How I Cold Plunge

Breathing Exercise

First and foremost, before you get into cold water, you want to do some breathing exercises.

Wim Hof breathing is the most popular type of breathing for this practice.

Sit upright, typically with your hands on your knees, and begin breathing.

You want to do deep, long inhales, and short fast exhales. This is counted as 1 repetition.

Breathe 30 repetitions; on the exhale of your 30th repetition, let all of the air out and hold that until you feel the urge to breathe. Once you feel the urge, breathe in 1 full breath and hold that one as well until you can no longer hold it. Do this 2 more times, and you will be primed and ready for a cold plunge.

Protocol:

3 sets of 30 repetitions of breathwork. In between sets, exhale and hold, and inhale and hold before starting your next set.

The Goal Of Breathing before Cold Plunging?

It primes your sympathetic nervous system and puts you into a fight or flight state, and assists you in crossing the threshold of the cold water. Your adrenals pump adrenaline into your system, where it acts as an analgesic blunting pain, making it easier to enter the cold water.

Scientific Mechanism:

Contrary to popular belief, this type of breathing does not necessarily oxygenate your blood; rather, it offloads your body of carbon dioxide faster than loading up on oxygen, which increases the ph levels of your blood. By performing these breathing exercises, your adrenals pump adrenaline into your system, giving you energy, focus, and an analgesic effect.

Getting Into Cold Water

Instead of getting yourself amped up as if to do a crazy stunt, I prefer to go into the cold water with a calm mind. After the breathing exercises, your body has adrenaline pumping through it, so your natural response is high energy and action. By remaining still in your mind, you will raise the threshold of your reaction to stress which directly translates to your day-to-day stress outside of cold plunging.

With a still mind, you want to then enter the cold water. Remain in the water until you're ready to get out. This will vary on temperature and the individual and what you're trying to achieve. When you are in the water, you can choose to do a type of box breathing, which helps calm you down, or you can simply breathe normally. What you don't want to do is hyperventilate because this can cause shallow water blackout and can be fatal if no one is to help you.

How long

If you're first starting out, you don't need to stay in for a long time. Give yourself time and work up to it. Try to get 10 seconds and then eventually work your way up for minutes. 2 weeks should be a reasonable time frame to get yourself up to sitting in the water for minutes at a time.

In a recent paper published in Cell Reports Medicine, the latest data show that the minimum threshold to derive benefits of metabolism, insulin, and growth hormone pathways are 11 minutes per week.

Temperature

Uncomfortably cold, but safe.

Tips & Suggestions When Starting

Studies have found that the water just needs to be 59 degrees F and below to receive benefits. Aim for water that is uncomfortably cold but safe. Studies suggest doing cold water immersion for 11 minutes per week total broken up to receive benefits. It does not have to be icy. We live in Colorado so that's just what happens here. We use a shower in the summer as it is too hot where we live. So it never has to perfect! Cold water is cold water.

Studies have found many mental and physical health benefits to adding it to your life. Some benefits are; can lower stress and anxiety, improve sleep, circulation, thermal regulation, increase metabolism and promote weight loss, improve immunity, increase your energy, and also reduce inflammation and help with muscle recovery. Also some have found it to provide pain relief and reduction.

I have several tips and if you have any further questions please let me know! Email me at coldwatertherapynurse@gmail.com

Tips:

1. Start out very slow-your body needs time to adapt.

2. Try taking a 10 second cold shower and see how that goes, increase the time as you feel ready.

3. Or use your freezer when it’s ready, work your way up the same way.

4. Breath is your power; fill your body with oxygen and use your breath to breathe through the beginning stage of the initial shock to calmness. It gets easier and you get better the more you do it

5. Work to a goal of staying in for 30 sec to 1 min. See how your body feels after doing that and increase time if necessary. (The max I do is 2 to 3 minutes)

6. Remember to also sleep, eat, hydrate, laugh, love, get your sunlight and exercise in, and balance yourself. That is where true transformation comes together.

7. After cold water therapy do not warm up by taking a hot shower or performing a strenuous exercise that causes exertion and high heart rate. Dress warm and allow your body to shiver and warm up naturally. After you feel more like yourself then you can exercise.

It’s definitely not a quick fix. For our health we need to eat right, breathe right, get our sunlight right, sleep right, exercise right, laugh right, love right and just be who we genuinely want to be.