Hot Science - Cold Therapy
Using cold temperatures for health purposes might seem like something new and trendy. However, using deliberate cold exposure has been around for thousands of years, going back to the Greeks and Romans. The reason it has been and continues to be a tool for health is that cold causes profound physiological changes. These changes are not limited to the time period that a person is in the cold environment but persist afterward. We'll cover some of these changes now and why they are important.
However, the first thing to cover about cold exposure is how we do it. Most studies use either cold water (59 degrees Fahrenheit or below), cold rooms, cold vests/packs or whole body cryotherapy. The last involves supercooling the air around a person to as low as -289 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of this article will cover using cold water immersion or cold vests.
The benefits of cold exposure are numerous and include inflammation reduction, immune system benefits, increased production or neurotransmitters, brown fat activation and improvements in hormone sensitivity.
Of course, everyone thinking of cold exposure therapy should check with their doctor first. However, after that is done, who is a good candidate to start cold exposure therapy? First, anyone with an inflammatory condition, including autoimmune disease, heart disease and many neurologic and psychiatric diseases. Second, anyone with metabolic diseases, including diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity and PCOS. Individuals who have chronic pain also can consider cold therapy.
For those interested in starting (and who have been cleared by their doctor) it's best to start with a cold vest (such as the ones available from Hyperwear or CoolFatBurner) and to wear that for 10-15 min per day. You want to build up slowly with this to wearing it for an hour per day. After that, you can start with dunking your face in cold water or cold showers. Face in cold water will just be for 10-15 seconds. Cold showers can also be started at 30-60 seconds and built up to 4-5 minutes. Finally, once these pre-requisites are satisfied, an individual can start with cold water immersion. I recommend starting for a minute at 55-59 degrees Fahrenheit. You can build up the time spent in the water at that temperature to 3-5 minutes. Once able to achieve this, the temperature of the water can be reduced and the time spent goes back to 1 min. Again, time is slowly built up at that temperature and the process repeats.
Cold therapy can be another tool that is used in the lifestyle armamentarium and it can be a very energizing and health promoting tool. Most of us haven't exposed ourselves to cold and so the process has to be built up slowly. However, the body can adapt to cold and these adaptations can be very good for health.