There doesn't seem to be any clear signal in the data. Maybe with a higher n than 10 a multimodal distribution might arise. At the very least I'd be interested to know if all the participants had done cold plunges before or if there is a mix of experienced practioners and newcomers in the cohort.
Some participants were doing cold plunges for the first time and others had done it before.
For participant 7 (who is an experienced cold plunger) we could see clear changes in their alpha power (dropping during the stroop task - attention & rising during resting state/cold plunge - being more relaxed)
yep, this trial was to see if there were any neural effects. We plan to do a follow up study with a much larger cohort of people and also over many days. This will provide extra context for solid conclusions
Every cold shower study is fundamentally flawed as it can only be done on healthy individuals. This skews the result. The subconscious selection is often done before the official selection, this makes it really hard to do right.
> Every cold shower study is fundamentally flawed as it can only be done on healthy individuals.
Could you explain what you mean by that? Why can't unhealthy individuals participate? And even if they can't, are study results still not applicable for healthy people?
I am not asking why some people might not be able to take a cold shower (which is different than just being "unhealthy"), I am asking why the studies are "fundamentally flawed" because of that. Like obviously the studies can't include those people, but does that somehow negate the results for the people that do participate? It seems like any given study would have some % of people who cannot participate.
In the documentary about Wim Hof (by Vice think), he was friends with a guy with terminal cancer who said doing the cold plunges made the cancer bearable and changed his life.
I mean he wasn’t claiming it cured him. He was just some philosophy professor who was suffering existential terror as one does at the end of life. And he said that doing cold plunges helped him, an avowed atheist, face death’s door with courage. I feel like that’s something that should at least give us pause, similar to how psilocybin seems to have a similar effect.
Um, no. Just have the control group do anything that is not a cold shower and then compare the results between both groups. Yes the findings may not be applicable to the entire human population but that is true with any RCT.
We should definitely aim to do more studies that account for different people's conditions. As long as limitations are called out then it's fine imo.
A core reason why we need to do as many trials as possible for different interventions is that there's no one-size-fit all approach. I believe that some things will work for some and not others.
The bottleneck is in having a standard framework to validate the impact of interventions and understanding "whether or not it works for you" with empirical evidence (not anecdotes)
their account was created in 2022 but only has comments from the last few days, and mostly / entirely about vaccine-related topics. total karma as of this moment at -4.
essentially, a pre-staged shillbot with no history. 4/10 effort, try harder, get some fake repost history in there first
Cold plunges or cold showers activate that “I accomplished something hard today” side of happiness for me. Hard to start, but once you calm down your brain that’s yelling “no way, we don’t need that” and do it, I come out with an envigorating sense of control over my desires.
As anecdata rather than a commentary on the article's results, I find that a 10-min cold plunge produces up to 2 hours of elevated mood and energy. I think there's a decent dataset out there to back this up as a long-period increase in endorphin production, or maybe a heightened sensitivity to endorphins, but I can't find it at the moment. (SEO efforts by ice-bath merchants and fitness/recovery gurus is quashing any scientific publications when I search.)
On the thought of that "I accomplished something hard today" feeling, after a cold plunge I also experience a decrease in how hard it is to get myself started on some difficult task I've been dreading doing. Would you say you have the same thing, where you've already done one challenging thing, so the next domino falls more easily?
Anecdata: ice plunges are a meta-cognitive skill. Several minutes in 45 F water results in a 12h+ boost in mood and good feelings in the limbs and skin, and 2-3 hours of heightened attention. I’m currently doing this ~4 times a week.
It’s the opposite of addiction’s dopamine cycle - a small pain the leads to a long-lasting high, rather than a drug’s small high that leaves you in its debt.
I’m very lucky that a gym on my walking route to work installed a cold plunge. So I can get cardio and sauna from the same routine. (The effects in the first comment can and do come from pure plunge tho.)
I ignored the parts of me that like comfort and oh God I feel good for ages after physically (in a slightly shivery way) but also that I CAN do it way.
On a side note, I will take a cold shower after workouts and it extends my feeling of ‘magnificence’ and the ‘I worked out today’ sensations.
I cried tears of joy after getting out the first time I did a cold plunge. I used my bath tub in the middle of the Kansas winter. It was crazy, like I’d just climbed a mountain that I didn’t know existed.
According to Huberman's podcast, cold exposure after a workout is not optimum for the muscle as it reduces the exercise induced inflammation. Hot exposure increase that inflammation which increase the exercise benefit.
Indeed, but as someone who generally does something based on how they feel I respectfully follow my own path and pick and choose what feels right, I see benefits and effects that I can comprehend.
Example, I have a very destroyed shoulder from a break and dislocation. The cold helps way more with its recovery from exercises that put it through the wringer.
The perfect world is finding a way to get it better but I don’t have the answers (and nor has science/medicine) but from my own experiments my shoulder will respond dramatically better to cold than not.
I also have some Red Light therapy available. Less good.
The best is anti-inflammatories but the significant downside outweighs the ups.
So in a world of compromises I benefit the most from cold exposure.
Oh for sure!I mentioned because it used to be thought that cold after exercisong was good.
The other thing is, this my make a a significant enough difference in elite athletes, but for the average person I thing doing it at all is far superior to doing it at the right time but much less often.
Wearing only underwear and socks, I had the opportunity last year to do a guided ice plunge following breathing exercises. One curious piece is we were instructed to keep our hands above the water, supposedly it helps your body something with hypothermia regulation.
It was stressful until I put my head under. The experience became amazing, I felt fantastic, and the entire event became a blast. I told everyone I'd start doing it weekly, which of course never happened. But I recommend more people give it a try.
A fun side fact for those knowing University of Wisconsin Madison -- the established outdoor activities club is called Hoofer's, but my friend named his ice plunge club "Hoffer's", appropriately named after Wim Hof. Hoofer's gave him a laughably hard time over affront, but he hasn't backed down.
I a similar experience: If I start a cold shower by splashing cold water in my face it is totally doable. If I start with any other body part it is extremely stressfull
I wonder if any study has been made regarding the diving reflex and 'cold plunges': could the extremely cold water and the following peripheral vasoconstriction lead to a central blood pressure rise to a degree that may be dangerous to the brain?
If you live near a coast or lake, see if there's a Polar Bear Club or other cold-plunge group nearby. The social aspect can be helpful in several ways.
haha yep that's correct. Observing how a single individual responds over time along side other contextual metrics of behavior, productivity will help nail down "why a person responds well vs. doesn't"
I've recently been getting into cold plunges at the local sauna and it is crazy how energized you feel when you come out from one (especially after sauna.)
I now wish I had one at home, it is different from just taking a cold shower imo.
I had the opportunity to do a cold plunge (twice over two days) recently and I really enjoyed it. I felt "better" for several hours afterward. All my little aches and pains were gone, felt more clearheaded somehow.
One of the latest trends in never ending search for the magical elixirs of health, youth, beauty, wisdom, etc. I have a few thoughts on these things:
If any of them would work you would have to see significant results in the real world and not just in papers. Like somebody living 120 years because they always drink antioxidant teas. Or a geographical area where psychological well being is incredible because meditation is a local custom. For saunas and cold baths as well, they are long traditions in some places. What can we observe in those populations that is clearly out of the ordinary? If nothing, then they can't be doing much, can they?
We already know elixirs that really boost our "stats". We have PEDs which have very clear effects. You don't need to calculate p-values to see that somebody has 3 times the muscle mass of a normal person or can focus to study uninterrupted for 48 hours after taking some pills. And we already know why the general population doesn't use PEDs on the regular. Because they have serious side effects. Why would you assume that we can find something with significant beneficial effects in one area that would have no drawbacks? It's like putting weights on one side of the scale to push it, but expect nothing to happen on the other side.
Your points are valid. However, I think it's important that we have standard frameworks for evaluating the impact of new interventions that aim to improve wellbeing (lifestyle changes, pills, neuromodulation)
The number of years a person has lived is a good metric but that means if we're trying something new now, we need to wait for X years before saying this has an effect. X in your example being someone reaching 120years.
No one is claiming it’s a magic elixir that will make you live 120 years (well I’m sure someone is, but that’s not the goal)
At a bare minimum there’s a mental aspect to forcing yourself to do something extremely uncomfortable.
Lots of people are seeing results in the real world.
It’s really not equivalent to PEDs or medicine, or trying to replace those things. It’s just another tool that people into fitness can use in their routines
I’d recommend trying it before having such a strong opinion on it
It’s mostly about physiological responses but not only. Link to the publications they talk about are in the shownotes. https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/dr-susanna-soberg-how-to...