Polar bear swim, cold plunge, ice bath. You might have seen variations of cold therapy somewhere on social media, and thought to yourself… why?

An ice bath, also referred to as cold plunging, cold therapy and cold-water therapy, can soothe muscles, reduce inflammation, improve breathing, and give your mood a major boost.

It’s no surprise that the world’s best athletes choose ice baths as an important part of their recovery and conditioning. Aside from the multitude of physical benefits, ice baths are also great for our mental health. They help relieve stress and anxiety, even aiding in regulating your hormones.

Take a plunge into the world of ice baths to better understand how great they are for the mind and body. In this article, we go over:

What are Ice Baths?
Benefits for Physical Health
Benefits for Mental Health
How does it Compare to Cold Showers?
How are Ice Baths different from Cold Plunges?
What You Should Know

What are Ice Baths?

Though ice baths may seem like a new cultural phenomenon, cold exposure has been used as a healing method for centuries dating back to 3500 BCE.

An ice bath involves immersing the body in ice cold water. The temperature of an ice bath should be around 50-59 degrees Fahrenheit. We suggest spending anywhere from five to ten minutes in an ice bath, limiting yourself to fifteen minutes maximum.

It’s best to test your timing and gradually work your way up to ten minutes. For beginners, start slow and only immerse the lower half of your body before taking the full plunge.

As with any exercise or therapy, listen to your body and monitor how you feel in the ice bath. If you notice you are getting very tired or your skin is changing colors, it’s time to get out.

As with everything, you must take care when practicing cold plunge in an ice bath to ensure you do it safely. Just one ice bath can help muscle recovery, regulate your breathing, increase your energy level and lift your overall mood. Continued use of ice baths can increase your metabolism, improve mental health, and even give you a competitive edge - teaching you how to breathe through physical discomfort.

Benefits for Physical Health

Muscle Recovery

Ice baths can do wonders for an athlete’s muscle recovery as they reduce muscle inflammation, swelling, achiness, and flush out any built-up lactic acid in the body, just to name a few. The theory is that decreasing the local temperature after exercise helps limit inflammatory responses, decreasing the amount of inflammation and helping you recover. The sooner you get in an ice bath after a workout, the better the effects will be.

Boosts Metabolism

Cold exposure increases the brown adipose tissue in the body, which is responsible for converting energy into heat to keep the body warm - this is what gives you the metabolism boost. There is some evidence that repetitive exposure to cold water may reduce the amount of unhealthy body fat, possibly changing it to the healthier, more metabolically active brown adipose tissue.

Reduces Swelling and Inflammation

Ice baths impact inflammation by working on the way your blood flows, especially after an injury. Your blood vessels begin to contract almost immediately after immersing yourself in the ice bath. It is thought that this contraction improves post-exercise swelling and inflammation which may cause pain and muscle destruction after activity.

Benefits for Mental Health

Stimulates Central Nervous System

Jumping into ice cold water will give your central nervous system a healthy jolt, increasing alertness in seconds. Ice baths stimulate the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, stress response and recovery process, all of which contribute to a natural high and boost in mood and attitude. Cold therapy can also aid in reaction time and explosiveness in your workouts. Try a cold shower in the morning and you can probably skip the coffee!

Develops Breathing

You cannot spend any amount of time in an ice bath without learning to breathe properly. The first thing that happens when you submerge yourself in ice cold water is your breathing changes. For most people, their breath becomes shallow, heart rate increases, muscles contract, and some even let out a loud shriek. This is all totally normal, especially for first time ice bathers. Cold immersion can be a shock to the body, it’s best to take slow, deep breaths to stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system.

Alternatively, you can practice rapid breathing to prepare for your ice bath. This will trigger the sympathetic nervous statesman and pump up your adrenaline which will make you feel strong and fierce. No matter which breathing technique you try, be sure to breathe with intention. Conscious breathing allows the mind to settle and the body to relax.

Alleviate Depression and Anxiety

Anxiety and depression are two of the most common mental health disorders, affecting millions of people around the world. Cold water therapy has been shown to be an effective supplemental treatment for both conditions by decreasing the stress hormone cortisol (which we’ll talk more about later).

Studies have shown that those with depression who take regular cold baths had a significant improvement in their symptoms compared to those who did not take cold baths. The mental benefits of cold water therapy were so great that the participants continued to experience improvements even after they stopped taking cold baths. Another study found that regular cold showers and ice baths helped reduce anxiety and improve the mood of participants.

This holistic approach to mental health is not only non-evasive but highly effective. Cold showers and ice baths, for example, can create a “shock” effect on the body. This process activates electrical nerve impulses that extend from the brain to the nervous system. It has been shown to mimic similar effects as antidepressants. This is why cold water exposure is so prevalent in treating mood disorders and depression.

Improve Your Mood and Reduce Stress

After the initial “shock” of stepping into an ice cold tub of water, many people experience an elevated mood. This is likely due to the release of endorphins, hormones that act as natural painkillers, which have been shown to improve mood and reduce stress. Stress can impact us mentally and physically. Stress often leads to many other health conditions due to the pressure it exerts on the body. Cold water exposure reduces cortisol levels thus reducing stress on you and your body.

Improve General Brain Function

Ice baths are like a workout for your brain. Taking regular ice baths can help improve your focus, concentration, and overall cognitive performance. Talk about a triple threat! Whole body cold water immersion causes your body to produce a flood of neurotransmitters that alter brain functions. They regulate biological impulses and emotions that drive changes in our mood, behavior, and thinking. Recent trials found that whole body cryotherapy improved memory and attention on standardized tests of cognitive performance in patients with mild cognitive impairment.

Build Stress Resilience

While ice baths reduce stress, they can also make you more resilient to stress. By exposing your body to the controlled stress of cold water repeatedly over time, your body adapts to react less to the shock of the cold water while also adapting to react less to stress long-term.

Regulates your hormones

Cold water therapy regulates the release of hormones which is important as hormone imbalances can lead to a variety of health problems, such as anxiety, depression and weight gain.

Overall, ice baths affect your hormones by:

Reducing cortisol, the stress hormone.
Increasing endorphins, a natural painkiller
Increasing norepinephrine - regulates emotions and boosts focus
Increasing testosterone - promotes energy, muscle development and bone growth

Studies have found that people who take cold showers had a significant decrease in cortisol levels compared to those who took hot showers. It also found that those who took regular cold showers and ice baths had a significant decrease in cortisol levels (a stress hormone) compared to those who only took hot showers.

This decrease in cortisol is why ice baths can improve your mood and alleviate anxiety and depression. Another study found that taking regular ice baths can help to increase testosterone levels. This is important because low testosterone levels are linked to a variety of health problems, such as low energy levels, infertility, and muscle weakness which can negatively affect one’s mental health.

Calms the Vagus Nerve

The vagus nerve is a long nerve that runs from your brain to your stomach. It's responsible for a variety of functions, such as controlling your heart rate, blood pressure, and stress response. When you're stressed, the vagus nerve signals your body to release stress hormones. When you take an ice bath, the cold water has a calming effect that activates the vagus nerve to decrease stress levels and to help reduce tension and anxiety.

How does it Compare to Cold Showers?

If you want to incorporate cold exposure into your lifestyle, you can start at home, in your shower.

Simply take a shower with water colder than your normal. You can ease into this new practice by finishing your shower with a burst of cold water for an increasing amount of time.

While ice baths are more intense and more difficult to tolerate than cold showers, they also provide more benefits for muscle recovery and reducing inflammation. However, cold showers are a great way to invigorate the mind and body, improve circulation and boost mood and energy.

How are Ice Baths different from Cold Plunges?

The main difference between ice baths and cold plunge is the level of movement within the water.

In an ice bath, cold water is typically still, ensuring consistent water temperature throughout the entire bath. Because the water is not moving, anti-inflammatory effects may take slightly longer to occur.

In a cold plunge, water is typically circulated, either through jets or a waterfall. This creates a more dynamic environment, providing more immediate benefits to the body. The movement of the water can help to stimulate circulation and reduce inflammation more quickly than still water.

Both still water in an ice bath and moving water in a cold plunge are effective for muscle recovery and reducing inflammation. The choice between the two will depend on personal preference and the specific needs of the individual.

At Float House, we offer Cold Plunges with water circulated through jets as part of Hot-Cold Therapy.

What You Should Know

Build up your tolerance and limit your exposure to 10 minutes at the maximum.
Know your body. If you are sensitive to cold or have a cardiovascular disease or high blood pressure, consult your doctor first.
For beginners, go waist deep. Start by only immersing the lower half of your body and gradually work your way up to a full body plunge.

Ice baths are an easy, non-invasive way to be proactive about your mental and physical health.

With the help of just a simple tub, ice and water you can aid your body in post-workout recovery while also working your brain out, keeping you in tip top shape.