 💪 Muscle Atrophy: vasodilation occurs during saunas (increased blood flow); saving grace when injured to help minimize muscle atrophy during recovery

  Dr. Rhonda Patrick (below) is an expert on sauna benefits if you are looking to dive deeper on the science!

Protocol

There are different protocols but the sweet spot from studies seems to be: 4 - 7 times a week, 174 degrees, 10-20% humidity, 15-20 mins

Duration seems to matter. One sauna cardiovascular study showed 8% for 11 mins vs 50% for 20 mins with reduction in cardiovascular disease.

It’s important to realize that many factors go into this and you will need to tweak based off your scenario.

The larger percentage of benefits lean towards individuals who are sedentary. The more in shape you are, the less the benefit you receive from the sauna since you’re already heating up your body and raising your heart rate with your workouts.

Remember the poison is in the dosing. Going too hot or staying too long won’t make you a superhuman; it might just turn you into a human raisin!

Listen to your body: I’ve been enough to know when to get out. I used to set a timer but now I realize it depends on how hot the sauna is that day, if I worked out before or not, and how intense my workout was.

After you get out, rehydrate, and after 10-15 mins has passed, how do you feel? Are you drained or do you feel good and mentally clear? With reps, you’ll find the amount that gives you the health benefits you want.

Tips and Tricks

• Start slow: Your body needs to adjust. Don’t go full baked potato right off the bat. See how body reacts and adjust time up as go.

• Bring: shower sandals, towel, water/electrolytes, change of clothes, sauna hat if you don’t care about looking like a wizard.

• Conversation: I’ve had some interesting convos with people in the sauna but also lost track of time and stayed in way too long (enjoy meeting new people, but set alarm)

• Hydration: you will sweat….A LOT. Right after replace the lost fluids and electrolytes (especially sodium) with some cold water, electrolyte supplement, or I like fruit!

• Increase heat: if room isn’t hot enough, water can be poured on rocks or sprayed on walls to increase temp through steam

• Don’t want to go to sauna: Jacuzzi or hot bath. It’s not as beneficial as sauna but 20 mins submerged from shoulders down can mimic some of the same benefits.

• How long is too long? It should mostly be comfortable and push slightly into uncomfortable at the end. If your heart rate is overly elevated, you are really uncomfortable, or dizzy; listen to that biofeedback and get out.

• Contraindications: safe for most people but avoid alcohol in/before sauna, if prone to really low blood pressure, recent heart attack, young children, or pregnant. Talk with your doctor if have concerns.

Cold Plunge 

Cold plunges are like nature's way of saying, 'Welcome to the ice age!' A quick dip in freezing water will wake you up faster than a double shot of espresso, but let’s dive deeper to see if it’s worth the hype.

While cold plunges have gained popularity for their invigorating effects, the scientific backing is as slippery as ice itself. Experts remain divided on their actual benefits.

One of the claims is around cold plunges activating more brown adipose tissue. This is a type of body fat that burns calories to generate heat, a process known as thermogenesis.

So it’s not likely the quick dip in an ice bath will turn you into a brown fat-burning machine. You’d need to embrace the cold like a polar bear to actually see those benefits.

Cold plunges can be a double-edged sword for athletes. They help reduce inflammation and muscle soreness, aiding in quicker recovery after intense workouts.

However, cold exposure may hinder muscle growth, as it can blunt the body's natural muscle-building response to exercise, making it a mixed bag for those looking to bulk up.

Translation: cold plunges post workout for athletes trying to maximize training their sport more often and sauna post workout for those that are trying to promote muscle growth (vasoconstriction vs vasodilation)

Now that we have cleared up some of the downers to cold plunges, lets get amped on the positives starting with dopamine!

NERD ALERT 🤓: Cold plunges can supercharge your brain's chemistry. The sudden chill triggers a rush of dopamine, giving you a natural high that could make even Mondays feel like Fridays. A paper released in the European Journal of Physiology shows a 2.5 x increase in dopamine release (same amount as cocaine). The difference is cocaine has a sharp peak and then it falls where dopamine from a cold plunge has a sustained, healthy increase.

Here are some of the benefits of cold plunge:

• ☕️ Morning coffee: if you wake up groggy, this will make your more alert and awake faster than a cup of joe

• 🤝 Bring people together: shared suffering builds a Bill and Ted level bond with your buddies.

• 😎 Mental toughness: doing things that are difficult increase your mental resilience and make other life challenges less daunting

• 🩸 Glucose response: cold exposure, like exercise, is showing to help improve glucose response and insulin sensitivity leading to better metabolic health

• 🤒 Immune System: science is mixed here, but there does seem to be data supporting getting sick less and improved white blood cell count to help the body be better prepared for future infections

• 🥶 Cold adapted: once adjusted to handling a couple minutes colder than a tax collector’s heart in an ice bath, those walks from car parking lot to grocery store in the winter will be cake!

Thomas DeLauer (below) always does a good job reading between the lines to take a deeper look at what the studies say!

Protocol

Protocols are all over the place, but one thing is fore sure, you don’t need a lot to get the benefit.

11 minutes per week TOTAL, split between 2-4 sessions lasting 1-5 mins each. It can be more than 11 mins total, but no need to do much more than that unless you are training for something specific.

The colder the temperature the less time you need in there.

Everyone’s tolerance is different and you will adapt to the cold as you do it.

The water should feel cold enough to where you immediately feel uncomfortable and want to get out. 50 degrees seems to be the most common, but there are some polar bear wannabes out there going into the 30s 🥶 .

Focus on your breath work. The first minute is the toughest so really think about your breath in the beginning.

When you first begin, you may shoot out after 5 secs! That is perfectly fine. Shoot for 10 secs the next time and work your way up to that 2-5 min range.

Tips and Tricks

• Don’t overdue it: it can exhaust your cells; you only want a micro stress for an acute response. This way you capture the good and avoid the bad

• Clean Tank Water: don’t just get in the same gross water every time if you have your own tank. Fill the water each time or have a built-in, chemical free filtration system.

• Submerge to Neck: best benefits is having whole body in up to neck. It’s not necessary to go all the way under.

• Breathing: Can’t hit on the importance of this enough. Stay calm. Here is a video on a breathing technique

• Cold Showers: This is free! Take your normal warm shower and finish with the water as cold as you can make. Work up to 2-5 mins.

• Placebo Affect: people do cold plunges for all kinds of reasons. Science backed or not, if something has a valuable benefit to you, keep doing it! The mental benefits people see seem to be the most powerful.

• Contraindications: heart conditions, high blood pressure, respiratory issues, circulatory disease, neurological conditions. If you are older and have health issues I would check with doctor first because cold plunges can be really intense.

• Cryotherapy: super expensive and not worth the benefit. Don’t spend the cheddar here unless you really like doing it. Do ice bath/cold shower at home instead

• DIY: Buying your own cold plunge can cost thousands of dollars. Youtube has tons of options for making your own and here is a good article on DIY

Thanks for reading!!! 🙏 If you found value in this article, please share with someone you think would enjoy it!