"It’s just a sensation, right? But knowing that pain — and there is pain — is just a sensation does not help you right now because that took three seconds to figure out and you still have a wild wagon-train trip to California to go. Did you mention that there’s a man with a ukulele there? He appears to work for this cold-plunge outfit, and he is wearing that dumb hat and quietly strumming — is that? — Leonard Cohen’s 'Hallelujah'? You love that song and have never enjoyed it less. Your hatred for this man only buys seven or eight more seconds, and as you cast your mind about, looking for something else to get you through, a strange thing happens...."
Writes Taffy Brodesser-Akner, in
"I Survived a Cold Plunge and All I Got Was Everything I Ever Wanted/I resisted the trend until I couldn’t any longer" (NYT).
By the way, do you need a fancy cold plunge machine or a session at a cold plunge commercial establishment? Can't you just fill up your bathtub with water from the cold tap and maybe toss in the ice that's accumulated in the bin inside the refrigerator? That was
a good question for Grok.
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32 comments:
I see these stories and always wonder why there is a market for these women telling their tales. Then ann invariably links...
Has Molly jong fast or Riley Gaines weighed in yet, ann? Please do link to their follow u ps...
Lol
Yes, you can. My daughter and her husband do that.
Couldn't these dupes have much more comfortably gone and gotten the cure to their list of ills from a good water bar, or jeez, even a good oxygen bar? Oh that's right, those are all gone now, so never mind. Gone to the same place “contrast therapy spas” will be in a year.
I live out in the country and have my own private 200 foot deep well. The water is always very cold. So I usually end every shower by shutting the hot water completely off and then spend about 30 seconds under just cold water. It's quite a jolt at first, but after a short while it's not so bad. Very invigorating.
Time is a quantized perception of motion.
"Taffy Brodesser-Ackner."
P.G. Wodehouse lives!
A body contains a nervous system correlated with the origin or expression of consciousness. A feeling is an inferential estimation of state or process.
The coldest I've ever swum in was 43°F, in Maine, in late fall. It got my attention. I've done several cold plunges off and on, never an ice plunge. I swam off Vancouver which was in the 50's, just because I hadn't swum in the Pacific for almost 50 years.
Do we call her salt-water Taffy now?
The cold plunge at our gym truly improves inflammation and joint issues. Two to five minutes. Breathe deeply as you enter.
A cold bathtub may work but standing and walking even exercise in the plunge is great.
I shower with the cold water set to max, but I haven't done the ice water plunge. We have the fridge with the bin full of ice. What am I waiting for?
I'm waiting for Godot.
Wim Hof has people doing research on this in Europe now. Immune responses are verifiably better when doing the breathing and activation of the Sympathetic.
There once was a faith-healer of Deal,
Who said, "Although pain isn't real,
If I sit on a pin
And it punctures my skin
I dislike what I fancy I feel."
I was thinking about salt, why not throw some in your homemade cold plunge. But then I got this from Grok:
"Because salt allows liquid water to exist far below the normal freezing point, climbing into sub-freezing liquid will cause instant frostbite, severe skin burns, and rapid hypothermia. This setup should only be used as a super-cooler to rapidly chill drinks or watermelons for a party"
If you really want to save $$ - just wait for winter.
Nope. Rolled a canoe in march in near freezing water. That was enough. No need to repeat.
Cold plunges activates the parasympathetic nervous system.
**Research indicates that a brief plunge can increase dopamine levels by 250% to 500%. This dopamine surge—along with a flood of norepinephrine and serotonin—improves focus, alertness, and mood. Unlike a brief caffeine or sugar spike, these neurotransmitters can remain elevated for several hours.**
"All I Got Was Everything I Ever Wanted"
All I ever wanted,
All I ever needed,
Is here in my tub
Heat is very
Unnecessary
So is a plain old back rub...CC, JSM
A local spa had a cold plunge and a (very) hot pool just a few steps apart. Invigorating!
But the place was ravaged by wildfire maybe 7 years ago, and I haven't been back since. Although the rebuild pictures on their website look wonderful.
Harbin Hot Spring, north of Napa. Robert Louis Stevenson's old stomping ground.
But, shrinkage.
We have friends with a home sauna and cold plunge (a thick pad of ice forms on the element on the bottom of the tank - it really is that cold). We stayed at their place for a couple of weeks at the beginning of our road adventure and I used both a few times. I couldn't bring myself to sit on that pad of ice, so I just held myself on the firearms, lower body submerged to about belly button height, for a minute each time. (Our friends immerse themselves chest-high for like five minutes, something like that, before ducking all the way under for a few seconds.)
I have to say, I loved it. It wasn't pleasant in the moment, the literal one minute (though I didn't hate anybody over it), but I felt SO good after twenty minutes of very hot and one minute of very cold.
“ I was thinking about salt, why not throw some in your homemade cold plunge. But then I got this from Grok:
"Because salt allows liquid water to exist far below the normal freezing point”
But in these examples all the ice has melted when the temperature drops to ~50°F, well above the freezing point. Adding salt won’t make it any colder.
Reading this story reminds me of the one about the man who was observed hitting himself on the head with a hammer:
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Of course it hurts.”
“Why do you do it then?”
“Because it feels so good when I stop!”
I've done a sauna in winter, immediately followed by a roll in the snow. I did not feel cold at all, which for me is saying a lot (I am wearing a watch cap right now because my A/C gives me a chill). CC, JSM
I'd be very careful about doing this. Especially if you're over 60 like me. I don't think shocking your system is good for old people.
Four days into a week-long backpacking trip in the Sierras, my friends and I thought it might be a good idea to wash off the sweat and dirt with a dip in a lake. I don't know what the water temperature was but there was a snowfield dripping melted snow into one end of the lake.
That one time was enough for me, I have felt no need to repeat the experience.
I jumped into Lake Superior in October.
Not doing that again. I couldn't make my lungs work.
Isn't that how a Hermann Hesse character died? Magister Ludi.
Although I'd do it again if it revealed to me what time is.
This is quite common in Great Lakes towns. The polar bear club. They break out a hole in the ice. But the problem is that it is competitive and people try to win by staying in longer than everyone else.
I get more serotonin out of using my organs for their correct purpose than I do trying to freeze them off.
Cold plunge talk was everywhere about a year ago, especially in the manosphere (whatever that is). I haven't heard much about it lately. I assumed went the way of all the other endless life-changing ideas.
Heh. I just saw that apparently I held myself on "the firearms." Sorry! It was "my forearms." Not nearly so exciting.
But I want to add - it was more than "it feels so good when I stop" - it's hard to describe because I only did it two or three times, but it was more a kind of sharpening of sensation. I can't say I noticed cognitive effects, but my sense of touch (including the generalized sense of, like, air moving on skin, temperature, things like that) seemed subjectively more intense. It was... fun?
My husband's cousin, my age but with high blood pressure, and a nurse, looked up whether she could try it and determined that it would be unwise. She did the sauna for half the time I did, though.
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