Cold plunges and other brief painful stimuli can improve dopamine receptor sensitivity, helping manage stress and depression at no cost. The video explains how controlled discomfort rewires your nervous system to handle difficulty better.
It turns out that doing something painful for a minute every day changes dopamine receptor sensitivity and cold plunge counts. So does whipping yourself the way monks used to, or getting a tattoo, which a lot of people do if they're depressed. And it turns out that throughout the rest of the day, it takes less stimulus for you to benefit from the dopamine levels that you have. So for people with ADHD or attention issues, or just a lot of stress, or people who just want to be able to expend less willpower to do what they want to do, that one minute of painful stuff, which can include a cold plunge, it benefits you psychologically and from a motivation perspective, entirely different than the endorphins you get, entirely different than the cold shock proteins, all those other biohacking benefits. This is a new benefit in cold plunge or frankly, getting a spanking. Doing something that hurts, as long as it doesn't hurt you, is totally fine.
