Ultimate Cold Plunge Challenge with Gary Brecka: Mastery | The Ultimate Human | Day 3

Sa. Foreign. Hey, guys, we're back. It's great to see everybody. I'm, I'm actually in a fit of giggles right now because, you know, we have a, we have an amazing special guest today. I know you have heard if you, if you saw my post this morning. It's Damon John from Shark Tank. So we're going to put a shark in the shark tank. It's just a cold tank, but I'm playing a little joke on Daymond John. So I have put considerably more ice in his cold plunge than my cold plunge, which is why I'm laughing right now. So I'm trying to get his cold. I know I said colder's not better. Longer is not better. But for purposes of having Daymond John do it cold plunge with us today, I have put a ton of ice in his cold plunge. So when I walk out there, I'm going to purposely take the cold plunge on the left and force him into the cold plunge on the right. And so just keep an eye on it because it's going to be funny. He's not going to like it, but he'll probably see my humor after, after he gets out. But we have an amazing other special guest today. I got so many questions, you know, during when we were putting the cold plunge challenge out there. And by the way, do not tag Jamin John yet. I don't want him to know that, that he's getting in an ultra cold plunge today for three minutes. So we'll see how the shark does in the cold shark tank. But I get so many questions, guys, about, you know, women and, you know, menstruating, women's menstrual cycles and cold plunging. Timing of cold plunging. If there's timing a cold plunging is related to hormone balance or where women are in their menstrual cycle. So in 15 minutes, we're going to have Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, one of the top female functional medicine MDs on the planet, in my opinion. She, she wrote the, she wrote a great book on how muscle is related to longevity. She's an amazing physician. I'll talk about her book when she, when she gets on the on onto our live zoom. But I want so, so women, if you've got specific questions about that, I want you to save those for Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. She's going to talk about hormone balance, fat loss, metabolism, the safety of doing cold plunging. Whether you can cold plunge when you're pregnant, young, or menstruating and wearing your cycle, cold plunging may be more beneficial than other areas. So stay tuned I sort of consolidated all those questions and said I'll just get Dr. Gabrielle Lyon on and we'll have one of the top experts in the country take your questions directly. And then of course we're going to jump into cold plunge with Damon and then afterwards we'll take a little break and then Damon and I are going to sit with the VIPs for about an hour and we're just going to take questions direct. So if you'd like to get all off topic from the Ultimate Human and for biohacking and longevity and anti aging and even ask some business questions, he's going to be wide open so you'll have access to one of the top sharks from Shark Tank for a full hour. If you're, if you're one of our VIPs and you can direct any question that you'd like at him. I just wanted to open that up for you guys and say doesn't have to stay on topic for, you know, biohacking, anti aging or longevity. You can direct those questions to me and you can direct any other question you want to Damon John. So I'm super excited guys. This has been, I think my favorite challenge. You know, a lot of you have been with me on a lot of these challenges. We've done 10, 000 step challenge, we've done the cold pun challenges, we've done breath work challenges, we've done three day water fasts, we've done all kinds of challenges. But for some reason this has been like the most inspiring one to me. You know, seeing you guys, some, some of you on the west coast get up at 5 o' clock in the morning cold plunging before you even wake your kids up in the morning. Seeing a lot of first time families, entire families, moms, dads and the kids all getting in the cold plunge together. It's just, it just so amazing. I mean, you know, when, when the message gets out and it really starts to touch lives and people have fun with it and they bring their families into it. That's really just chicken soup for my soul. So I, I, I really want to thank you guys for having the trust and confidence in me to give me your time and then for just being so participatory in this, you know. But people have gotten really creative with cold plunges. Everything from going out and buying beer tubs to, to cattle troughs, to using your own bathtubs, you know, to obviously cold showers. You know, you do not have to purchase one of our pop up cold plunges or an expensive cold plunge you can just get some ice, put it in a Tupperware container, put it in your tub and let it rip. The idea is to, is to, you know, inspire you to make that transition and start incorporating this in your daily lives and then to hear some of the stories that are coming back from people that have been doing this for a while, that have been following me and how they're using it to conquer addiction, depress, balance hormones, making it a part of their daily routine for weight loss, for, for, to get over getting off of SSRIs and all kinds of mental challenges and really shift their mood. I just think it's amazing guys. You know, I always tell people if you're ever at a crossroad in your life where you're, you're just kind of lost meaning you don't know what, you know, what direction your career is going, maybe you don't know what direction your relationship is going, maybe you haven't found that passion or that purpose. It's a great time for you to just turn inward. Meaning turn inward on yourself. Be a little bit selfish. Start putting yourself first, engage in some self care. You know, go on that journey to find out how you can be the best version of yourself. And by that I mean start exploring things like cold plunging and breath work and natural sunlight in the morning. You know, make that shift to a whole food diet. Don't worry about if you're keto, carnivore, paleo, you know, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian. Just, just say I'm going to get processed foods out of my life and I'm just going to start to eat whole foods and, and then maybe make that extra step to the grass fed meats and the pasture raised eggs and the free range chickens and that extra step towards glyphosate free choices and pesticide and herbicide free choices and make that choice for organic. Start an exercise routine, maybe start journaling. And you'll find that when you turn inward on yourself and you, you actually start to like yourself and like the body that you're in and you know, your thought pattern starts to change and the frequency that you're sending through your body changes, all of a sudden the rest of life reveals you. And you know, my, my father's a Captain John Brecke. He's a salty old naval captain. By the grace of God. Both of my parents are still with me and doing very well. But my dad was or is very simple creature, right? He, he, he always spoke in military time. He was always so reliable. He was so Dependable. You know, he's a captain in the, in the Navy, gave 30 years of his life to service. But he had one of the best definitions of life. You know, very simple guy, but he had one of the best definitions of life I've ever heard. And he used to say life is what happens to you when you're on your way to doing something else. And I, I think it's one of the coolest descriptions of life. It's so true. Sometimes we actually don't know what the future holds. And during those times is, it is a time where we actually lose touch with ourselves. And you know, no matter what we're struggling with, you know, if we turn inward on ourself and we really engage in some self care and we do some of the things like we do on these challenges, maybe make it the first time that you try a three day water fast. Maybe make it the first time you try a cold plunge. Maybe say I'm going to commit 30 days to waking up with the sun and just exposing my skin to sunlight, touching the earth and doing some breath work incorporating those things that cost you nothing but could really change the trajectory of your life. And then life begins to be what happens to you when you're, when you're on your way to doing something else. Also, thank you guys for all of the referrals and the kind words. Thank you guys for posting and being vulnerable about this. I see so many of you guys getting in cold plunges. You've been tagging me, you've been reposting. I mean, I, I, I just, this has just been the best of all worlds for me in terms of the challenges that we've done so far. Next month I've got a really, really cool challenge coming. So you're going to want to keep, keep an eye out for my next challenge for September. But, but this one's been super inspiring for me. So I'd like to get to a couple of questions if we could before Let me see what we got in the chat before we go over to Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. Becoming ultimate human already. Oh my gosh. Is that Joe Messina? Joe, how old, how old is that little man? We might, we may have the youngest cold plunger ever. It's so Keith writes. Gary, doing my first cold plunge on day one was amazing. After the plunge, I had one of the worst days and my mood was better due to the plunge. I just wish I had a better way of plunging, but what a feeling. Thanks for helping me get involved and doing this, Keith. You're Super. You're super welcome. If you guys have any questions for me, just go ahead and throw them in the chat. He's four. I was so excited to try it. Dude, you can start cold plunging at 4. That he's going to be a man by the time he's in high school. You know, I love to see it's very safe for little kids. You know, again, we want to keep the water 48 to 55 degrees, especially for children, but it's very safe for them. And fact, I see moms getting in there and dads getting in there and they're like shocked and freezing and super animated. And the kids just get in the cold punch and are like, what's all the fuss about mom just standing up to their chest in ice cold water and not batting an eyelash? So that's super awesome, man. And I know when you do it as a family, it just becomes like the talk of the, you know, talk of the table. So let's, let's fire up a couple of questions. I'm so inspired by this audience. Carrie Gosling says, what effect do cold plunges have on concussion and whiplash recovery? Day one plunge, I had a headache going in, did the plunge, and it was gone for the day. So basically what you're actually getting is a vasodilation, vasoconstrictive effect. Remember that the, the arteries in our body are smooth muscle, right? We have skeletal muscle, which is, you know, our biceps and our skeletal muscle. We have smooth muscle, which is our arteries. And then we have cardiac muscle. Those are the three types of muscle in the body. And the smooth muscle that we have in our, in our arteries is actually layered. It's, they're at different angles. And the reason why it's not a band of muscle, but actually muscles, they're usually three layers. The muscles in the, in the arteries are, are layered and they run, the fibers run at different angles. Is so that it can create this peristaltic wave. And this peristaltic wave, as we get into the smaller and small capillaries of our bodies, is called vasomotor. It's called vasomotor activity. You hear me talk about this all the time. 70%. Check this out. Google it and check it yourself. 70% of our circulation is not done by the heart. 70% of our circulation is vasomotor. It's like a snake swallowing a mouse, which means that the heart beats. You get a bolus of blood into the artery and then that smooth muscle vasomotor activity continues. The circulation of that blood, especially in our capillary systems. Liver, lungs, pancreas, kidneys, our brain, behind our eye, the. The arteries that supply in the capillaries, that supply our retina, our rods, our cones, our macula that actually feed the back of our eye. All those little muscles in our eye that move, not just the orbicularis oris, but all the ocular muscles that actually control the fine motor activity in your eye, those all have small capillary circulation. Two of the things that are great for that. Cold plunging is excellent for that. Red light therapy is excellent for that. Sunlight is excellent for that. Especially in the morning when you don't have the UVA and UVB rays that are damaging your skin. So what's awesome about vasomotor activity is that as we age, it becomes the most compromised portion of our circulatory system. Right? It's not the heart's inability to push blood into the arteries or return blood to the heart in the. In. In the veins. It's the vasomotor activity. So anything that we can do to exercise vascular system is going to improve vasomotor activity. So there is some research that cold plunging can improve vasomotor activity, which means better circulation. So in your case, this means a reduction in inflammation, actually being able to deliver oxygen to areas that might not otherwise be getting oxygen, getting inflammatory factors out, cytokines, histamines, prostaglandin, E2s, bradykinas, all of these inflammatory factors. And when you exercise, getting things out of the muscle, like creatinine, that cause delayed onset muscle sores. So I'm not surprised at all to see that your headaches and some of your neck pain, you know, was resolved. But it's a great testimonial Dr. Lyon is on, and we will be spotlighting her to get this conversation started. Dr. Lyon, I think you're muted.

I'm unmuting myself right now.

I think you're still muting.

I've unmuted.

Okay, you've unmuted. We got you. Great to see you.

Nice to see you, too.

This is a really inspiring group. You know, we've had thousands of people on this challenge. Damon John just walked into my unit, so he's. He's our guest. I'm putting a shark in the shark tank today. A nice, chilly tank. So such a blessing to have you on. I've spoken about you and your book and all the. All the work that you do, and it's really inspiring to have you with us. This has been the most inspiring challenge that I've done. I've done cold plunge challenges, 10,000 steps. We've done water fasting, we've done breath work challenges. But in terms of like participation and breakthroughs and testimonials, this has been by far the most game changing challenge that I've ever hosted. So thank you so much for joining us.

Why this one? Why do you think it's been this one?

You know, I think because, I think because it's just such a major transition and a breakthrough for so many people. I think a lot of people sort of have heard about cold plunging. They don't like cold water. They didn't think that they could do it. And they actually got through it and got to the other side and got to feel that sense of euphoria, you know, that elevated endorphin rush, the dopamine, that peripheral vasoconstriction, the blood returning. Just that, that incredible feeling that in some cases people have been saying they haven't felt this good in 10 years.

Yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah. And so, so moms started dragging their kids in and dads started dragging their wives and their sons in. We just had a 4 year old in a cold lunch, so it's been really inspiring. But we, we've gotten a lot of questions from women about the safety of cold plunging, cone plunging during their menstrual cycle, if there's a better or worse time during the month based on their cycle to cold plunge, if there's any interruption in hormones. So just thought we'd get the expert on and have you speak to our female audience a little bit.

Well, first of all, I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited that you all have just loved the experience of cold plunging. It's something that I do. I started with 11 minutes a week and I now am up to.

I probably go break down the research right there. 11 minutes exactly to the minute where the research is.

Yes. As you guys know, I am very evidence based. I will tell you when it's evidence and I'll tell you when it's my opinion. I started with 11 minutes, which is absolutely where the research is. I now go higher. My husband, which is. This is really funny. My husband was a, he's a former Navy Seal and they have Winter Hell Week week in Winter Hell Week. And not everybody is in Winter Hell Week, but it's essentially cold water immersion for four days. And I bet that individuals could do it certainly longer. I'm just curious, Gary, what is the longest stretch that you have done over a week.

You mean consistently cold plunging?

Yes, yes. Have you calculated your time?

Wow. I don't think I've calculated my total time in the tub, but I mean, I do three minutes minimum, six minutes maximum. And I've done three to six minutes, you know, seven days in a row. So probably 42 minutes is the most I spent in a cold plunge in an entire week.

That is amazing. That is absolutely amazing. And for women, do you know that? And I'm certainly not saying I recommend this, but in other cultures, they cold plunge even while pregnant. And it has been thought to actually help symptoms of hyperemesis gravitum. It's, which is the nausea. It's thought to actually help with pregnancy. And we don't know the mechanism of action. Certainly there isn't research done by that. But there are certain cultures that continue to do that. And your original question was, is there a certain time of the cycle? And I would say I haven't seen any evidence of that. But I personally believe that cold plunging makes everything better, regardless. Also, women, I have many patients that are in their perimenopause post menopause phase and it actually helps with hot flashes for them.

Wow. Hard to have a hot flash when you're in 50 degree water.

This is true. The other thing that I have seen is when you emerge and you go up, there's a lot of women that really struggle with thyroid conditions, whether it's Hashimoto's or hydrogen thyroidism. I think that there will be more emerging evidence its impact on thyroid health from a positive standpoint. And that is extraordinary. It is something that, again, I know that you mentioned vasoconstriction. There's this shivering aspect, and that's a good thing. This increases metabolic heat production. There is a belief that it can improve and activate brown adipose tissue, which is the fat that you have as a baby. A whole host of things that can be extremely beneficial. And they also believe that those that are cold adverse are probably individuals that will even have more of an impact. So if you disliked this initially but still continue to do it, you are probably someone that has even increased benefit, which I thought is, wow, I didn't know that.

Yeah, that's so good. You know, my history with, you know, intermittent fasting, you know, we, we just crossed the150,000 patient mark in our, in our clinic system nationwide. So we gathered a lot of data on a lot of different, you know, protocols. And one of the things we knew about intermittent fasting was that Young menstruating women that have very, very narrow feeding women feeding windows can very often disrupt their menstrual cycle. And we, we just seen that. I'm not sure of the mechanism of action there either. I'm sure it has something to do with, you know, thyroid regulation.

Yes.

Hormone regulation with, you know, related to their insulin levels and their, and their blood sugar levels. But we did notice that, you know, women that were on very restrictive, some of them two hour or four hour feeding windows, you know, it would actually send their endocrine system into, into a tailspin. So I hadn't seen any evidence with cold plunging. So saying thank you for clearing the, the, the air on that. So why don't we open up a couple of questions for, for, for Dr. Lyon. Okay. Saxton says, should women plunge at a different temperature than men?

That is a wonderful question. And I haven't seen any evidence that women should plunge at a different temperature. And one has to understand whether you are male or female, there will be an acclimation period. I personally plunge around 53 degrees and that might be a little warm for some of you. And it is just a matter of ultimately going through that dysregulation. For example, there's, I'm sure that Gary spoke about the increase in norepinephrine and some of these catecholamines. Your body will acclimate to certain temperatures and it will become easier and you'll have less of this cold shock, which I'm sure you guys have been experiencing. There is a component of lowering the temperature that will increase that experience over time. Get really comfortable with it. Go through a period of time where you get comfortable with it. You can again, I went warmer. It doesn't mean all women have to go warmer, but there is certainly less of a stress if you go warmer. So if you were to stack stressors, for example, what Gary's saying about intermittent fasting for women is absolutely true. We see that we see a change in hormones, not necessarily for the, the positive, especially over long periods of fasting, we see a decrease in thyroid hormone. If you were to increase the stressor now you're adding fasting and cold exposure. You're now pushing kind of levels of stress. So let's say you are experiencing and again, this is perfect, this is purely anecdotal. You are experiencing a tremendous amount of stress in your life and you're doing things that are influencing your body in that way, then maybe you want to go a little bit warmer. If you are someone who started this challenge and are like, you know what, I need a full reset. I know my diet isn't where I want it to be. I know my training is not where I want it to be. Then maybe you go a little bit colder.

Okay, great. So, Don decacio, I hope I said that right. Please talk about the timing of cold plunge. Does it have to be done first thing in the morning or can I do it midday?

It doesn't have to be done first thing in the morning, I would say I don't like individuals to do it around their training session. I prefer that individuals, there's a space between four hours or so before sleep actually can have a positive impact on sleep. Again, it really depends on how your body regulates when I cold plunge. I am a very, as Gary knows, a very tiny person. I'm five one.

She is a tiny person.

And maybe 103 inch boots though. That's right. So for me, I try to do it around 6 or 7pm that's about four hours before I go to sleep. But it will, it can be done anytime. You will know when you are first starting. And I'm sure you guys experienced this. How many people did it actually make more tired initially? Did you get more tired?

Some people, right? Yeah. There's some hands going up there.

So you get more tired because you have this big dump of adrenaline. And then you'll find that some people are a lot hungrier or some people have no appetite. Some people experience it as if it was almost a workout. And that's how I was initially. So I initially started doing it earlier on in the day. Just wanted to get the pain out of the way. I was exhausted. I couldn't do it. You will find a way in which you can function. I have other patients that are bigger males. They all do it earlier. Again, I know you guys are plunging. I got a message from your team. They're like, are you plunging after this? I'm like, no, I can't plunge right now. I gotta work. I gotta work day.

How dare you come on the cold plunge challenge and not plunge?

I didn't know that that was a prerequisite. Yeah. So to wrap that up, typically you want to do it again? For me, four hours before bed is great. Not really around training.

Yeah. So Laura Corsi said, can. Should you avoid taking a warm shower after the cold plunge rather than letting your body re acclimate normally?

That is a. That is a wonderful question. I don't know that answer. There are many people that do hot and cold. Gary is one of them. And it seems to, you know, it's interesting because if you look at cold exposure and heat exposure, they do various things like that brown adipose tissue, they work differently. One vasodilates, one vasoconstricts, but they work on. They're both hormetic agents and cultures do them back to back. And there is some benefit to that. Could you do a warm shower to warm up? Yes. Is it going to have that same impact as like what Gary does in his sauna? Probably not.

Yeah. So I like the contrast therapy, but, you know, my preference is that you let your body warm up naturally. You know, let's let it do what it does in its natural state. Right. So my preference is that you always end on cold. So if you do contrast therapy, just end on cold, you can make the contrast therapy shorter, meaning you can make the cold, the amount of time you spend in the cold plunge shorter. Each time you do one of these rounds, you don't overstress the body. You know, again, this is one of those things I think Dr. Lyon would agree on, where more is not necessarily better. You know, there's not a lot of evidence that I have seen anywhere in the literature that colder is better or longer is better. You know, I think we just sort of create these sort of man contest of, you know, how cold can I go or how long can I go? And we're not actually doing any, any more benefit for ourselves, but anytime that we can actually get behind the normal response of the body, I like that, you know, to, to allow it to do physiologically what it was designed to do. So you expose it to cold and then allow it to warm up and go back into homeostasis by itself. And she used hormetic or hormesis. You know, that's the process where, you know, we put a stress on the body and it actually strengthens in response. You know, hormetic stresses are not bad for the body. Not all stress is bad for the body. Loading bones causes them to strengthen. Tearing the muscle causes it to grow, challenging the immune system causes it to become stronger. And so this is just one of those stresses we can apply to the body that should improve our, you know, you have a physiological improvement, positive response after a stress. All right, so. Oh, wow. Hi. My 90 year old mom was very active up until about two years ago when she got a very bad case of osteoarthritis of the knees. How do I keep her muscle tone? Oh, this is right up her alley. How do I keep up her muscle tone and how Do I help her cold plunge if she can't get into a tub?

There are, there are also. That's a great question. The cold plunge would be wonderful for arthritis, especially if it's her knees. This is. While the evidence suggests that an individual should fully be immersed up to their shoulders, you know, the neck to hit the vagus nerve for full body systemic effect, there is benefit for her to just get her knees and legs in. She's 90. We don't want her to fall. And also getting her acclimated would be wonderful as opposed to just doing an immersion right away. Again, I, I'm certainly not her doctor, but if that were my mom, what I would do is I would arrange a, you know, a safe, like, tool or, you know, a way to get in, whether it's a stool or something, to get her knees in. The other thing is, for osteoarthritis, that's very important. An individual will do extremely well if her nutrition is intact, which we know. I'm sure Gary talks about that a lot. And also for muscle strength, protein is going to be extremely important for her. At 90, you're going to be eating less food. As individuals age, their appetite decreases. The quality of the food is going to be critical to maintain her muscle mass. And also the evidence suggests that she couldn't literally do stretching. So I worked on some of these early studies and the women were in their 50s. We were able to do body recomposition just by managing their diet. Five days a week of walking and two days a week of resistance training just by using their body. If she can walk, she can strengthen her muscles. She can do isometric movements. Really, really critical and making sure that she is doing full ranges of motion so that the arthritis doesn't get worse. And of course, managing her weight. But cold plunge would be wonderful for her too.

Yeah, you know, I find that if, if they're able to just sit down on, on, on the edge of a tub and kind of, you know, raise their legs over and get them into the tub, raise the, you know, other leg over and get them into the tub. You can put the, remember, you can put the, the calves all the way down up to the knees in cold water. Even if you can't get the knees submerged. You know, there's, there's an area, it's called the popliteal fossa. And there's a lot of other blood flow that's actually all that, all that cool blood returning from the calves is going to go by the knees on its way up to the Thighs. So, you know, whether or not you can actually get her thighs and her knees and her whole waist submerged, you know, I would focus on just some progression rather than perfectly submerging those. It might be a lot for her to put her entire body into cold water, but if you could just get the water up to the back of her thighs and to the base of her knees, she's still going to get that vasoconstriction effect right there. So, Joe Messina, is it safe for someone with Wolff Parkinson's white, an extra electrical pathway in the heart, to cold plunge?

That is a wonderful question. What I would do is I would run that by the cardiologist and they might not even know what I am guessing their suggestion would be. So, Wolf, Parkinson's white is an abnormal EKG rhythm. It's an abnormal heart rhythm. That is probably one of the biggest things that we're always concerned about is the electrical rhythm of the heart. Now here is what I am guessing your cardiologist would say. The cardiologist would say would be to do a slow immersion, and they probably will say to start warmer. That is what I am guessing.

Yeah. And maybe even start with cool showers before you go to full, full, full immersion. What was the next question? Million. So, Damian Little, yesterday you talked about not cold plunging right after the gym, but how long after the gym is it okay to cold plunge?

Typically, the data suggests at least two hours. You want to give yourself at least a two hour?

Yeah, because I, I know that, you know, we, we talked about it yesterday. We don't want to, you know, shut down the natural physiologic response of the body. You know, you know, if you go and do a heavy squat workout like we talked about yesterday, and you do a bunch of damage to your quad muscles, you know, what's the body going to do? It's going to increase the blood flow to that area. It's going to increase the amount of oxygen it's delivering to that muscle. It's going to bring more amino acids to repair those muscles. It's going to pull creatinine and other, you know, byproducts out of that area. So we don't want to, we don't want to shut that down. You know, I, I love all the little biohacks that enhance the body's natural physiologic response to things. You know, just natural sunlight, natural grounding, breath work, cold plunging. These hormetic stresses that you would possibly encounter in the course of, of daily activity. If you were out hunting and Gathering or, you know, you're walking in the woods or, you know, any number of things. You know, those are, those are great, great hormetic stresses. Janet Colvin says I initially feel amazing after I plunge, but shortly after I begin to feel some anxiety. Water in the tub is 60 degrees because of Louisiana weather at this time. So she said she initially feels amazing, but afterwards she actually feels a little bit of anxiety.

My guess, and this is what I would do if I were you, is I would throw a continuous glucose monitor on. I'm wondering if you're actually dropping your blood sugar because the, you're experiencing a adrenaline cortisol spike. Sometimes you will see that blood sugar post might be a little bit lower and that, that's what I would check. So here is what I would say. Eat something or drink something. You know, keep your carbohydrates within range. But I see if that makes it.

A little bit better.

So, yeah, it's. By the way, people said, can I eat before getting into cold plunge? Yes. I don't think there's any reason to not, not, you know, if you, if you've just eaten and, and you're cold plunging, I see no, no reason to space your, your food out, you know, based on, on your cold plunging.

And I will also say, I will not interrupt you, Gary. I, and I've experienced this, is that I think that it can affect appetite. So if you are finding that you are having a craving or you want something and let's say you're wanting to take care of your diet but you're struggling, you get in that cold plunge, you're not going to want whatever it is that you think that you want.

That is so true.

You will not want it. So for example, if you know that there is cake around because someone had a birthday and you're like, you know what, I'm going to go do that, but I'm going to cold plunge first. Guarantee you don't want it.

Yeah. All you want is a towel. Not, not a slice of cake.

Terrible restriction. Yes.

Hey, Sarah Campbell asks how does cold plunging balance hormone levels? I have an extremely high shbg. Sex hormone binding globulin. Will plunging lower this? I'll also give my input on that.

But sex hormone. Yeah. So sex hormone bonding globulin is a little bit of an annoyance for people when that goes high. Typically women that have been on birth control, sex hormone binding globulin goes up and stays up. It is very difficult to lower sex hormone binding globulin. At least clinically for me, one of the things with that, and I'm sure Gary will be able to weigh in on this. Yes, you can try to work on body composition and insulin resistance and sleep and, and whether you add boron or any of these other things. But if it is high because of birth control, I have seen it very difficult to lower. And the one thing that I would say is you need your hormones higher so that your body can see the free hormones like for example testosterone and other things. Will cold plunging lower sex hormone binding globulin? Possibly. If it is related to inflammation, if it's related to body composition? Possibly. But if it is done, if it is elevated because of birth control, clinically I've seen that you have to do other things like hormone replacement to, to really supplement that.

You know, you mentioned boron. You know we, we found boron to be a very effective way to lower SHBG there. You know, birth control purposely drives SHBG up. Some of the birth controls are purposely designed to use SHBG to interrupt the menstrual cycle. But the, but you see this high in men and women and sex hormone binding globulin. Globulin is a protein. It's a protein that binds to sex hormones just like it's it's name sounds in men. It has a special effect on the conversion of testosterone into free testosterone. So you'll see you know, very often high levels of testosterone and very low levels of free testosterone and men and women with high shbg. But we found boron to be a very, very effective way to lower SHBG. And you just take it as directed. Pure encapsulations makes a good one. Thorn makes a good one. Symbiotica makes a great one. But it's called boron, It's a mineral. We found it to be pretty effective. Jenny, what about meds and supplements? Should I be, should they be taken after plunging? It's actually a good question.

What I would say with meds and supplements, medications, depending on, let's say you're taking something for blood pressure and you take it at the same time because of the circadian effect. So this is kind of like chronomedicine. They'll say, you know, if you take for example your blood pressure medication in the morning, maybe it is more effective because of X, Y and Z. But overall just being on a regular cadence is most important. If you take thyroid medication then you always take your thy thyroid medication at the same time. On an empty stomach fasted the physiological hormetic effect of cold plunging should not change the digestibility of the medication or supplement.

That's a great response. I also want to, I'm going to get to the next question, but I, I wanted to give Dr. Lyon a minute to talk about her book because I found this very impactful. I mean, some of you know who, who Dr. Lyon is, some of you don't. But for those that don't, I didn't really do a proper introduction for her. I'd like to just spend a minute talking about her book. It's a culmination of her life's work. She's, she is an md, by the way, and you may have seen her on other podcasts or even seen her on my podcast or one of the podcast shorts that I've done. She's actually become a great friend. Tell us a little bit about your book and your, your work and especially its focus on women's health.

Yes. And actually, by the way, I have two more books coming out and one is Forever. I know, Forever Strong for Women. So this is my first book and this book is called Forever Strong. And it's a new evidence based approach to overall health and wellness. And at the end of the day, everybody believes that we have an obesity epidemic and that's really the problem. But the work that I've done, I trained seven years in nutritional sciences, I've been mentored by one of the world leading protein experts, and I'm a trained geriatrician, board certified in family medicine fellowship, trained at Washington University in St. Louis and I did a clinical research fellowship and a geriatric fellowship. What I realized is that we don't have an obesity problem. We are not over fat. Fat is a symptom in part of unhealthy skeletal muscle. And these diseases of aging all are related. Insulin resistance, fertility problems with pcos, you name it, Alzheimer's, hypertension, cardiovascular disease. Yes, there are genetic components, but these are diseases in part of skeletal muscle first, that manifests later. But the primary site and the primary organ system that we have to address is skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscle is the organ of longevity and it, it defines and determines everything about how we live and how we age. And my book covers, it's for anyone that is interested in reading. It is not technical. It is accessible, talks about how to work out, how to eat, how to learn and think about these things. And it provides a counterbalance to all of the things that you hear in the media world of, you know, how protein is bad for you, all of this stuff which is all nonsense yeah.

And you know, I might add that, you know, it blows through some of the myths that it's, you know, there's a point of no return on building muscle or that it can be too late in life to, to actually fight something called sarcopenia, which is age related muscle wasting. It actually gives a real evidence based discussion on the impact, you know, she, she called muscle the organ of longevity. And I think, think very few people think about muscle as an organ. You know, the skin is the largest organ in the body. You know, we know the liver, the lungs, the pancreas, the kidneys or organs. We don't think about muscle as an organ. And it's kind of like the forgotten secret to longevity. And there are all of these astounding statistics and evidence that really link our, our, our skeletal muscle to, to longevity. Things like grip strength, balance, you know, are all related to our skeletal muscle. And she really does an excellent job of laying out the evidence and then giving you really practical steps that you can do at any age. I mean there's, there's several people on here right now that are in their 70s and some, some, some folks on the, on the Challenge right now are in their 70s, are doing their cold plunge for the first time. It's important for them to know that if you've lost a lot of skeletal muscle because of sarcopenia, age related muscle wasting, you can gain it back.

Yes, yes. And I'm going to give you a few statistics. If you are in the lower one third of strength, you have a 57% greater chance of dying from anything.

All cause mortality.

All cause mortality. If you are in the lower 50% of muscle mass, it's the same thing, muscle mass and strength. You know, I wish, you know, I was thinking about what you did Gary, when you were looking at lifespan. I wish that there was a way that we could look at muscle span, which is the length of time that we live with healthy skeletal muscle. Because that is, it's not about lifespan, it's not about health span. It really is about muscle span.

You know, and muscle is our metabolic currency. You know, it's, it's a sponge for glucose, you know, and you know, fights insulin resistance. I mean it does, it does so many things. It produces hormones and you know, it does, it does so many things that, you know, it's been fascinating my, my journey even, you know, I, I went to eight years of, of undergraduate for biology and, and, and graduate school for, for human biology. We, we didn't learn any of this and I was actually Getting a human biology degree and in a naturopathic institute. And so I, I was really kind of fascinated on my journey. Her book does just an excellent job of. Of explaining it. She also has a podcast. She's been on a bunch of podcasts.

I was just on Andrew Huberman, our friend Andrew.

Oh, you're just on Huberman. Has it, has it come out yet?

It. It's actually tracking up as one of the most successful episodes that he's done, which is.

Okay, I'm definitely gonna watch it. I know that you and Andrew have been friends for a long time. All right, so we got a couple more min. More minutes for us.

Of course, of course.

Okay. So Tracy shepherd says, if willing, is a cold plunge good for someone with early onset dementia? Oh, that is a great question.

Yes, early onset dementia is very challenging. So there are two things that I would say for this person. You have to be exercising. I actually just published a review on, with a. With a few colleagues of mine. We just, just published a review and we spoke about, which. I'll send it to you, Gary, so you can link it to your. To your group on exercise impact, specifically resistance training on Alzheimer's. Yes, you must. You don't regrow brain matter, but you strengthen the connections that you have. And so if someone wants to slow down the progression, someone should be doing resistance training, cold plunging. I don't know if they've ever looked at cold plunge and memory and connection. But again, when you're lowering. Alzheimer's disease is type 3 diabetes of the brain. It is a metabolic dysregulation of the brain. We know cold plunge is good for skeletal muscle. We know that skeletal muscle is so important. It's the primary site for insulin resistance. And when you get type 2 diabetes, think about how you are not efficient at using the sugars and the glucose that you eat. Your brain is also getting type 3 diabetes of the brain that will amplify any kind of dementia. So should you be cold plunging, you certainly can. Should you be doing resistance training, you must, must. And you must get your diet together to make sure you are not progressing Alzheimer's, because there's no cure for it.

Yeah, I agree. And we Talked about type 3 diabetes yesterday. It's essentially insulin resistance in the brain. That's right. We know, we know that the brain is crack addicted to carbohydrate. And you know, what the brain wants, the brain gets. I always tell you guys. I mean, the brain's nasty. It's like the little Kim Jong Un of dictators. You Know, it sits up there and it just takes everything for itself. And so, you know, when it doesn't, when it gets too much glucose and doesn't have a place to store it, you know, you start this, this process of, of neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaquing and, and all of these other things that we think is the cause of Alzheimer's. But now the research is really indicating that those are the byproducts of the progression of the disease. They're not the cause of the disease. So Alzheimer's is not caused by amyloid plaques. Amyloid plaques happen in people that have already, that are already on their way to having Alzheimer's. Remember, circulation is the key. You know, if we can get blood flow to the brain, you know, we can improve short term recall. Anytime you get hypoxic in the brain, you are reducing your short term memory and your recall. So I, I completely agree with what Dr. Lyon just said. All right, let's fire up a couple more. One last question and then. Oh, and then we're gonna do one last question. I'm gonna close out with Dr. Lyon, tell you how you can find her, and then, and then we're gonna. We're gonna get the shark in the shark tank. So, Doctor. Dr. Lyon, I am perimenopausal, 42 years old, with high blood pressure and psoriasis, which is maintained with immunotherapy. I've found. I have. I found my heaviness flow has lessened this week since plunging daily. Wow.

Yeah. That's amazing.

She said. Do you believe this is because of the plunge? Have you heard of anything about plunging to lightening your menstrual flow?

I haven't. I have not. But I will say that maybe it was. Again, when we think about these things, the way in which cold plunge can be acting on the body, there's just a multitude of ways. Whether it is this hormesis effect, lowering inflammation, helping with insulin sensitivity, all of this stuff. So maybe you were having an abnormally heavy flow again, how and why it works, I'm not sure. But I will also say with psoriasis, we treat a ton of patients with psoriasis, and I'm sure Gary would agree, you have to go and dig into the gut. I've just seen it too many times. You have to check for pathogens, you have to check for H. Pylori. And if you can figure out what is driving the immune system, then you can certainly lessen the psoriasis. Could be genetic or. Or not. But, you know, exercise, cold plunging, all of these good lifestyle behaviors are just so impactful.

Yeah, I totally agree. You know, very often the skin. The liver uses the skin as a secondary route of waste elimination. You know, when we have leaky gut and bloodborne pathogens get into. You know, they get out of the. The gut into the. Into the bloodstream. Very often, we use the skin as an elimination route. And a lot of these skin conditions are just manifestations of problems in the gut or even problems with waste elimination in the liver, what we call glutathione synthase or transulfuration, where those processes are interrupted. And now you're. You're manifesting a skin condition, and you're trying to treat the skin for something that's actually happening internally. So I. I wholly agree with that. So Malia said, we got one more question. Okay. Okay. Does cold plunging have a positive or negative effect on male or female fertility? Oh, that's a good one. I know that's a good one.

I haven't seen anything negative. I don't know if I've seen anything positive, but I would assume that it just really depends on why. For example, we know that when you exercise that you can increase the quality of your sperm. You can increase the quality of the sperm. And when you think on the other side, the female side, insulin resistance can be an issue and generate issues with fertility. These are tools that can be used, like cold plunging can help with insulin sensitivity.

Okay. You know, I mean, I know that getting in a hot tub, you know, can sometimes lower men's sperm count, but it's a great question about a cold plunge. I actually haven't seen any evidence either way, so I really don't know. So. All right, let me sneak in one. One more. Malia's typing it up for me now. There seems to be a lot. A lot of them coming in. Okay, so, Damien Little. My wife has rheumatoid arthritis. Can this potentially help her? Oh, that's a great one.

Yes. Yes, it can.

No question.

And also. Yes. So you combine that with exercise because of the. Again, how Gary said that muscle releases hormones, they release myokines, and there is definitely an influence on rheumatoid arthritis for treatment with resistance training, with exercise, specifically because of that muscle effect. And yes, would I put someone in the cold plunge that has rheumatoid arthritis? Absolutely, I would.

Okay. All right, well, great, guys, this is amazing. Dr. Lyon, how can my audience find out more about you? Where they can they find you on Instagram? We know your Book. I'm going to put a link to your book down there. Also put your Instagram. But where can they find out more about you?

You can go to my website, drgabrielle line.com I have a great podcast, the Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show. Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, we have a great YouTube channel. You name it. We have a. We provide a ton of free content. If people sign up for the newsletter, we give away free recipes, all kinds of things. We are really trying to help make this information accessible, and that's amazing. You know, we do take nutrition clients and clients, everything is remote. So if anyone is interested.

Super. Dr. Lyon, thank you so much. You're always so giving of your time. You've been a big supporter of mine. I'm a huge fan of yours as. As well. If you haven't checked out our podcast or our podcast short, check out the ultimate human podcast that I did with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. I've read her book. I really think that you should too. And thank you so much for giving us your time today. I have a lot of requests to have a female plunge guest. I mean, guys, I got David John, but, you know, they want to. They want a female plunge guest. So now I've invited my wife. She's going to plunge with me first, and then I'm going to plunge with Daymond John. So you're going to get Sage, my wife. See, I mean, the. The females love you. They love my wife, too, Dr. Lyon. So Sage and I are going to plunge first. We're going to take a short little break. I'm just gonna get dressed. We're going to switch cameras over to the cold plunge. Sage and I are going to cold plunge together. And then right after, we'll do it with the shark. We'll put the shark in the shark tank. Thank you so much. See you soon, Dr. Lyon. All right, guys, I'll see you in just a few minutes. And get ready to cold plunge if you. If you're getting near your cold plunge. Let's fire up the cameras and get ready. Hey, guys. All right, there has been a giant karma reversal of my day here. So karma just. Just bit me right in the rear end. So Damon is coming in, and of course, I made one super cold this one and one regular cold this one. But now that I'm gonna do it with my wife, I get the warm one. She knows about. She knows about the trick, so she's actually forcing me to get in the ice cold one.

That's what karma is.

All right, so there we go. So the whole. The whole thing just. Just completely backfired on me. But. All right, here we go. So we're gonna put a little extra ice in. I actually shouldn't have to do this on mine, but solid ice in there. And then Damon had just been on time. You have to suffer.

He's like, you gotta tell him, like, 30.

I think what happened was he saw my Instagram post and he slowed it down a little bit. He was like, I'll get this guy. All right, so guys, what we do is. So this is my wife, Sage. For those of you that don't know beautiful Sage, he asked for females to cold plunge with me. So she volunteered. And she's been, you know, so, you know, a lot of. A lot of women, you know, that are. That are smaller framed, don't have a lot of muscle. You know, they. They say, well, you know, I don't like to get into the cold water. She didn't like getting in the cold water first either.

I have a love hate relationship with.

It still, but she does it every day and she loves it. By love hate, she means she hates getting in, but she loves it. How she could do this online, but solid ice in there. And then had just been on time. You have to suffer.

He's like, you gotta tell him. Like, I think what happened was he.

Saw my ass heels when she gets out. So we're gonna do three minutes. We're gonna do the same breath work technique that I always do. You know, four obnoxiously deep breaths. On the fourth breath, we're gonna breathe in and hold, and we're gonna step in and go all the way down to our next. It's a little slippery on the bottom, so watch out. And this is not super, super stable. And then normally she listens to affirmations. She has this affirmation tape that she plays for four minutes, and it's. It's a great one. Maybe we could even post the link to that.

Oh, I'll post the link. Yeah, it's great. It's awesome. It's four minutes and seven seconds. So it's the perfect amount for me.

Okay. All right, you ready? Here we go. Post. And he slowed it down a little bit. He was like, I'll get this guy. All right, so guys, what we do is. So this is my wife, Sage, for those of you that don't know Beautiful Sage, he asked for females to cold plunge with me. So she volunteered. And she's been, you know, so, you know, a lot of. A lot of women, you know, that Are that are smaller framed, don't have a lot of muscle. You know, they. They say, well, you know, I don't like to get into the cold water. She didn't like getting in the cold water first either.

I have a love hate relationship with it still.

But she does it every day and she loves it. By love hate, she means she hates getting in, but she loves it how she feels when she gets out. So we're going to do three minutes. We're going to do the same breath work technique that I always do. You know, four obnoxiously deep breaths. On the fourth breath, we're going to breathe in and hold and we're going to step in and go all the way down to our next. It's a little slippery on the bottom, so watch out. And this is not super, super stable. And then normally she listens to affirmations. She has this affirmation tape that she plays for four minutes and it's. It's a great one. Maybe we could even post the link to that.

Oh, I'll post the link. Yeah, it's great. It's awesome. It's four minutes and seven seconds. So it's the perfect amount for me.

Okay. All right, you ready? Here we go. This is a real cold punch.

This is so chilly.

Yeah. I am now in what's supposed to be Damon John's cold plunge. So again, you can leave your hands out if you have renounced or you have circulation problems. You can absolutely leave your hands out. You know, she and I both will sometimes focus on our breath. So why don't you show them the breath work that you do? Long, slow in.

I'm not good at the box breathing because I have OCD and I overthink the box breathing.

Yeah, she does. She thinks that she doesn't do an exact specific four seconds. Like, she's like, I don't know If I did 3 1/2 seconds across the top and then 4 seconds down and then 3 across the bottom. I messed it up. I'm like, just don't worry about it. Just. So the easy one is to just take a big inhale, breathe out through a straw. Big inhale, breathe out through a straw. Already. Coming up on a minute and a half. So those of you that are in the plunge with us right now, you should be over the shivers. Are you pretty? Pretty good? Yeah. So now it's just a matter of time. You know, it's another minute and 30 seconds. I used to get a shiver response. Do you get that anymore?

No. Now I just Inch my way in. So the. The better my lower body feels, the higher I can go. So I can't do it all the way to the neck right away.

You did today.

No, no, not today. I still inched it down a little bit.

Oh, you didn't. You. You blew my whole technique.

I went to here and then I came down.

Well, that's not. That's not following the cold plunge challenge guidelines.

Sorry, I haven't been on the know.

Okay. Leave it to my wife.

Did you ever listen to everything their husband say?

No. Sarah will be married to a biohacker.

I'm in the gold watch. It's called win a win.

We'll just leave it at that. Okay, guys, 36 seconds. So I am gonna do a little dunk. Get that mammalian die reflex. Sages is not even. Even for my audience. There's thousands of people relying on you right now, babe.

Oh, come on. Don't make me. My hair doesn't ever get warm.

All right, so I'm gonna do a little dunk. Here we go.

Like the glasses out. He's braver than me. My hair would never dry. So take breath.

You like that part? Because I can't talk.

Yes.

I knew she would. Are we in Three minutes.

We are.

Woo. We did it, guys.

Not bad.

All right, let's see how Damon does in this one. All right. Amazing. Hold my hands. Well. Yeah, I was going to give you a high five. All right, great job, guys. So that was three minutes. Next, we're going to do it with Damon. So I guess I'm doing six minutes of cold punching today.

You are, but that's what you want to do. Three to six minutes. You can break it up.

So, like, what was the deciding factor that made you actually start cold plunging?

My back. I had back surgery like seven years ago, and my back still hurts a lot. And it really, really helps the pain and gives me relief for a couple hours. So I try to do three minutes in the morning. And then if I've been on my feet all day, I'll even do a minute before I go to bed. A minute or two before I go to bed.

I'll do the sauna beforehand.

Yeah. And I warm up in the sauna if I can, or out in the sun beforehand and then jump in.

And it makes a considerable difference. You know, she actually had an L5S1 fusion when we first started dating 10 years ago, she had had a car accident in Colorado and had dislodged her the disc in her spine, and it degenerated to the point where they actually had to put a spacer in. So I know there's a lot of people that suffer from back pain that have had back surgery or even had neck surgery. And I wanted you to hear from somebody that's actually had a benefit from getting into cold plunging. She doesn't take painkillers. You know, she. We fixed her methylation, all of those things. We do a lot of things. Sleep on a PEMF mat. She does red light therapy every day. But the cold plunging is the one thing I've got to say. Of all the therapies that she's done, that transition between sauna and cold plunging is when she never complains about her back and she gets the best sleep. And it's just, remember, you don't have to have a fancy sauna and a fancy cold plunge. You can do contrast therapy in the shower. You know, just run the water as hot as you can, stand it on your back, warm, you know, your spine up, you know, nicely, and then step out of that water, turn into as cold as it will go, and then get back in.

That's what I do when I travel because we don't always have access, so.

Okay. Okay. So thank you guys for joining us. The last three days for this cold plunge challenge. You are truly ultimate humans. I know you've gone above and beyond these last three days. If you're a rule breaker or upgrade to vip, you're going to have access to the next hour with Damon John. So we're going to take a little break. I'm actually not going to dry off because I'm going to be getting back in the cold plunge with Damon, and I'm going to really ice this thing down because I want him to pay for being 15 minutes late to my cold plunge. Challenge. But I'll see the VIPs in 15 minutes. We'll be back online at 11:15. And for those of you that haven't become VIPs, now's the time to upgrade. If you don't get the value of upgrading to a vip, I promise you at the end of the month, I'll refund your money. I just want to make it worthwhile to you. Any closing comments?

Babe, you're doing awesome. I'm proud of him. I'm proud of you guys. This is awesome. And I love seeing all these people really getting the benefits and trying things for the first time, especially females. It's hard to get females to get on board, especially skinny females, because we're not necessarily looking to lose weight. But this has great benefit. Even if you're not looking to lose weight, there's a lot of great other benefits.

Awesome. See you guys. Back in 15 minutes.

That actually felt good.

That did feel good. I feel great.