A former triathlete with 15 years of cold-plunge experience tells Ben that the practice is mostly mental, not the health hack people claim. Brown-fat activation and anti-inflammatory effects are marginal at best, and long cold soaks after workouts can actually hurt recovery by inhibiting mitochondrial growth.
Hot topic in the biohacking and health optimization world is also thermal stress, the focus on sauna and then also cold plunging. Obviously, whatever, being submerged in an ice bath for 3 minutes wasn't on your old man Olympics goals, but I'm curious your thoughts on just thermal stress in general and where that would fit in.
Yeah. I've been cold plunging for 15 years. And Ben, I'm over it. The bottom line of cold plunging is that it is distasteful, which is why people do it. It's a hard thing to do, and that's the main reason people do it. I don't believe, I don't buy into the brown fat activation for most people. I don't buy into the anti-inflammatory benefits of it. I mean, maybe to a certain extent, if you're an NBA player and you've got a game tomorrow night and you sit in a cold plunge, as they have, again, for 50 years after tonight's game so you can do it again tomorrow night. But, so much has been written also in terms of cold plunging about the negative benefits of cold plunging, the fact that if it does have any anti-inflammatory benefits, don't do it after a hard workout or you'll negate some of the biochemical signals that that workout produced. Yeah.
If you do, I mean, volume is important. I think a lot of A lot of that is looking at 10-plus-minute cold soaks long enough and cold enough to reduce muscle temperature considerably. I think taking a quick cold shower after a workout or doing a 30-second cold plunge so you're not pitting out at work and sweating later on is reasonable. But, the long cold soaks, yeah, I agree. You see inhibition of mitochondrial biogenesis and satellite cell proliferation and all those other things that happen.
So, you know, at the end of the day, cold plunging has become a dick-measuring contest with people seeing how long they can stay in and then brag about it. And, that's when I got over it. That's when I'm like, you know, it is unpleasant. By the way, I started cold plunging not for any of those benefits. You know, as an ex-triathlete, I hated swimming. I hated getting in an 81-degree pool and an 81-degree public pool until I got warmed up. I just hated that first experience. And so, 20 years later, I'm out in my backyard in Malibu in my unheated pool. I'm like, this is bullshit. I'm going to train myself to get into cold water and not get all freaked out about it. And so every night at 10 o'clock, I'd walk out from my house to my pool, which was variously between 48 degrees and 52 degrees in the wintertime. Walk in slowly, not dive in and jump out. Walk in slowly, you know, give myself the mantra, you know, it's not good or bad, it's just a sensation. And then stay in there for 3 minutes. And then, I did have a Jacuzzi right next to it, so I get in the Jacuzzi and warm up, go to bed and sleep like a baby. So, it was more of a mental thing. For me, it always was. It was never about the purported brown fat activation fat-burning benefits. Jesus, I mean, I've got pretty low body fat as it is. I don't want to lose more.
Yeah, yeah. That's funny, parallel paths. I accidentally got into cold thermogenesis just because you have to train in the water year-round for triathlon. And so, Idaho winter, 5:00 a.m. in the morning, stand on the edge of the YMCA pool with a little draft coming in the door, 80 degrees. I mean, up here, more low 70s and your body hits the water and you're goosebumping for at least the first 10 minutes of the swim and you're doing that 5 days a week and then during race season, multiple 40- to 60-minute forays in the cold water in rivers and lakes and oceans. Yes. So, yeah, it's kind of forced cold thermo. I think for me, as far as the thermal stress component, a big part of it is I just love to hit the cold right after I finish my sauna session. Feels amazing. You get a big rush of endorphins, you feel good. But, for me, it's not about shivering and fat loss, it's just about blood flow and that I take a siesta in the afternoon, I finish my siesta, I turn on the sauna right before I start a siesta, I get out, I'm in the sauna for 15 minutes, jump in the cold plunge, back to work. And, to me, it's an incredible way to start the afternoon.
No, I don't disagree. I think that that's a— but again, I think that's an activation of central nervous system and has less to do with, again, with the thermic effect of the heat and the brown fat activation of the cold and the heat shock proteins and whatever. It's just more like it feels good, which, look, I would not deny you that at all. That's one of the reasons I did this every night in Malibu before I went to bed. Cold plunge, finish with a jacuzzi, and sleep like a baby. So, I'm not denying that that has that benefit. But, in terms of the— back to the old man Olympics thing, the ability to withstand 4 minutes in a 48-degree cold plunge doesn't intrigue me anymore.
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