Cold Plunge Benefits
Feel like a warrior:
Getting out of the water after 3-5 minutes, I feel like I can do anything. I don't know if it's the dopamine reward kicking in (see below) or what, but it is a powerful moment all men should feel. It is proof I can do hard things and overcome challenges. I don't know about you, but I need as many of those moments as I can get.
Motivation:
Dopamine is your goal-seeking hormone. Anything that you want to do or achieve requires your dopamine system to provide the motivation chemicals to pursue, and to block out other distractions. It's that mildly dissatisfied, "hungry" feeling that keeps you in the game. Cold exposure lifts your dopamine and keeps it elevated for hours. The only other activity known to come close is intense physical exercise.
Stress Management:
There is a well-documented improvement in mood after cold exposure. For me, a dip in cold water turns down the volume on non-physical stress - it just seems to makes mental/emotional stresses less significant.
Go harder in the gym:
You will be able to do more at the gym right if you get in there pretty quickly after your cold plunge. The cold exposure has a documented effect on the ability of muscles to perform work. I like to go within a half hour after my cold plunge, while I'm still feeling a bit of a chill, but long enough after that my muscles have warmed up a bit and regained their sensitivity. I can dial up the weight 10-15% in this state.
Improved health:
Cold exposure has been linked to multiple measures of overall improvement in health. Release of anti-inflammatory compounds, improved insulin sensitivity, improved immune function, and tissue recovery after intense exercise (Note: this may reduce gains, do your own research and decide what is important for you.) have all been linked to cold plunge practice
Powerful wake-up routine:
Nothing sets my morning up right like my cold plunge. With 3 kids, dadding can be a real struggle. Doing a cold plunge blasts away that sleepy feeling and gets my mind right, right away. This is just a personal anecdote, but I've also found it works as a cure for a mild hangover.
My Cold Plunge Journey
I love playing around with new supplements, therapies, etc, to try and feel some magic improvement in energy, mood, or health. I guess that’s bio-hacking?
Most of the time, these tests don’t have a dramatic noticeable impact. I’ll do them for a while, not feel anything, and drop off. However, cold water exposure is NOT the same. When you get in the cold water, and it takes your breath away, you know that you are doing something real to your body. When you get out, you feel like a warrior, like you can do anything.
I started cold water exposure after hearing Wim Hoff on a podcast, and deciding to try cold showers. Municipal water was a great intro, it’s just not that cold. After a while, I switched to just a cold bath. Worked great, but again, not that cold, and I hated the amount of water I was just flushing down the drain.
Next step was to purchase a permanent tub and use ice to chill it. Because I knew I didn’t want to keep buying ice, I filled ziploc bags and froze them. I had to schlep them back and forth to the freezer.
After doing that for a month and having several of the bags fail, I started using ice gel packs, like for keeping food items cold during shipping. These worked better, but took a lot of space in my freezer, and also, it was hard to get very cold with a reasonable number of ice paks.
After a couple of days of real deal party ice bags from the grocery store, I decided it was time to step up to the big boy, the chiller. This made all the difference. I was finally able to control the temperature, and get it chilling-ly cold. Everything after that has been an incremental improvement on the road to the perfect, simple, DIY cold plunge.
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