This is a YouTube video titled "Best Tip For Cold Plunges? #shorts" containing a monologue from April 10, 2023, providing advice on breath work and breathing techniques to manage the nervous system and cold shock response during cold water plunges. The speaker focuses on helping newcomers have a better experience by practicing nasal breathing and relaxation before entering cold water.
I think it's really important that people do a little bit of breath work before they go into the water because they need to think about their breathing and their nervous system as the steering for how well your core plunge is going to be. And especially if you're new, this is definitely something you would like to practice before you go into the cold water and you don't go BAH! If you can stand on the jetty or before your plunge and just do some breathing with your nose, so nasal breathing in, and out and try to relax if you're standing in a cold wind. It can be difficult actually. By that you will lower your stress response so you activate your parasympathetic nervous system. I am especially concerned for the new ones. I want them to have a really good experience. That's why I'm talking to those people. But when you can do that and you have relaxed a bit, you exhale completely before you step in. If you completely exhale, you make room in your lungs. More capacity is there for you to do an inhale. You activate your gasping reflex. So you cannot really help that. You cannot control it. And when it happens at the first time or the second time, maybe just think about your breathing. So the goal is to do completely nasal breathing in and out when you're in the water and also during your cold shock response. But this is not going to happen the first time. I'm just quickly going to say that. Try to keep the inhalation through the nose and then out through the mouth.
