The Best Cold Plunge & Sauna Routine (Benefits of Hot, Cold, & Contrast Therapy)

Hey everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I'm your host, Dr. Axe, and each and every week on this show, we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level.

Today, I'll be talking about cold plunging, which has gained massive popularity for its surprising health benefits, but I'll also be talking about, are those benefits really as great as they seem, and is cold plunging great for everyone?

I'll also talk a little bit about heat therapy, contrast therapy, and When you should cold plunge and when you shouldn't, when you should use heat therapy like infrared sauna, and when you should contrast and go back and forth between the two for results.

So we're going to be doing a deep dive into cold plunge today, and I guarantee you're going to find out some surprising information on things like, is cold plunging good or bad for hypothyroidism? Is it good or bad for autoimmune disease? Is it good or bad for athletes? I'll answer all that and more on today's episode. On today's episode.

Also, before I dive into the content, make sure to subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss a single thing. You know, we're covering topics like this every single week, along with a lot of other topics such as spiritual growth, growth of your mindset, and more. So make sure not to miss out. All right, so what is cold plunging?

Well, generally speaking, cold plunging involves immersing your body in cold water, typically at the temperatures between 50 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit. That's around 10 to 15 degrees Celsius. And the purpose is to improve physical and mental well-being. Well, as I mentioned, the optimal temperature for most people is going to be around that 50 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit.

And the reason why that is the ideal temperature for most people is this range is cold enough to trigger the body's beneficial responses without being Dangerously cold. Now, some people do cold plunge. I've seen them cold plunge in the 40s or 30s or lower. It's actually not what I recommend. Here's the thing I'm going to teach you today about cold plunging. More isn't better. Okay?

You want to do the right amount for you, or which might be a lot or might not be much at all. But that's the thing. Remember, this is true. More isn't always better. More can sometimes be too much for your body. And that's true with a lot of people. And so I'll cover that today.

Now, if you are just starting to cold plunge and you fall within the people which I recommend to cold plunge, you should start with about 1 to 2 minutes a couple days a week and work your way up to 5 minutes and no longer than 10 minutes. Now, the reason for this is, is short durations help the body adapt to the cold without causing too much stress.

And that's a big principle behind cold plunging Right way or doing any types of what we call hormesis, which is good stress on the body, or certain types of stress. Could be heat stress, could be cold stress, could be the stress you're going to have during exercise or actual emotional stress. All of those things can be used for good if they're in the right dosages.

Remember this, if I were to go and say, okay, I want to go and try and run a marathon or try and bench press 300 pounds, okay? And if I haven't worked my way up over time, I'm just going to get injured. And you can do the very same thing with cold plunging or having excess heat. You can actually injure your body, injure your immune system or skin via excess cold, and you don't wanna do that.

And so you really wanna be wise about building up your tolerance, just like you would build up your tolerance if you were training for a marathon. You start at a small mileage, like around 3 miles, and work your way up eventually to that 26 over time. Now, the frequency that I recommend of cold plunging for most people is between 1 to 3 days a week. You typically don't need to do it every day.

I see a lot of people doing it every day, and it's important to understand that that excess cold, while it has benefits, there are also side effects on the body, which I'll get into. And this 1 to 3 days a week allows for your body to recover from the stress. Again, go back to this weightlifting scenario. You don't lift the same muscle group every single day typically.

Now, I do want to say when you're younger, your body can tend to get away with it. If you're a male specifically in your mid-20s and you're really, really fit, well, you can sometimes train every single day in the same body part and get away with it. But eventually at some point it becomes too much. And so that's why, again, more isn't better.

Now, let me talk about some of the benefits according to studies when it comes to cold plunging. First, it reduces inflammation. Cold water can reduce inflammation and speed up the recovery process, specifically of your muscles. It also can increase circulation. The cold causes blood vessels to constrict and then dilate, which can improve blood flow.

It also can be immune boosting if it's done in the right dosages. Cold exposure can enhance immune function by increasing the production of white blood cells and improving lymphatic circulation. Studies have shown that regular Regular cold exposure can reduce the incidence of illnesses like colds and upper respiratory infections as well.

Now, I want to share an interesting study done on cold therapy. Now, this isn't on cold plunging. This is on cold showers. But you're going to understand the principle here. A study in the Netherlands found that participants who ended their warm showers with between 30 to 90 seconds of cold water took 29% fewer sick days compared to those who took only warm showers.

Additionally, participants who combined regular exercise with cold showers saw a 54% reduction in sick days. So you get even bigger benefits when you combine cold therapy like cold showers with regular exercise sessions. And we know when you're exercising, your body is producing heat, especially when you're doing weight training and HIIT training.

Some other benefits of cold plunging can include even bumping up your metabolic rate as much as 5 times. And some physicians now are recommending recommending it for type 2 diabetes to support your metabolism. Now, a study published in the Journal of Thermobiology in December of 2023 found this.

They found a significant reduction in participants' heart rate, blood pressure, and common stress biomarkers such as cortisol after cold plunging. And they noted that participants reported better moods 3 hours after immersion. Now, there also are some stress-relieving components.

Cold exposure can reduce stress levels by lowering cortisol, Well, of course, we know that to be one of those common stress hormones that gets too high in many people today. Improved mood. The cold triggers the release of endorphins, which we know are part of the runner's high, or what we call these feel-good neurochemicals. Also increased resilience.

Overcoming the discomfort of cold water can boost mental toughness. If you want to know personally what I think, what I believe to be one of the 2 biggest benefits of cold plunging, it is the mental toughness. Toughness aspect.

When you do hard things like get in a body of cold water, it allows you to believe that you can do more hard things, and it gives you more confidence, which a lot of people really need. And so that's one of the things I love the most about cold plunging is you're doing hard things which will lead you to do more hard things in life.

Now there's another study I particularly like here when we look at cold plunging, and that is on how it affects hormones such as dopamine. This study showed that a cold plunge at 57 degrees caused a 250% increase in dopamine levels and a 530% increase in noradrenaline levels that lasted for several hours. Now, I want to say this can be good, but also not so good for some people.

You know, excess dopamine and noradrenaline isn't good.

Now, if you're a person who needs that stimulation, and let's say your life isn't that exciting— I don't know, I'm getting more into the, um, more into the abstract here— but if you're a person that needs more excitement in their life, you, you— and, and here's the problem, is most of the people that are adrenaline junkies who don't need this, they're the ones that tend to probably gravitate towards cold plunging even more.

All that being said, I think that there are some benefits here Hormonally of increasing dopamine, increasing adrenaline for a period of time. However, you wanna make sure that if you are increasing hormones like dopamine and adrenaline, you are getting plenty of rest.

If you're already overworked and you are in a fight or flight response constantly, and then you are going and causing adrenaline to kick up, uh, even more. And, and my point here is if you're a person that's very fatigued all the time already, you're very tired, you're on your phone all the time as well, constantly scrolling. This isn't necessarily going to benefit you in that way emotionally.

But for some people who need a little bit more excitement in their life and need a jolt during their day because their day is very monotonous, this could benefit you. Now, I want to talk about historic references to cold plunging. Ancient cultures like the Greeks and Romans use cold baths for therapeutic benefits.

Now, I also do want to note that most often, though, they combined cold baths with hot baths or steam rooms. So they would usually do contrast therapy where you would get both together in a session. But they did use cold baths in Greek and Roman cultures. Let me talk about who should cold plunge. Healthy adults.

If you are a healthy adult with no major medical conditions, cold plunging can be great for you. Okay? And especially if you're a person that works out regularly. And if you're a person that gets extremely hot when you sleep, you're always burning up hot, cold plunging can be great for those people.

So here's the big thing: if you have excess body heat, cold plunging— and you're healthy— cold plunging can be very good for you. If you're an athlete and you want to recover for performance— I remember the first time I heard about doing ice baths, uh, were, uh, when I was watching, I think, a football game with my dad, and I saw these guys in a locker room afterwards.

It might have actually been a movie, but they were in an ice tub. And I asked my dad why they did that. My dad said, well, it's good for you know, they recover faster after ice baths. And I remember watching a lot of— I was a triathlete and I remember watching a lot of the Tour de France cyclists like Lance Armstrong and others.

And when I would watch them, they would tend to do sometimes cold therapy, ice baths after their workouts. And so we do know there are some great studies on the benefits of cold therapy post-exercises for athletes. Now, I do want you to think about this. When somebody's doing a Tour de France, they are riding sometimes 100 miles in a day. Okay. These are very long bike rides.

And so when you are generating that much, when you're doing that much volume of exercise or we're talking about CrossFitters or professional football players, they're generating a lot of heat, typically for 2+ hours. And so when they generate that much heat, bringing coolness to the body can help with recovery, helps it cool off faster.

However, if you're a person that is not working out regularly and your body's already cold, I want— I have a common sense question for you. Do you think cold plunging would benefit you in the same way? No, it's, it's, it's different. Okay. It is different. And so I do want to mention that. Here are the people who should not cold plunge.

And I might ruffle some feathers here and even surprise some people, because here's what happens. You have a lot of people get on Instagram, influencers or social media influencers, and they say everyone should cold plunge.

And so, and then you're maybe somebody who's watching this or listening to this and you think, okay, well, if so-and-so is cold plunging, whoever the latest celebrity is, I'm going to cold plunge. I just have to warn you, it's not good for everyone. And a lot of these influencers that are cold plunging are doing something and they don't realize What it's actually doing to the body.

I even see this with a lot of scientists and a lot of experts, some doctors on YouTube and podcasts and social media saying, hey, I cold plunge every day and I'm doing it in 30 degrees and I'm doing it and I'm, you know, and taking it further and further and further and telling all of their patients and all their clients or anyone listening or watching, hey, everyone should cold plunge.

That's not true. And that's a good way to get hurt. Here's the thing I can tell you about practicing and working with tens of thousands of patients. Everyone is uniquely different. You are unique and different.

And so, if you fall in the category of athlete, high body temperatures, you sleep hot at night constantly, you're warm all the time, you're generally healthy, cold plunging could be a really, really good thing for you, incredibly beneficial. However, if you're a person with one of these conditions, you typically want to stay away from cold plunging. People with heart conditions, Okay.

The shock of cold can strain the heart. Okay. If you have a major heart condition, those with Raynaud's disease, this condition causes extreme sensitivity to cold. So, so there's a major sensitivity there. Here's another one. IBS with diarrhea.

If you are cold internally and you're one of those people that are cold all the time, you have cold, poor circulation, your limbs are cold, you're just cold a lot. You shouldn't be cold plunging by itself. Now, I'll get into something else you can do where you can cold plunge, but you shouldn't do it as a standalone. Again, IBS-D, that's IBS with diarrhea. That tends to be you're cold internally.

People with hypothyroidism need to be very, very careful of cold plunging. There's only one way you should cold plunge, and I'll mention that here in the next section. But generally, people with hypothyroidism should not cold plunge. In Chinese medicine, hypothyroid is known as a Qi and Yang deficiency means your body, your body temperature is cold.

What's one of the ways that people test themselves for hypothyroidism? By taking your body's internal temperature. If it's not in the 98s, if it's not 98.6, if it gets down around 90, in the 97s, well, that tends to mean you have low body temperature and hypothyroidism.

How is getting your body cold that's already cold constantly going to help you increase that temperature, which is something you want to do? It's not. So So, I believe that cold plunge is contraindicated for hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, and just generally speaking, if you have a cold body temperature.

In Chinese medicine, it's known that if you have— if you cold plunge, that it starts pulling things from your body. Have you probably heard of medications pulling nutrients from your body, right? Well, certain activities can pull nutrients as well. For instance, if you are a triathlete or marathon runner doing a lot of endurance sports, it pulls certain amino acids out of your body.

Body like L-glutamine. If you're a weightlifter, it'll start pulling certain amino acids like methionine, leucine, valine, and some of those other branched-chain amino acids. So certain activities pull certain vitamins, minerals, uh, peptides, proteins, and other things. Even heat or cold, it's pulled out of your body. And certain conditions thrive in different types of environments.

And so sometimes you want to warm your body, and sometimes you want to cool And so this is important. Remember, now, now, before I get into— well, let me get into this now. Okay. So this is— I, I, I— this was— there's a lot of wisdom here. There is a, a well-known Chinese medicine practitioner. Her name is Sandra Chu. And here's what she says.

She says, um, if you practice cold immersion and begin to experience new issues like frequent gas or bloating, any digestive issues or any new unusual aches or pains, or you begin to feel cold more often, like a lot colder, or you feel more fatigue, these signs— these, these are signs that your body is being overwhelmed with too much cold. Okay.

She also says extreme cold draws on your kidney yang and qi bank account. Okay. So kidney in Chinese medicine tends to refer more to not just the kidney, but the adrenal glands. Okay. So So this starts to pull from your adrenal glands. Now, remember the study earlier I mentioned on dopamine and norepinephrine? Epinephrine, this is a form of— it's like adrenaline.

Okay, so what's producing those things? And the study earlier with cortisol, that can be your adrenals. Okay, so too much cold starts to pull from those adrenal glands. And also the yang energy is your body's ability to regenerate and create new and healthy tissue. Okay. Now, it also can be inflammation if you have too much, but the right amount, it could keep you from building muscle.

So here's another example. Studies show that you should not cold plunge right after weight training. Okay. The reason is it is anti-anabolic. Okay. So it keeps your body from building muscle. If you wait 6 to 8 hours after, it's okay. But generally speaking, if you do it right after exercise, it's going to keep you from building More muscle. And that's yang energy.

That's that regeneration of the cells and tissues. So here's what she's saying. Extreme cold draws on your adrenals and kidneys, and in some cases can keep your body from fully regenerating. And kidney yang qi is the system that basically pumps, as I mentioned, adrenaline, supports your adrenal function, and thus your overall energy.

And when you use cold immersion to activate your your dopamine and adrenaline and immune system, you are drawing on this account. Okay, you've got money in your bank account. Well, you're drawing on it, and the euphoric exhilaration might feel like, hey, this is worth the expense somehow.

However, this is also why others report feeling awful afterwards, because they've drawn too much of those kidney yang funds over time that maybe they didn't have enough money in the bank account or, or, or adrenaline in the bank account in the first place.

Now, I do want to mention And when I'm talking about cold immersion here, I'm not talking about cold immersion following heat immersion or doing contrast therapy, because the one can sort of cancel the other out in terms of some of the side effects and actually lead to the benefits, which I'll get here in a minute.

So, by the way, when I'm saying if you have hypothyroid or adrenal fatigue or some of these conditions that you shouldn't cold plunge, I'm saying you shouldn't cold plunge By itself. If you add heat to it, some of you can then go ahead and cold plunge. Now, let me hit on a few other conditions. It's important to remember when we're talking about cold plunging.

One thing to consider is cold plunging around your menstrual cycle. For women out there, women may experience different responses to cold plunging depending on their menstrual cycle phase. It is generally advised to avoid cold plunging during the luteal phase. And menstruation due to increased cold sensitivity and the potential for increased menstrual cramps.

This is also why I actually recommend heat or an infrared heating pad during those phases, not cold. Now, the follicular phase, which is the first half of your cycle, might be a better time for cold plunging as the body is more resilient to temperature. Changes during those times. It's also a great time for doing those very hard workouts.

It's when your body is most resilient and when hormesis, those stressors, your body can tolerate and can adapt to in the most appropriate ways. Okay, so I now want to talk about my recommendations for cold, hot, and contrast therapy recommendations. So remember, I've been, I've been alluding to this throughout this episode, and that is this.

If you have hypothyroidism, cold body temperature, adrenal fatigue, poor circulation, you don't want a cold plunge by itself. However, you can cold plunge if you combine it with heat for some of you. Now, I want to walk through, generally speaking, the benefits of cold plunge, the benefits of heat therapy like infrared saunas, and the benefits of contrast therapy.

And that could be doing a sauna to a cold plunge or a cold plunge to a hot tub and alternating those or just doing one before or after the other. So the first is cold therapy. Here are the benefits. Cold therapy reduces inflammation, it reduces swelling, it numbs pain, it speeds up recovery from acute injuries, enhances muscle recovery after intense exercise. Okay.

Cold therapy is most appropriate for acute sprains and strains of muscles, Post-exercise recovery, and reducing inflammation. Here's what you— when you want to avoid cold therapy as a standalone.

If you have a major cardiovascular condition, if you have Raynaud's disease, cold intolerance, kidney Qi Yang deficiency, hypothyroidism, infertility, and poor circulation are all reasons why you should not do cold therapy. Also, digestive distress would be another one.

For heat therapy, its big benefits are relieving muscle tension and spasms, improving circulation, reducing joint stiffness, and promoting relaxation. It's most appropriate for chronic pain like arthritis, fibromyalgia, muscle tension, stress relief, weak digestion, and for menstrual cramps. That's where heat therapy really shines.

You want to avoid it for So, never heat directly on an area for acute injuries, inflammatory conditions. If you have a heat intolerance or if you, if you can't sleep at night due to a high body temperature, you got to be careful with submerging yourself, especially in a body of hot water for that long and getting your body too hot.

Now, the next thing I want to talk about is contrast therapy, which really has some amazing studies surrounding it. And contrast therapy is where you You do something like you get in an infrared sauna for 40 minutes and then you do a cold plunge for 3 minutes, okay? Or you take a hot shower for 5 minutes and you end with 60 seconds of cold water.

Or you have a hot— a cold plunge in a hot tub and you go back and forth each for 3 times for at 3 minutes each, okay? That's contrast therapy. I remember when I was in high school, my trainer, I sprained my ankle once and I wanted to get back for a really big game my senior year. And we iced my ankle for 48 hours and then we did hot-cold afterwards for the following week.

And I really noticed a difference and I got back on the field faster. And so I experienced contrast therapy. And by the way, I wanna mention of all of these therapies, I tend to practice contrast therapy myself the most. When I look Yeah. And if you look back at what the ancient Greeks and Romans did, they tended to combine hot and cold together.

Now, I do think there's times, as I mentioned, where if you're an athlete, doing cold therapy can be good by itself if you've got another event coming up following the next day. Okay, so that makes a lot of sense for some people. Hot, you know, heat therapy for people with chronic medical conditions, you sometimes want to do that as a standalone.

I think for most people though, we would benefit the most from doing both hot and cold and then doing a little bit more of one or the other based on how your body responds and listening to your body. Okay. The benefits of contrast therapy include both benefits that you're going to experience from hot and cold therapy.

It enhances circulation, reduces muscle soreness, improves joint mobility, and speeds recovery. Also, it's most appropriate for muscle recovery, joint pain like arthritis, sports recovery, enhancing circulation, and healing injuries that you've had for a longer period of time. You're going to get more blood flow.

I saw one study showing it helps bring more healing and growth factors, reduces edema and swelling faster than hot or cold alone. So lots of benefits there of contrast therapy. And you want to avoid this for— Yeah. Or if you have a major cardiovascular condition, if you have an extreme intolerance to cold or heat, or for certain nerve conditions.

So there's very little where contrast therapy isn't recommended. And I want to share with you, when I had a spinal infection, I didn't walk for a year. I tried these, all, all 3 of these therapies. I did cold plunge by itself. I did hot by itself.

And I want to tell you, I noticed the greatest healing benefits from recovering from my chronic back pain I had and from healing the issue issue I had from going back and forth between a cold plunge and a hot tub, or from my sauna to the cold plunge. I did back and forth, back and forth, 3 times each, and I noticed by far the biggest recovery.

And if you're a person with neck pain, low back pain, joint pain, I think you'll notice if you would go back and forth and you have a place you can do that. So I work out when I'm in Nashville at Lifetime Fitness, and in the winter they leave the pools open. So I will do hot tub, cold plunge, and go back and forth and do it there.

I also have I have a cold plunge at my house and an infrared sauna, so I will do one or the other there back and forth as well. But I really think doing the combination— and listen, you might do cold plunge, you know, later in the day and heat in a hot tub earlier in the day, and that might be beneficial as well. And I like going back and forth and alternating together.

But I do also like, even if let's say you do really want a cold plunge, you feel like you benefit from it, but you notice maybe you know, that maybe you're not the ideal demographic for this, well, then you may add some heat as well to your body, and that's going to help with your recovery. So all that being said, it's important to remember this is personalized medicine.

Just because some social influencer is out there doing cold plunge every single day doesn't mean that you should. Now, again, for many of you, you're going to benefit greatly from cold plunging. But for some of you to really benefit it without having the side effects, You want to also incorporate heat into your regimen.

So remember this, when it comes to cold plunging or even heat therapy, it's a principle called hormesis, and it's using stress to strengthen your body, just like weight training, just like running. By the way, this is true in the plant kingdom. Did you know that most plants have their medicinal properties due to a stress response? Let me give you an example.

Adaptogenic herbs like ashwagandha, Ginseng, cordyceps mushrooms. These amazing mushrooms or herbs or spices or roots tend to have their benefits because they deal with a certain type of stress. They create chemicals to deal with that stress, and then you eat the food and those chemicals now help you adapt to those stressors that it was able to repel. Let me give you an example.

Oil oregano as a plant. Okay. Oregano. Oregano creates, when they have, when there are insects that are going to come to attack it, oregano creates these types of essential oils, these volatile compounds to protect it from bugs and pests, probably as good as or better than most plants. Think about this with other plants such as grapes. Okay.

So grapes and blueberries are both, this is true for both of these. If you use irrigation, okay, and there's water in these blueberry and grape plants, have plenty of water, they actually, um, are less nutrient dense. Um, the reason is, is that they don't have to work very hard. They don't have to create more antioxidants to protect themselves.

If you do something called dry— have you ever heard of dry farm wines? Okay. Have you heard of dry farm blueberries? Or— it's the same principle. So if you go and you don't give irrigation and you let it deal with the sun and you Don't overdo it. Okay, so listen, blueberries and grapes, they both need some water and they need some sunshine, but not too much.

But also, if you give it too much water, it may not— it really does— it's really not stressed at all in that way and needing to grow its roots deeper to go and find more water and get more water.

When plants like blueberries and grapes have to send their roots deeper and deeper and deeper into the ground, what it actually does to the plant, to the grape and the berry itself, is it creates more resveratrol and bioflavonoids, these antioxidants that then when we consume makes us more resilient to aging, right? It's the same thing for those plants.

They grow their roots deeper and they become more resilient to aging. They'll last longer. They'll create better fruit as well when they have to do that. So no, you want stress. Correct. Cold plunging, heat therapy, weightlifting. These are good forms of stress if it's not too much for your body to handle. Again, this is called hormesis, where your body has to— it's weightlifting.

Okay, you did 20-pound dumbbells this week. Well, maybe next week you can do 22.5 or the 25-pounders, and you're going to work your way up over time. But you're not going from 20 pounds to 50-pound bicep curls. You need to work your way up over time. And also not put too much stress on the body. So let's talk about what time of day is ideal to cold plunge.

Well, first off, cold plunging in the morning can enhance alertness and productivity throughout the day by increasing dopamine and norepinephrine levels. However, if you are exercising in the morning, specifically weight training, and you cold plunge afterwards, it's going to create some problems where you're not going to build as much muscle. Studies have proven this.

Now, however, if you cold plunge and then you go do your workout— now, you want to make sure you're thoroughly warmed up, by the way, getting on a treadmill or doing some cardio, doing something to warm your body before you get into heavier sets. But you can do that and not have that side effect if you do it right before weight training.

In the evening, if you do cold plunging, let's say right before dinner or right after, it can disturb your digestion somewhat. Okay. Also, it may affect your sleep because then your body tries to heat itself up quite a bit. Now, if you do it for a very short period of time and it's in the middle of the day, your body will be fine with that.

But again, just a few things to consider in terms of time of day. A few alternatives I want to mention to if you don't have a cold plunge, using a bathtub and filling it with cold water and ice cubes, or even taking just a cold shower can mimic Yeah. The effects of cold plunge.

I actually believe if you don't also have a hot tub or an infrared sauna or an infrared blanket or a way to heat your body up afterwards, if you're just a person that's not a pro athlete or a CrossFitter or somebody who isn't generating that much heat, I think that you might be better off, for many of you, just taking a warm hot shower and then doing it, you know, a 60-second to 2-minute, uh, cold shower.

Now, I will say as well, consistency and gradual adaptation are key to achieving the max benefits according to the Mayo Clinic. So again, doing those cold showers over time could really add up to a lot of benefits. I also want to mention cold showers can provide similar benefits such as increased alertness, improved mood, reduced inflammation, and improved immune function.

However, full-body immersion in a cold plunge is more effective for deep muscle recovery and overall physical resilience. But again, there are still lots of benefits there of cold showers. So here's some dos and don'ts. Do remember, start slowly, gradually decrease the water temperature and increase the duration. Second, listen to your body.

If you feel too uncomfortable or experience pain, stop immediately. Third, warm up after. Have a warm towel or blanket ready to use after your plunge. Or if you're part of the demographic I shared, Hypothyroid, cold body temperature, cold extremities— use a heating pad afterwards, get in an infrared sauna, or do that before.

Do something to balance that out, and you'll still get a lot of the same benefits. Remember, don'ts: avoid prolonged exposure. Listen, more isn't better. Staying in 20 minutes, you're just going to make yourself sick or hurt yourself. You never want to do over 10 minutes. Don't plunge alone. Always have someone nearby in case you need assistance and always avoid if you're sick.

If you feel unwell, skip the cold plunge session to avoid additional stress on your body. Here's the thing to remember. It's hormesis. It is stress, a type of stress that can be good. But if you're, if you're under a lot of stress, it's not going to benefit you. Okay? It's going to make you worse in a lot of cases.

And so if you're under a lot of stress, Again, now I do think going back and forth and adding heat, maybe that can balance it out and you can do it. But generally speaking, if you're sick, you're much better off doing an infrared sauna than a cold plunge. So listen, I am a big fan of cold plunge when it's done for the people that are within that right demographic.

And for the people that aren't, well, hey, maybe consider adding heat to the regimen and that can balance it out and it can be okay for you as well. I want to say, hey, thanks so much for tuning in here to Thank you. The Dr. Josh Axe Show.

Remember, each and every week I'm diving deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. Hey, make sure to subscribe, like, and share. Listen, so many people are out there cold plunging and they don't know these principles and truths, that it's a form of medicine that some people should use and others shouldn't.

So hey, do me a favor, help me help the other people, all the people out there that that don't know how to do this the right way. And I just want to say thank you to all of you who are constantly sharing this. You're on mission with me to help save and transform lives. And thank you so much for subscribing, commenting, and liking. I'll see you on the next episode.