Cold Exposure Therapy - Benefits for Weight Loss, Mood, and Performance
Cold exposure therapy is a brief to extended exposure to cold temperatures via different forms including cold showers, ice baths, cold plunges, etc. There are many well-documented benefits to cold-exposure therapy including a boosted immune system, enhanced mental clarity, anti-depressive benefits, building mental toughness, improved metabolism, and metabolic detox. Essentially, when our bodies are exposed to stressors, the efforts our bodies make in response can lead to health benefits. Aside from cold therapy, other examples of healthy stressors are exercise and intermittent fasting. Harnessing controlled stressors to the body can be a great hack. Below we go into more depth about the key benefits and helpful protocols of cold exposure therapy.
KEY BENEFITS OF COLD EXPOSURE THERAPY
Cold exposure therapy can lead to many benefits:
Boost Weight Loss - cold therapy activates brown fat, also known as brown adipose tissue or BAT. BAT is rich with mitochondria which makes it work as an engine, increasing thermogenesis and calorie burn. It is metabolically active and can burn white fat (found around the stomach), thereby helping you lose weight. Additionally, according to studies, “The function of activated brown adipose tissue … alleviates metabolic complications such as insulin resistance … and disturbances in glucose homeostasis.” This is meaningful because insulin resistance can lead to diabetes, pre-diabetes, and weight gain around the middle. It’s important to note that cold exposure alone will not result in weight loss - this therapeutic approach must be combined with appropriate exercise, food restriction, and possible pharmacologic therapy.
Improve Mental Clarity and Mood - Studies have shown that “cold hydrotherapy can relieve depressive symptoms rather effectively.” Another study demonstrated that cold exposure increases peoples’ feel-good neurotransmitters noradrenaline by 530% and dopamine by 250%. Dopamine is our neurotransmitter of reward, motivation, and mental clarity. Another benefit of cold therapy is the reduction of cortisol production, which can help reduce anxiety, depression, and/or irritability.
Strengthen Immune System - A study in the Netherlands of 3,018 people showed that just 30-90 seconds of a cold shower daily resulted in a 29% decrease in the number of sick days. Cold therapy may benefit your immune system by increasing the production of infection and disease-fighting immune cells such as leukocytes, IL-6, and natural-killer cells. The hypothermic stress induced by cold water immersion has an immune-stimulating effect as it releases norepinephrine from the sympathetic nervous system. These same studies found that exercise before cold therapy boosted these immune-enhancing benefits. Cold therapy is also a way of getting the body into autophagy - the process by which the human body cleans itself of any metabolic debris that weighs down cells.
Enhance Strength and Sports Performance - Stanford Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman has extensively studied the effects of cold therapy on strength and sports performance, finding this therapy greatly benefits one’s ability to “supercharge exercise performance and recovery.” Specifically, rather than full cold water immersion, his findings suggest that exposing one's hands, feet, and head to cold surfaces can allow people to perform 200-600% more volume and repetitions of resistance exercises at the same weight loads, or to run, cycle or swim significantly further. Additionally, cold exposure can reduce inflammation and swelling as it causes blood vessels to constrict and then expand - expediting the rate of recovery. It is interesting to note that full-body cold exposure immediately following strength training exercises inhibits some of the muscle-building effects. There are, of course, all the benefits of full-body cold exposure discussed in this blog - but timing it appropriately is important.
COLD EXPOSURE THERAPY PROTOCOL
The benefits of cold exposure therapy can be achieved in many ways. Here are some tips for optimizing the benefits of cold exposure therapy:
The water should be between 45 - 58 degrees, depending on what triggers a shiver.
Take cold showers or baths between 2-7 times per week.
Start with what you can tolerate and work up to 12 minutes/week.
Try to work your way up to five minutes per exposure.
If you are strength training, don’t do a full-body cold plunge until at least four hours post-strength training session.
To affect metabolism, you’ll need at least twice a week for a total of 11 minutes.
If you’re trying to achieve weight loss/improve metabolism with cold exposure, triggering the shiver is key. Some experts recommend breaking up your exposures to help trigger shiver - i.e. 1-2 minutes under a cold shower or plunge, get out for 30 seconds and don’t dry off, then get back in for another 1-2 minutes. You can repeat this for 2-5 sets. This can stimulate more shivering than a sustained five-minute exposure. People can experiment to determine what causes optimal shivering.
To learn more about cold exposure therapy - check out these podcasts from Huberman Lab:
*It’s important to note that you should consult your doctor before starting any kind of cold therapy - this can be dangerous for people with heart conditions.
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