An "Ice Bath On Steroids"? Comparing Cryotherapy, Cold Water Immersion, The Latest Cold Therapy Tech & More With Maria Ensabella.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on.

This episode of the Boundless Life podcast.

We go down to minus 130 degrees with cryotherapy. To get the true effects, your skin temperature needs to drop by 15 degrees. It's just so that it drops enough to trigger the fight or flight that we talked about earlier. Because if it's not getting cold enough, then those benefits are not going to come. Your blood's not going to rush your core, it's not going to oxygenate the blood and give you the benefits the cryotherapy does. Because if it's only dropping by a little bit, then that's not enough for the body to say, hey, let's go through that process to get you the benefits of cryotherapy.

Welcome to the Boundless Life with me.

Your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and.

Nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you.

Discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and beyond. I know everybody's in the cold. I talk about cold on this podcast, obviously here and there for a long time. And I would say one of the most common questions I get, whether I'm speaking on some stage about cold therapy or somebody's writing into the podcast or I'm out at dinner with friends, is what's the difference between cold water immersion and cryotherapy and which one's better? And of course, there's many other questions people ask about cold, like how cold should the water be? If you're doing water, how long do you need to be in there? What exactly is going on? Is it bad for you if you're stressed out? I haven't really addressed a lot of this stuff thoroughly in like one mighty podcast on cold, so I figured, what the heck, let's take a dive into cold. I've I guess my guest on today's show will tell you whether we're going to be taking a dive into a cold water or cryotherapy chamber. But nonetheless, my guest is somebody I met in London. I traveled to London for this fantastic biohacking expo called the Health Optimization Summit each year. And Maria Ancibella, my guest on today's show, is always kind enough to throw me in a cryotherapy chamber and give me an IV and do a few treatments on me when I'm over there at her clinic called London Cryo. So I've known of Maria for a few years, and then recently I got this book, if you're watching the show notes, they're@BenGreenfieldLife.com CoolPodcast I got this book that I'm holding up to the camera in the mail a few weeks ago called Reinventing Cool. As you can see, it's not very big so it's easy to read, but it's pretty densely packed with a lot of really good information on kind of what's going on physiologically in the cold. And also this age old question, cold water immersion or so called CWI versus cryotherapy. So I figured I'd get Maria on and we geek out on cold stuff for a while. So Maria, welcome.

Thank you very much. Ben. What a wonderful introduction.

Well, I guess the million dollar question here before we even jump in, I forget, I forget what time it is there. It must be evening over there.

Yeah, it is.

It's about 6:30pm okay, so 6:30. So have you done something cold today already? Are you like a day?

I incorporate cryotherapy into my lifestyle every day. So my day normally starts with doing a workout and then going to London cryo, doing an infrared sauna, then jumping into the cryo. It's the perfect way to start the day.

Do you do that every day? You do cryo when you're at home?

Just about every day, Almost every day. I mean I'm lucky enough that I've got three locations and so I can just go into the cryo cabin every day. And it's something that I get so many benefits from, so it's something that I do every day.

Okay, so I already alluded to this. We might as well jump right in because it's the main thrust in your book, Cold Water immersion versus cryotherapy chambers. And just to make sure everybody knows because there might be a few people who have been living under a rock not familiar with the cryotherapy chamber. As a part of your response here, explain to people what a cryotherapy chamber actually is and how that works.

Fantastic. So the cryotherapy chamber is a unit that you step into. It goes down to between minus 100 degrees. I'm going to use Celsius because we're here in the UK to minus 130 degrees. And you subject your body to that cold air. It's whilst you're doing that that you're going to get all the benefits that come from doing cryotherapy. You, you stand in the cabin for two to three minutes, the air circulates around and what that does is it triggers the fight or flight mode in the body. So if we're Going to go straight into this. What that means is that the cold air will shock the body because it's really cold in there. So your body goes into survival mode. And when you're doing that, the brain sends a message to the bloodstream and says, oh, my God, it's freezing. So your blood rushes to your core, and that's where it oxygenates the blood, replenishes it with nutrients, flushes out toxins and releases endorphins.

Does this seem paradoxical to you? Because I know some people might wonder this. Well, I'm standing in this cold room. Would it make sense for my body to send the blood to the extremities to warm me up? And you just said it goes to the core. Why is that?

It's just because the body goes into survival mode. It's your sympathetic system that kicks in, and it goes into alert mode. It thinks it needs to go into survival mode. So. So it flows back to the core to protect the organs.

So it's kind of like, I don't care if my hands and feet and toes and fingers fall off. I want to protect the heart, the liver, the brain. So it's literally shunting blood internally.

Correct. And that's what we call vasoconstriction. So the blood rush is back there. To protect your extremities, your fingers and your toes, we give you a pair of gloves so that those areas feel like they're being protected whilst you're in the cryotherapy session. Anyway. So that's where the magic happens. And then you step outside of the cryo cabin, all that oxygenated blood flows out to where you've got any muscle soreness or inflammation in the body. So that's what you experience when you do a cryotherapy session in a cryo cabin.

Okay. So there's like a rebound effect when you get out where you're vasoconstricted. You're shunting the blood to the internal organs, you get out. And then, because I'm sometimes like red as a lobster within a minute of exiting either cold water immersion or a cryotherapy chamber. That's the blood rushing back out to the extremities, Correct?

It is. And it spikes your metabolism, so it's great for your blood circulation. So there's a lot of things that happen when you step out of the cryo cabin.

Now, there's chambers I've seen before where your head sticks out of the top. What do you think of those?

In my opinion, it doesn't matter which way you're doing it, whether you're doing it with your head outside of the cabin, which is the way we do it at London Cryo, or. Or in the cabin, as long as you're exposing yourself to cold, there's a place for all of us to have cryotherapy chambers in, either way. So I'm for it. I mean, the magic for me, as long as it's hitting minus 110 or colder, then you're getting the true effects of cryotherapy. So you can do it both ways.

Okay, got it. Have you looked into or thought about this idea? Because I've heard this bandied about before, that if your head is cold, and in particular, like if your, let's say, head goes under cold water or is inside of a cold cryotherapy chamber, that from a cranial nerve standpoint, you get, I believe it's called a mammalian dive reflex, that supposedly is good for the vagus nerve. Like if the head gets cold. What are your thoughts on that?

I think, I think it's more about the bloodstream. I think it's great for your head to, you know, you do need to stimulate the vagus nerve. Definitely. And even when you're in a cabin that goes up to your neck, it's still going to be cold enough that it's going to. That cold is going to reach those areas. So it doesn't matter whether your head is in there or not. It's important that your blood, I mean, the blood flows all through the body, right? So you're subjecting yourself to that cold or. Or the blood flow continues to flow everywhere in the body. So you're gonna get the benefits no matter which way you're doing cryotherapy.

I'm sure you get this question too, but didn't somebody like die or something in a cryotherapy chamber years ago? Cause I know there was a bad rap for cryotherapy chambers for a while. What happened there?

Okay, that was someone who went in unauthorized. It was an employee of a cryo business and she went in after hours and she didn't do it with someone being present. You will find that all cryotherapy centers now do it safely and they make sure that there' a trained professional in the room with you. And we definitely do that at London Cryo. So they're with you through the whole experience. Now, I think she might have been taking a selfie, if I remember the case correctly, and that dropped and she submerged and wasn't able to come out of that situation. So that's what happened there. So I think everyone has learned a lesson from that. And make sure that there's always a trained professional in the cryo room with you.

But don't they have like an auto off? Because when I've done cryotherapy, you get in there three, three and a half minutes and then it just kind shuts off.

Correct. And a lot of them now will have a safety mechanism as well. I know ours does that if the head drops, then the door will automatically open. So. But I think this, everyone has learned from that experience and that's why the equipment has evolved since then to make sure there is a safety element. And all of us practice the safety aspect of making sure that we guide our clients through a session of cryotherapy. Everyone does that globally now.

Yeah. Okay. So related to the auto off thing, you know, typically I don't remember it's three or three and a half minutes, but anytime I've done a cryotherapy session, you're kind of done after that period of time. Is there something magic about that window of time?

Well, all our element manufacturers have found that that's the most benefit you're going to get from that much exposure to cold at that temperature. So that's what all the research has shown and our manufacturers have done their own testing. And you get the benefits from doing a three minute session of cryother cryotherapy. When you do the electric ones because they don't reach the same temperatures as a nitrogen based one. You can do a cryotherapy session for longer. So that's the only time that you would do that. But with all the research that's been done, the three minutes is the magical number. But then it also depends if you're someone who's smaller, your skin tone matters. They will be taken into consideration when you do your initial intake for a new client. So you're taking those factors into consideration because a smaller person, you know, they could reach -110, you know, in a two minute session. So that's going to be enough to trigger the benefits of cryotherapy. You don't necessarily need to go to three minutes, but if you're someone, you know, normal build or depending on what your cryo journey is, then you do the three minutes of cryotherapy.

Yeah, I was at a clinic once and I asked them if I could go longer and I think they might have broken the rules, but they said yes. What they did was they gave me three and a half minutes. And then I came out and they had some kind of a tool that they used to measure my skin temperature. And they're like, okay, you're right. It's not too cold. You can get back in. And they let me do another three and a half minutes. And, you know, my take on this is I live in freaking Idaho. My backyard is often a cryotherapy chamber. I think I might have. I don't want to brag, but maybe like a little bit higher level of tolerance just because of the area of the world that I'm in. So I felt comfortable and I felt great. So I had a total of seven minutes in cryo. But do you guys do that? Do you measure the skin temperature? What's going on as far as the ability to be able to monitor something like that? If you did want to see how cold your body actually was getting, I'm assuming you don't want to stick a rectal thermometer up somebody, but what are the ways that you do that?

You do do it by using a skin gun temperature, as you said. Right. And I think I reached out to you before we actually met and said, we, Ben, I heard you did this protocol. What was that like? What do you. What do you suggest I do? And what happens is with cryotherapy, to get the true effects, your skin temperature needs to drop by 15 degrees. So they would have measured that. That. That happened before you went in. And then when you came out, as long as your skin temperature dropped by 15 degrees, then you would have got the benefits of that. So when they would have allowed you to go in for a second session, mind you, that is breaking the rules, because nobody really does that they would make you go back to normal body temperature and then allow you to do another cryotherapy. Se. But it's. To get the benefits, your skin temperature needs to drop by 15 degrees. So that's what they would have been checking. There.

Is that because the skin temperature dropping by 15 degrees, and I assume you mean Celsius, and I'm not even going to worry about doing the math during this whole podcast because I suck at. I think it's a few degrees Fahrenheit, basically, that your skin temperature would drop. Is that because they're. Obviously there's a safety piece, but is there some kind of a correlation between skin temperature and that drop in core temperature or muscle temperature where you get a lot of the, you know, a lot of the muscular or the physiological benefits of cold?

I think there is the benefits that do come by your skin temperature dropping by that much. But it is, it's just so that it drops enough to trigger the fight or flight that we talked about earlier. Because if it's not, if it's not getting cold enough, then those benefits are not going to come. Your blood's not going to rush your core. It's not going to oxygenate the blood and give you the benefits that the cryotherapy does. So it's about monitoring, making sure you're doing it at a cold enough temperature to get those benefits. Because if it's only dropping by a little bit, then that's not enough for the body to say, hey, let's go through that process to get you the benefits of cryotherapy.

Okay, Got it. I want to talk about cold water immersion here in a little bit. But sometimes when I'm in cold water, I'll move my hands and my legs and my arms. I know some of those cold tubs now, they actually have, like, jets that keep the water circulating. With the idea being that the longer the water is against the skin, the more your body warms the water, the easier it becomes. So anybody who wants to last a long time in a cold plunge knows to stay just, like, as still as possible. And anyone who wants, you know, bigger effects from cold, you kind of thrash the limbs around a little bit in a cryotherapy chamber. Is this similar? Because. Because a lot of times when I'm in there, I don't know if you remember when I was at your facility, I'm doing, like, torso twists and some punches and air squats, because I feel like when I move my body, I'm almost getting a little bit more of the cold effect. Is there something to that idea?

What we know is the difference between cold water immersion and when you do cryotherapy session, the water pulls away the heat from the body at a much faster rate, at 23.5 times faster than it does with air. So. So, and when you're in cold, cold, cold water immersion, your blood is fighting to stay close to the surface so that you know, because your whole body is getting really cold. So you do feel like your whole body's freezing, and that's why you move around more. Right. So, so that the blood keeps pumping through and. But you can't stay in, in a, in cold water for longer than they recommend 10 minutes because then it starts to have negative effects after that.

Yeah, Obviously that's temperature dependent.

It is temperature dependent, you're right. Yes.

Okay, so, so basically are you saying and I guess what I'm trying to ask is, will I get more effects from a cold or from a cryotherapy chamber or better effects if I move around in there versus standing still?

No, I think, because I still think it's all triggered by how cold it gets in the cryo cabin. Right. So if you're still going down to minus 110 degrees, it's not going to have like, if you're moving around, you're going to start warming up a little bit. Right. But what we want to do is make sure we get enough cold exposure so that you're getting the more benefits. If you start heating up, then you're sort of stopping the benefits from happening. So, you know, we do recommend that you stay still while you're doing your cryotherapy session.

Okay, got it. Let's say you're sitting next to somebody on an airplane and they want to know what's better. What does the research shows? What are the implications of cold water immersion versus cryo? I realize it's a loaded question, but we have plenty of time. Can you go into comparing and contrasting those two and what you like about each?

Yeah, of course. So there's a place, in my opinion, for both to do both cold water immersion and to do cryotherapy, but they have different benefits. I think with cold water immersion, it's great for boosting your immune system, for building resilience. It's easily accessible these days. So I think there is a place to go and do cold water immersion. With cryotherapy, it's more about the benefits that come from lowering inflammation. It's more if you're dealing with any pain, if you're, if you have any problems sleeping, then I would recommend that you do cryotherapy. If you need an energy boost, although you could get that as well from an ice bath. But, you know, if you're looking for a boost of energy, then I would definitely recommend doing cryotherapy. Cryotherapy. So I think they can both coexist into someone's lifestyle. But like I say to everyone that comes into London, cryo, everybody has their own cryo journey. So it depends on what you're trying to achieve and you know, and what you're going through yourself as to which way you would go.

Now, there's a lot of research that's done on cold. Are you saying that, that there's certain research that shows that a cryotherapy chamber could be better? You know, for example, one of the things that you listed was pain or inflammation than cold water immersion. Like, do you see that broken out in the, in the literature at all?

We do. So I still think there's enough research to say that if you do do cryotherapy, then it is really reducing inflammation in the body. And once you're reducing inflammation in the body, then you're going to get so many more benefits. You're going to be sleeping better, you're going to get rid of brain fog sleep. So you're going to, you know, if you're suffering with autoimmune disease, which we have a lot of clients that come into London cryo who suffer from autoimmune diseases. So we know that we're helping people like that. There is research studies showing that, you know, when you do 10 or more sessions of cryotherapy that you're going to start getting those benefits.

That's interesting. So kind of like hyperbaric oxygen chamber use, which I know you guys have one of those there too. There seems to be a cumulative use effect. You're saying there's a cumulative use effect demonstrated in exercise science or cold science on doing it multiple times?

Correct. I mean, if you just do one session of cryo, you're going to have a great night's sleep. That's something that in nearly a decade of having London cryo and putting our clients through, everyone reports after one session they have a great night's sleep. But it's when you do, for example, eight to ten sessions over a four week period, we say that awakens the internal doctor in you. And that's when you're going to get the most benefits from doing cryo. That's when you start lowering the inflammation in the body. That's when you start lowering your cortisol levels so you feel less stressed. That's when you speed up your recovery. When you're training for like a race that's coming up. So it is like as you say, hyperbaric. It needs to be front loaded so you get the benefits.

Yeah, probably some kind of like a, like a microvasculature effect in, in terms of, you know, genesis of new blood vessels or capillarization of tissue that results from repeated exposure. I would imagine.

That's right. You know, increased blood circulation, better circulation. So yeah, all those benefits come from doing it repeatedly. But like, yeah, do it once, you're going to have a great night's sleep. But you know, we want people to be doing it more than just once.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I plan on doing it again this summer, but last Summer, I did a 30 days, within 20 minutes of waking, 33 degree cold plunge, 33 Fahrenheit for two minutes. And it was rough. But I will admit that by week two, it definitely got easier. And I'm sure part of it was due to the vascularity effect.

Yes. And you do find, I mean, there is a thing that too much exposure and your body's going to get used to it and you're not going to be getting those benefits anymore. So we would always recommend that you do a course of treatments and take a little bit of a break, see how your body's feeling, and then you get back to it, because by then you'll realize whether you're still getting the benefits from that exposure or not. And then you come back and then you get back on another course, depending on what you've come in for.

Okay, so back to the piece of inflammation. For example, when you're saying that cryotherapy, you would consider that to be a better tool than something like cold water immersion for inflammation. I assume you're not saying that you don't see a lot of these benefits from cwi, but the literature seems to dictate that you have a better effect from cryo.

That's what the literature is showing at the moment, right, that you do, that there are more benefits coming from cryotherapy. I mean, there's still so much more research and testing that needs to happen. So, you know, I assume that that's going to happen over the, the next few years as this becomes more mainstream now. But from what we've seen today, that, yes, cryotherapy does have more benefits than cold water immersion, but there is a place for both.

Yeah. There's a sentence in your book. So you have this section in the book. I'm going to read it because I underlined this part. So you have this part where it says that cold water immersion is not just an ice bath on steroids. But there's a sentence in here and it says in some ways the processes in response to cold air exposure are the opposite of those triggered by cold water immersion, which I thought was interesting. Can you explain what that means?

So when you're doing cold water immersion, it's like the body just freezes, right? Because you're exposed to a prolonged period of being in that cold water. So the body just freezes. It gets to the cold, gets to the muscle, and then you sort of like freeze and you can't really do anything because you're just trying to concentrate and the blood rushes to the surface area to try and keep your extremities warm with the blood flow. Right. But when you go into cryotherapy, it's, you know, you go into survival mode. It's just three minutes. The blood rushes to the core, it oxygenates it and then flushes back out. So that's why, that's what the difference is there. And that's why they have different effects. I mean, they feel different and they have different physiological effects on the body. Okay.

So if I understand properly, if I'm in cold water, I've got this hydrostatic pressure of the water against my skin, cooling my skin even more intensively than it might in a cryotherapy chamber. But the result of that is more blood stays in the extremities to avoid something like, let's say frostbite. When you're in cold water immersion versus in a cryotherapy chamber, the blood more quickly rushes to the core for a lot of those benefits in addition to the post vasodilatory benefits that occur when you get out. So essentially a cold water immersion, I don't think anybody would argue with this. You get colder, assuming it's cold enough water in cold water immersion. But that doesn't mean you're getting the same blood flow effects to the internal organs, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

Even though the cold water will feel more harsh and stuff. And it's because the heat pulls away. So the water pulls away the heat from the body in an ice bath faster than it does when you're just exposed to the air that when you're in a cryo cabin.

Okay. So based on that, it sounds like if I wanted, I don't have a cryotherapy chamber at my house. A lot of people don't, they have cold water. But it sounds to me like if you're looking for some of the anti inflammatory or pain reducing benefits, contrary to what I was talking about earlier, where some people have a jet in there or move around, you'd actually want to stay still to allow the, the, the blood to not rush out to the extremities and to instead get shunted to the core. So you kind of allow your skin to warm the water that's around you while you're sitting in cold water immersion, if you're looking for those effects of, you know, some of the physiological benefits you might get in, let's say a cryotherapy chamber.

Yeah, but I don't think the cold water gets cold enough for you to still get those benefits. I think you still need to be going into the cryo cabin to get down to a proper cold temperature more than you would in an ice bath, even if you're just sitting there.

My cold water is pretty cold.

Okay. Okay.

I think it depends on the cold.

Yes. Yes.

Okay. So. And cold water immersion. When you say things like 10 minutes, correct me if I'm wrong. And again and again, my apologies. I'm not going to do the Celsius conversion in my head, but I think a lot of these studies are done at around upper 40s to mid-50s Fahrenheit, I think.

Yeah. So I think you're talking between 5 and 10 degrees and I think that's correct. That's the where the studies are done.

You mentioned that you do your morning workout, you hit the infrared and then you hit the cryo. What do you think about the idea that if you get cold after workout, it could excessively blunt the inflammatory response, the natural inflammatory response, and you'd see something like less mitochondrial biogenesis or lower amounts of say, satellite cell proliferation because the body responds to that hormetic stress of exercise with mild inflammation. And if you shut it down, you don't mount your own responses effectively.

I think that you should. The only time you shouldn't do cryotherapy after training is if you're trying to build muscle because you to have a little bit of muscle tear, build up the inflammation so that then we would say don't do a cryotherapy session after that, come the next day. But if you're just generally training, then it's okay to go and do cryotherapy session because you're going to get the benefits from doing that.

Yeah. And it's not all or nothing black or white. I mean, the studies I've seen that show that cold can blunt the inflammatory response to exercise and potentially would do something like muscle hypertrophy. They're allowing for a drop in core temperature that is significant. I think it's above 1 degree Celsius, which means you're looking at a 10 to 20 minute ice bath soak in many of these studies, which is way different than, let's say hitting the gym in the morning, finishing up with a quick cold shower so you're not sweating at work and so you cool the body back down or doing a workout in the evening, cooling the body quickly and then getting on with your life. So. So I think the, the dose is the poison when we're talking about something like this.

Yes, it is. Yeah, I would agree with you that, Ben. Yeah.

Okay. So the sleep thing is intriguing. And I've heard this many times, people are like, I do the cryo. I sleep great that night. How close to bed are we talking about to get an effect like that?

We always recommend the clients come in in the afternoon to do a cryotherapy session because it will give you a release of endorphins, you'll have a bit more energy, and it's obviously everything else that you do during the day, leading up to when you go to sleep that will impact you having a great sleep. So. But we do recommend to clients, if they do have a sleeping issue, that they do come in the afternoon and then they're guaranteed to have a great sleep that night. And I can just speak from my own personal experience having done cryo, and I wear an aura ring. I'm sure you do as well, Ben. And my sleep is always in the 90s and I feel like incorporating cryo and the impact on sleep is just huge. But if you're someone who has trouble sleeping, then we do recommend that you come in in the afternoon. And then that's one thing everyone walks away with, is they have a great night's sleep that night.

Yeah, I agree. I'm on this kick where I finish up work and typically I have some papers and stuff that I still need to read. I've been sending them to the printer, getting in the dry sauna outside my office, doing like 15 minutes in the sauna, then hitting the cold plunge. So I'm out of there around 6:30. It's definitely enhanced my sleep. But do you think that's just because people sleep better at lower body temperatures? I think most people know this normal part of sleep hygiene, sleep in a cool room, don't have excessive clothing on, et cetera. Do you think it's just that the body is cooler or with something like a cryotherapy chamber done in the afternoon, Is there something else going on?

Oh, I think there's definitely something else going on. I mean, you're getting the blood to pump through your body again, oxygenating, you know, lowering your cortisol levels. So there is something that happens to the body, the chemicals that get released. So there is something that happens when you expose yourself to the cold that will allow you to have that good night's sleep.

You have a section in here. I think it's page. Yeah, page 47. You actually talk about sleep disorders, including insomnia. Has it ever been actually studied when it comes to insomnia? And I ask because, you see in many cases, People say the only fix for insomnia is typically cognitive behavioral therapy where you're working on your thoughts in bed. The way that you approach your, your sleep habits or your sleep routine, it's not necessarily based on supplements and biohacks, et cetera. It's a little bit more psychological based, this idea of cbt, cognitive behavioral therapy. Have there been any studies on insomnia and cryotherapy or cold?

I don't think there have been. But I'm speaking from having nearly got a decade of experience with our clients at London Cryo. So that's where we know that, that cryotherapy and cold exposure is having that impact on people having a great night's sleep. I mean, and there are also underlying issues like with cryotherapy as well, for example, it helps to reduce inflammation and pain and sometimes they're the underlying issues of why you're not able to sleep. So, so by doing cryotherapy then you're dealing with that and therefore it's allowing you to have a great night's sleep that night. As long as you've done it consistently as well, then. Then it does improve your sleep over time.

Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. And then, and I agree just anecdotally, I think it's, you know, even when I travel, I do not an icy cold shower, but typically kind of like a lukewarm shower, not icy cold because I don't want the big endorphin rush right before bed. But you know, if I'm traveling, going to bed at 10pm, I'm usually lukewarm shower around 9,39,45. Feels good to go to bed clean, but it also helps a lot with sleep. So very anecdotal, but I definitely agree with. Now the hyperbaric chambers that I mentioned earlier, they say that based on telomere analysis, which I don't think is a gold standard for aging, but it gives us clues that repeated cumulative exposure to a series of hyperbaric therapy sessions may cause some kind of a reduction in biological age.

That's what they say. Yep.

Yeah, yeah. Do you have anything you've dug up when it comes to cryo or cold and either a telomere effect or a biological anti aging effect or anything of that nature?

Not at the moment we don't. But we are going to be doing some testing soon to see if we are having an effect on the talismia with our cryotherapy that we've got some people who are about to go through some longevity testing that we're going to do ourselves. And so we're hoping to see what they results are now and then look back in three months after doing a series of our modalities, which include red light, hyperbaric cryotherapy, NAD infusions, and see where we get to at the end of that, that, that study that we're going to do ourselves at London Cryo.

Right, right. Probably due to, I would imagine, if there is a mechanism of action behind this tackling, so called inflammaging. You know, I think that term was coined in the early 2000s. But this idea that, you know, inflammation affects a variety of aging pathways.

Correct, Correct. So it's got everything to do with that.

Yeah. Chronic diseases are obviously a part of aging as well. There's a section in the book from the Journal of Thermal Biology. Looks like a group of scientists showed a decreased level of inflammatory markers in people 55 years and older following whole body cryotherapy. But here's what's interesting that you note in the book. An improvement in short term memory in subjects with mild cognitive impairment. Do you think there's potential here for like Alzheimer's, dementia, things of that nature?

There is, and it's not going to be a direct impact on that. I think it's indirectly because we are lowering inflammation in the body that they're going to get the benefits on these cognitive issues that people are having. So I do think that long, you know, long term it will have that impact, but I don't think it's going to be a direct impact on Alzheimer's by doing cryotherapy, for example.

Yeah, well, I mean, considering that Alzheimer's is also these days often coined type 3 diabetes, and in addition to being something related to poor insulin sensitivity and poor glucose control, both of which can be managed well by cold, it's also a disease of inflammation. So it seems like you're tackling it from a couple of different standpoints with cold, but that actually is kind of related to something else I wanted to run by you. I've said on the podcast a few times and really, truly believe this, that cold is one of the best ways to stabilize blood glucose. As a matter of fact, if I do morning cold, like that month last summer when I did 30 days, I could have a fricking whatever, large pizza for breakfast, and my blood glucose would barely rise. What's going on with cold and either insulin sensitivity or blood glucose control, do you think?

Sorry, Ben, I don't know enough to know that it's actually having an Impact on blood glucose, to be honest.

Yeah. I personally suspect that there's obviously a compensatory response to cold where you see an increase in metabolic rate and this so called mitochondrial uncoupling where the mitochondria instead of burning calories to generate ATP, they burn calories to generate heat. You have a larger calorie throughput and thus a drop in blood glucose because you're simply metabolizing it a much faster rate post cold. That's kind of my thought pattern, but I don't know if there's an effect on pancreas, insulin sensitivity, anything like that.

Oh, I don't know. Like, I mean I know that with what you've just said. I know like we have the whole, the effect of cryo on fat loss. Right. So if, if you're got your white fat, you know, with the cold exposure turning it into brown fat, which we call Beijing, then we know that you're going to be increasing, with the extra brown fat you're going to be increasing how you burn your energy and the food energy that gets burnt from doing that. So then over time it's going to have an effect on your metabolism, it has an effect on your blood circulation. So that's obviously going to affect your blood glucose as well, right?

Yeah, yeah. Chronic long term stabilization for sure. But I mean there seems to be even a pretty intense acute effect even before appreciable brown fat exposure would have been able to build up. So it's very interesting and I still swear by it. I took my wife out to pizza, Speak of the devil. Last night and our dinner was at 6:30, we were joining friends. 6:00pm I'm jumping in the cold plunge because I know it's great pizza. I'm gonna take my gluten guardian and certainly punish a lot of it. And my blood glucose was just fine afterwards. So I think cold just works so well for something like that. But you mentioned fat loss. You alluded to the white fat, the brown fat version. What do we know about fat loss and weight loss when it comes to cold?

We know that by, by turning the white fat into brown fat that that's going to help us to, to lose weight. Now something that every cryotherapy owner will say is that we know the impact that a lot of our clients, when they're coming in for some, for some other reason and they do cry consistently, they're going to be losing weight. But it's not a, you know, it's not the main, you know, the main reason why people come and do cryo. And we don't want to be known as that magic pill either. But we know it's a great sidekick. When you're on a weight loss journey by doing cryotherapy, it is going to help burn calories, but it is because of the white fat turning into brown fat that it has that impact. I mean, I did have a client at London Cryo, he was coming in for mental wellness issues. He was. Was doing cryotherapy for his mental wellness, and he was losing weight along the way and said one day we do need to get out there and say, actually, it does actually impact on our weight loss as well.

Yeah. And I think a lot of people confuse much of the research out there on fat cell death induced via what's called cryolipolysis with a cryotherapy chamber. But those are two different things, right?

They are. That's right, yeah. Yeah. So cryolipolysis, for example, we do that at London Cryo as well. But that's just dealing with the subcutaneous fat. Right. So it's not really breaking it down. So people, you know, will shrink in size, but they won't necessarily be losing weight that way. Unless you're incorporating, like, with everything, doing it consistently, you're following the diet, you're including movement, and then you're doing the modalities, then you're going to get those benefits.

Tell me a little bit more about that, about the cryolipolysis and how that works.

Yep. So what happens is your. You target one area of the body, for example, and then say you want to target your tummy area. We do a procedure called cryo skin. So the. The wand goes down to minus 4 degrees, by the way.

You said wand. So. So someone isn't like sticking their tummy, you know, wiggling and trying to just get just their tummy inside a cryotherapy chamber.

Oh, no. So this is a different device. Yeah, correct. We're using a different device. So it's another modality that we have at London Cryo, so that you would just target the. Put direct cold onto that area, goes down to minus 4 degrees, and you do the treatment there for about 15 minutes. And then it kills the fat cells in that area. And then those fat cells need to travel through the body and out of the body, and then it helps you to shrink in size rather than. Than. Than losing weight that way. But if you're incorporating that on a. On a body transformation journey, then you're going to get those benefits. But like we said, you need to incorporate it, you know, with, you know, with eating well and movement as well and everything else that you do to have a healthy lifestyle.

Do you ever use this cryolipolysis one on. On injuries, aches, strains, sprains, anything like that?

We have local cryotherapy, so that's a. That's another device that we have that. That's just a little machine that we can blow cold air onto the area, which is very effective. And that goes down to, you know, we use the skin gun, so it goes down to zero degrees. That helps to get some fresh blood to the area. Once it warms up, the vasodilation happens. It gets fresh blood into the area and helps to accelerate any repairs or injuries that are going on in that area. So we have a local cryo machine that does that.

Okay, you mentioned again, you. You do the workout, you do infrared into your cryo. What kind of. Of adjunct modalities, you know, including infrared, do you think pair well with or stack well with cryo as far as some of the sessions that you run at London? Yep.

I love that you've asked that question, Ben. So the powerhouse of treatments that we say that work together, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, red light, to recharge all the mitochondria in. In our body, and then add on cryotherapy to the end of that, I think they're. The treatments that work are the most powerful when they're done together. But then, as I said, everybody has their own cryo journey, so depending on what you're coming in for. So, for example, if you're coming in for longevity, as well as doing HBOT red light and cryo, we would recommend that you do the NAD drip, for example, so that. So that you're getting those benefits. If you want to achieve longevity, if you're, you know, you're looking for more energy, then you'll do your vitamin B injections, for example, on top of all the other treatments that you're doing. But cryo for us is our hero treatment. So, you know, we say as long as you're doing cryo and getting yourself that cold exposure. Exposure, you're winning. Right. Your body's thanking you for that.

Yeah. And that is interesting to do the red light prior because I think some people might have heard of this before. The idea that red light actually kicks nitric oxide out of the mitochondria displaces on. I think it's cytochrome C oxidase and might not be remembering properly, but it essentially displaces that Gas, you get a vasodilatory effect. So you're getting into the cryotherapy chamber with existing vasodilation and then you're vasoconstricting and then getting out and going back to vasodilation.

Correct. And you're getting lots of benefits from doing that. And what we know also is that you always end on cryotherapy because the physiological effects are going to take place over the next three hours. So you don't really want to be doing anything after you've done your cryo session.

Right. Especially something that would warm the body back up.

Correct, correct. Because then it defeats the purpose of having done cryo.

Yeah. In my pepper grinder in my kitchen, I keep grains of paradise pepper extract because it's actually a mitochondrial uncoupling agent. And anything like that that you would take prior to cold could help you get even more effects. For example, for the Beijing of white fat. Do you guys do supplements there at all or anything from a nutritional standpoint to enhance the effects of cryo?

No, we don't. But if we were to recommend anything, Ben, like we would be recommending magnesium, for example, which is great for, you know, assisting muscle recovery. Omega 3 is great for anti inflammatory. They're the supplements that we would be recommending. But we don't do anything in house at London Cryo. Not yet anyway.

You should think about it. I mean, you got egcg Green tea extract. Perfect is the grains of paradise pepper extract. Cayenne is another one. Ginger, berberine. I mean, you guys could have a stack that you could give to people and tell them, hey, you get this 30 to 60 minutes before you come in, have this with a glass of water, get into the cold. And this is not based on robust human clinical research on consuming these supplements prior to cold. But I pair that stuff a lot with if I'm going to do a big cold plunge in the morning, I wake up and I take like the grains of paradise pepper extract personally.

Like I take my electrolytes, you know. Yeah, my electrolytes in the morning. Magnesium, slippery elm. I'm doing that myself. But yeah, it's not something that we put out to clients. But obviously you're inspiring me there, Ben, to put maybe together. Ben Greenfield protocol before you come into.

London Cryo, the new London Cryo smoothie. What do you tell people who, who just freak out in there?

Okay, this is completely normal. I mean, a lot of people and probably what inspired me to start on the journey of writing the book and writing and you know, I have a podcast as well called Reinvented. Cool is because it's still the unknown. A lot of people are still scared to do cryo, but we need to break that down because it's more mind over matter. When you come into London Cryo, we put you at ease, we tell you what to expect, make sure you remain calm and do your breathing. And we know it's the unknown. It's really cold. You haven't done it before, but. But we step you through that and then once you go in there and you do your two to three minutes of cryo, everyone steps out feeling amazing. But. But it is about getting you to come in and do it the first time.

So is there a way when you're in there to actually put on breathing tracks? Because a lot of times I'm just getting music. But could you actually pump, like, breath work in there into the cryotherapy chamber?

I guess you could, right? It's not something that we've done or anyone's requested, but, yeah, I don't see why we couldn't do that.

Yeah. Chock full of good ideas for you today.

Yeah. You are very inspirational as always.

Depression is obviously something that's a big issue now, I think partially triggered by just loneliness and social disconnect and addiction to our phones and dopamine deficits. A lot of people feel really good after cold. A lot of people will call it a natural antidepressant. Have you come across any studies or anything that looks into the antidepressant activity behind cold?

Can I just share with you? We know that the cryotherapy does have an effect on depression during COVID Not that I want to bring that up. During that period, we were lucky enough to stay open at London Cryo. So we had a lot of people that were coming in that were really at home alone. And by them coming in, not only to get the benefit of doing cryo, but the social interaction with my team at the time was really made a powerful impact on them getting through that period. So. Because a lot of people, as you know, weren't allowed to, you know, be around family and friends. But we were still open at London Cryo, so clients were still coming in and able to still socialize and get the benefits not only of cry, as I said, but also with that interaction. But we know, going back to your question is that, you know, with cryotherapy, it releases a feel good hormone when you're in there, right? So you're getting a rush of intake endorphins. And that's going to make, you know, have an impact on your mood. So people are going to feel better. We know that when you do cryotherapy over a period of time, that it also helps to lower your cortisol levels so you feel less stressed, which you know. And then you're also sleeping better. And these are all positive impacts to anyone who is suffering from depression, right?

Yeah. A rebound effect, because obviously your cortisol levels are through the roof while you're in there and then decrease when you get out.

Correct, Correct. So we've seen, you know, examples with our clients that they. They've gotten over, you know, not they've gotten over, but they're much happier than before they came into London Cryo. At the beginning, we used to say we sell happiness because everyone leaves London Cryo feeling better than before they came in.

What do you say to people who are like, well, look, whatever, I live in London, I live in Idaho. Why can't I just, like, wear minimal clothing and go for a walk outside and save myself some money?

You can, but you're not going to get those benefits. Like, it's going to be great for your immune. Immune system, definitely. It's going to give you that burst of energy. But if you're trying to deal with a house. The health issue, like chronic pain or fatigue or autoimmune disease, then you're not going to be able to get that benefit from going for a walk outside.

Okay, so let's say it is really cold outside, like here in Idaho, really cold. You know, it might be, let's say, 30 degrees Fahrenheit. I realize I might be asking you to do some math here, or I can if I need to. What's the difference between that temperature and what I'd be getting if I stepped into a cryotherapy chamber for three minutes?

Yeah. Well, we go down to minus 130 degrees, so it's going to be in the minus. I'm sure the figure you just quoted, Fahrenheit is not. Is it 0 degree? You're going to do the math.

I'm going to check here. Minus 130 Celsius to Fahrenheit is. Oh, really? It's a negative 202 degrees Fahrenheit.

Yeah, it is. That's right. It's real cold.

Oh, that's really cold.

It's proper cold. Yeah.

Okay.

And you only. And you go into survival mode. It's only two to three minutes, but you know you're going to step. Well, we convince you. That we, you know, you know you going to step out, and that's why you can endure that two to three minutes. And that's the difference between going for a walk outside to being in the cryo cabin.

Nobody will hear this except you and me. Of course, nobody's listening, but have you ever stayed in there longer?

No, I haven't. But I'll admit I've done it two to three times in a day.

Okay. Yeah. And that's okay. You know, there's no contraindications to frequency.

If you've got a high blood pressure or, you know, if you're pregnant or you're fighting an illness, you can't do it. I don't let any of my clients do it, but I've done the test on myself and I found that, like, every time I've done it, I end up getting a headache. So I prefer not to put myself through that.

Yeah, possibly too. Too much vasoconstriction. Have you ever seen surprising effects from cryo, something you didn't expect? We talk about pain, inflammation, sleep, energy, depression, anything that surprised you, whether, like a skin condition or a gut issue or something like that.

Let's talk cholesterol, because I had a client whose cholesterol, high cholesterol runs in his family. He had a top surgeon. His brother had really high cholesterol. His dad did. And they were on medication. Anything they did just was not helping them. My client joined London Cryo, and after doing cryotherapy, it's the only thing he did different to the rest of his family. His cholesterol has almost completely gone. And that was the most surprising thing I've ever seen and made me very proud that we were able to help him with his cholesterol levels.

Yeah. And I know obviously some people will say, well, anybody who's in commit to cryo, they probably changed their diet a little bit, they probably started exercising. I'm sure there were some other variables, but.

Yeah, but he was already a healthy person, Ben. Like, a lot of clients that come into London Cryo are already really optimized. They just want that extra edge. So that's what we find with a lot of our clients at London Cryo. So he was one of those already really healthy, just looking for that extra edge. His family was the same, but he incorporated cryo compared to everyone else, and that's made a massive difference.

You ever come across anything related to fertility? Because there's the idea that the scrotum is kept at a slightly lower temperature than the rest of the body that if you're a man trying to conceive, you shouldn't be sitting in hot sauna seats or doing a lot of hot tub. Have you come across literature or seen anything anecdotally where this impacts fertility?

Yep. Ben, I haven't seen literature, but I've had phone calls from my manager in one of my locations who called me screaming down the phone saying, oh, my God, he's. They're pregnant, they're having a baby. So I do believe that they had tried everything. He started incorporating our services that we provide at London Cryo and his wife got pregnant. So whether that was having a positive effect on his body, that allowed them to conceive and, and I'm sure he's a father now, so we've only seen what we've, you know, a couple of cases at London Cryo of that happening.

Yeah. All right, well, you. I'm assuming they weren't in there in the cryotherapy chamber together, right?

Definitely not. Definitely not, yeah.

Being somebody who has a cryotherapy chamber, who operates these things, I would imagine you probably, you know, get an insider look at some of the technology coming down the pipeline. Are there changes coming as far as the way the cryotherapy chambers are built or the technology used to cool them or anything like that?

There is. I think there's been a big shift going from nitrogen to electric now, but that just be. Because, you know, it's a problem trying to get the fuel for the cabins. So I think there's been a shift to going electric and they're just improving the way they run those sessions, the wind chill factors and, you know, the condensers, the space they're taking up, that's evolving. And there is something that came up at the Cryo Con conference I was just at in Dallas on the weekend, and someone's actually developed a home cryo cabin, which I think is going to be a complete game changer. So I think that's really exciting to. Yeah, really exciting to look out for.

What would be the, the price point on something like that, do you think?

15,000? I. I don't know if I'm allowed to quote that, but.

And I'm assuming that's electric, not nitrogen.

It's electric. That's correct, yeah.

What's the difference between the nitrogen and the electric in terms of how they're coolant?

I just think with, with nitrogen you can get much colder. And that's why I chose to do it my way is because I, I do prefer it to be a colder session. The electrics in the past have not been able to get down to the magic number of -110. That's now changing. And so they've improved how they. They make their equipment. And so now they're hitting minus 110 degrees. So. But I prefer nitrogen because it allows us to get much colder. And we go down to minus 130.

Yeah. Okay, so Dallas had cryo. Is this an entire convention for cryotherapy?

Yes. And can I just share? I was a finalist in the Cryo Ambassador award, but they put me up against Gary Brer, and it's like, what are the chances of me being a winner against Gary Brecker?

I don't know. I've been to Gary's house and been in his cold pool. They're not cold. Gary, I love you, but you got to come out to Idaho sometime and see what real cold feels like. Gary's a friend. He's okay if I rib him a little bit. So what else did you see there that. That was interesting or intriguing beyond like a, you know, a home cryo cabin, electrical at a 15k price point that I think some people would get?

I think it's going to start at 15 until there's a big demand, and then I think that, you know, you will become, you know, much more competitive.

I mean, I'm sure you could find a manufacturer in China right now who would probably build you on and ship a couple.

Correct. But good on. Her name's Stacy from Chili Box. Well done on coming up with that. Like, I think it's really impressive. There was what I noticed at Cry Con, there was a big. There were lots of exhibitors for red light therapy. So there. There was a lot of that compared to, like, you've got your five standard cryo manufacturers, but everybody else seems to be exhibiting red light therapy treatments, whether it be for the face or for the body, like the beds. There was a lot of that at.

Cryocon this year, but I'm assuming they weren't putting red light into a cryo chamber.

No, they weren't. No. But I think that's. That's only a matter of time, right?

Yeah. But when you have a warming, you know, vasotilatory effect, that would kind of defeat the purpose of the acute vasoconstriction you're looking for.

But. But there is already a cabin on the market that actually will make it go hot and then go into, you know, it's red and then it goes into the cold.

Oh, I see. So. So you could do a cold session, stay in there, push a button and have it switch from cold to red light.

Yes.

Oh, that would be cool. You could do like a red, cold, red sandwich.

Yeah, exactly what it would be like. But that was the theme of Kryon this year.

Have you seen things like the cool Fat Burner, like a vest that you kind of like pack with ice that you can wear while you're just, you know, working at your computer?

I haven't seen that, no.

Yeah, I have a lot of clients that actually use that thing. It's been around for years. I talked about in one of my books, they make one called the Gut Burner and one called the Fat Burner. And the Fat Burner is a vest and the gut Burner you put around your waist. I had one client who lost a lot of weight. He was very committed. He was an entrepreneur from India where it was very hot. He got a couple and he wore them every day for three months and had some of the best fat loss effects of anyone I've coached for weight loss.

But was he doing anything else? He must have been doing everything else to incorporate into his lifestyle.

Well, he was doing everything else, but I have other clients who I have on similar programs for weight loss. But he was super committed to the cold piece and he would just put these things on and then go work for two hours wearing a cold vest.

That's so impressive, isn't it?

Yeah. And of course this goes all the way back to Ray Cronice, who was made popular in Tim Ferriss's four hour body. Who did the first research, former NASA employee, I believe, who's also a physiologist, who found that when changing nothing in terms of calorie activity level, movement, nutrient intake, anything like that, that a hot cold contrast shower in the morning and a hot cold contrast shower in the evening resulted in significant fat loss. Without changing any other variables. You can stuff like if you were to Google Ray Kronice, Wired magazine, you could still find that original article. But that being showcased in Tim Ferriss I think was one of the things that started to make cold popular. Well, this has been fascinating, Maria, the book, by the way, you guys is reinventing Cool. Maria co wrote this with Entre, who I believe Antra is your partner there at cryotherapy.

No, no, Antra is just my co author of the book. She's not part of London prior.

Okay, got it. Well, she had to be on an airplane, so it's just Marie and I. But the book super simple reinventing Cool. If you happen to be in London, drop by Maria's place, London Cryo. All the show notes are@BenGreenfieldLife.com cool podcast. And Maria, thank you so much for coming on.

An absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me on, Ben.

Yeah, you made me look forward even more to my afternoon cold plunge later on.

Okay, fantastic.

All right, folks, until next time. I'm Ben Greenfield along with Marie Ansabala signing out from Ben Greenfield Life. Greenfieldlife.com have an incredible week to discover.

Even more tips, tricks, hacks and content to become the most complete, boundless version.

Of you, visit BenGreenfieldLife.com.

In compliance with the FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links and posts on this site. Most of the links going to products are often affiliate links, of which I receive a small company commission from sales of certain items. But the price is the same for you, and sometimes I even get to share a unique and somewhat significant discount with you. In some cases, I might also be an investor in a company I mention. I'm the founder, for example, of Kion llc, the makers of Kion branded supplements and products, which I talk about quite a bit. Regardless of the relationship, if I post or talk about an affiliate link to a product, it is indeed something I personally use, support and with full authenticity and transparency recommend. In good conscience, I personally vet each and every product that I talk about. My first priority is providing valuable information and resources to you that help you positively optimize your mind, body and spirit. And I'll only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose. So there's your fancy legal disclaimer.