Deliberate Heat Cold Exposure

Heat Exposure

• ≈ Thermotherapy
• Formats
  • Warm shower/baths
  • Sauna
• Decrease Core Body Temperature (CBT)
• ~57 mins per week
• Timing
  • Later in the evening

Cold Exposure

• ≈ Cryotherapy ¹
• Formats
  • Cold shower
  • Ice baths
    • Pro Tip: The less water you use, the less ice you need to lower the temperature.
  • Cold plunge = Cold water immersion
    • Always Dunk. Dip Your Face. (See The Diver Reflex)
• Increase Core Body Temperature (CBT)
• ~11 mins per week
  • 2-4 sessions lasting 1-5 mins each distributed across the week
  • 2-3 minutes cold showers * 5 per week
  • Or: Challenge yourself by counting walls and setting a goal of “walls” to traverse (e.g., 3-5 walls) during the round of cold exposure.
• Timing
  • Early in the morning

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Vocalizing, including Moaning during Cold Exposure

• Stress Release: Helps relieve emotional discomfort caused by the cold.
• Breathing Regulation: Encourages calm, rhythmic breathing, preventing the body from going into shock or hyperventilation.
• Distraction: Redirects focus away from the intense cold sensations.
• Warmth Generation: If moaning is paired with physical vibrations or movements (like shivering or humming), it might help slightly by generating heat or maintaining circulation.
• Mental Resilience: Promotes a sense of control.

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Cooling “Glabrous Skin Surfaces” ² can…

• significantly improve physical performance and enhance endurance.
• reduce core body temperature more efficiently (as these areas contain specialized vascular structures that facilitate heat loss), and even assist in emergency situations like Heat Stroke (Hyperthermia) by cooling the body more rapidly than traditional methods.

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The Science & Use of Cold Exposure for Health & Performance - Huberman Lab

• Start slow (warmer then colder)—as cold shock is possible; just as with lifting weights or other forms of exercise
• The water temperature should be uncomfortably cold yet safe to stay in for a few minutes.
  • The colder the stimulus (water immersion, shower, etc.), the shorter amount of time you need to expose yourself to the cold.
• The “Counting Walls” Approach
  • Undoubtedly, during (or before) cold exposure, you will find your mind pushing back against the challenge. Your mind will say, “I really don’t want to do this,” even before getting in, or “Get me out of here.”
  • You can imagine those mental barriers as ‘walls.’ Those walls are, in fact, the effects of adrenaline pulses in your brain and body, which in this case is what triggers the eventual adaptive response. After all, if it were easy, then there is no stimulus for your body to change (adapt). By maintaining top-down control of your reflexive urge to exit the cold environment, you will have successfully traversed that wall.
  • Challenge yourself by counting walls and setting a goal of “walls” to traverse (e.g., 3-5 walls) during the round of cold exposure.
• By forcing yourself to embrace the stress of cold exposure as a meaningful self-directed challenge (i.e., stressor), you exert what is called ‘top-down control’ over deeper brain centers that regulate reflexive states. This top-down control process involves your prefrontal cortex – an area of your brain involved in planning and suppressing impulsivity. That ‘top-down’ control is the basis of what people refer to when they talk about “resilience and grit.”
  • To increasing the resilience-enhancing effects:
    • Level 1: Stay completely still while in cold water.
      • This allows a thermal layer to surround your body, “insulating” you from the cold.
    • Level 2: Move your limbs while keeping your hands and feet in the water (leave your arms hanging loosely by your sides).
      • This will break up the thermal layer and you will experience the water as (much) colder than if you stayed still.
• The Søeberg Principle based on deliberate cold researcher Dr. Susanna Søeberg is: To enhance the metabolic effects of cold, force your body to reheat on its own. Or “End With Cold.”
  • Shivering is the most important part of cold water therapy.
  • “If you want to use deliberate cold exposure to increase metabolism, you should get to the point where you shiver in the cold exposure or immediately after.”
  • Also, allowing your body to shiver may enhance metabolic increases from cold.
    • Don’t huddle or cross your arms while in the cold or after getting out (basically, don’t hug yourself).
    • Don’t towel off.
    • Don’t stand under a warm shower.
    • Let your body reheat naturally by drying yourself out in the air for about 1-3 minutes.

Footnotes

1. LeBron uses a cryotherapy chamber to replicate the therapeutic effects of an ice bath—reducing inflammation and pain—in significantly less time. ↩

2. meaning non-hairy skin areas such as palms of the hands, soles of the feet, upper portion/half of the face, ears ↩