The Human Ice Cube Experiment

 The journey to fitness, health and well-being is never ending. I have tried various exercise methods and wellness routines because I want to feel good. I'm like a guinea pig except I choose my own adventure instead of some scientist telling me what to do. Because I am almost always sore and have been in a war against inflammation, I am open to trying all the things at least once. There is one thing that started to consume my little bubble so much that I decided to try it.

Ice baths.

There's the funny (Kevin Heart interviewing people while sitting in a tub of ice), the celebrities on social media and the game changer: science.

I like to take a break from true crime podcasts with things that teach me other things. One of the podcasts I like is Huberman Lab. I am not super fluent in neurolobiology so I admit I often stop this to process it, maybe do some Googling and then continue. The episodes are long and take me a few walks/drives to get through. Recently, a series of discussions about speeding up recovery to aid fitness took over my brain.

Since I'm a helper, here's a link to the specific discussion about cold/hot therapy. And here's a link to the study they discussed.

First, this is a very common thing in colder countries. To them, it may just be a dip in the very cold water outside. People have been doing this for centuries. It has been tried and tested. Believe me. I have done the Googling with plenty of skepticism because I did not want to trust what I was hearing. The idea of being cold made me shiver. During my fight with COVID last year, I was constantly cold and feared I would never get warm again. That was literally my fight for life. To purposely make myself cold was going to be make or break for me.

Rather than write all the benefits, I put them in this infographic.

After learning all those benefits, I decided I had nothing to lose. I also started getting ads for ice baths on social media so that made it impossible for me to ignore. I did the research and settled on one from Nurecover. For the last three weeks, I have been starting almost every day neck deep in cold water. 

NOTE: If you want to try the Nurecover ice bath, enter the code NICOLE71488 to save a little extra cash at checkout!

I am slowly getting the temperature down thanks to a few 20lb bags of ice. Here is a picture taken this morning of the conditions I braved. Yes, it takes some courage to know you're about to make yourself get uncomfortable!

I have my ice bath set up in my guest bathtub. It's easy to fill and empty. Keeping it inside helps maintain the temperature. I also have a lid that sits on top to help keep it pretty cold.

You should know, my day now starts at 4 a.m. I get up, shuffle to the bathroom, check the temperature of the bath and look at it while thinking, "OOOH! THAT IS COLD!!!" I put one leg in at a time, then I count myself down to sit. Some days, I do the countdown a few times. I know that once I am all in that it isn't bad. It's bracing for the shock that makes me hesitate. I know I have to train myself to just do it and not think about that. This is a process. I'm working on it!

Initially, the cold on my legs stings. That passes. Once I'm fully in, I startthe timer on my watch and I just concentrate on keeping myself from floating up. I really feel like an ice cube near the surface of a glass of water. I go from being cold to feeling a little tingly and then I actually feel warm. It almost becomes comfortable. I try to remind myself that this happens when I'm telling myself to get all the way in but that has not allowed me to just sit right down and relax. Not yet.

I close my eyes and take slow, deep breaths. It is not so comfortable that I will fall back to sleep but it definitely feels safe. Once I see that I'm closing in on the 4-minute mark, I prepare myself to stand. This is the other hesitation. That fast move brings the cold back. I have warmer air swarming my cold self. That's it!

I dry off, get dressed and go workout. I am warm before the warm-up even starts. My body temperature doesn't seem to regulate until I'm in my workout and by that point, I'm a sweaty mess so it doesn't really matter. 

Here's what I've noticed: all those benefits the science says come with the cold therapy are true! I have fewer aches and pains, my calorie burn has increased and my favorite perk: better sleep! It doesn't mean that I sleep through the whole night. If I wake up because I had too much water close to bedtime, I sleepwalk to the bathroom then go back to bed and fall right to sleep. Even though I wake up at stupid o'clock, I wake up rested. I haven't felt like that in a looooong time. As for my fear of being cold, I have learned that I can be very cold and then warm up. It's actually been a little therapeutic.

I could do the ice bath later in the day, but I am working on being stronger and there's research that says doing this before the workout will get me those gains. While it may sound like doing the ice bath before bed would be a boost, it actually could work against you. Your body will be working on regulating temperature and that will keep you awake. It's science. I've Googled it.