Now an ice bath is becoming more and more likable… Everybody seems to use one?
For centuries, every Sauna in North Europe had an ice bath, for instance, the town of Bremen.
An ice bath is never an invention of Wim Hoff!
A Sauna combined with an ice bath is optimal! And it is never true that you can cure every disease with an ice bath, as Wim Hoff is telling us! Otherwise, there would be no diseases in North Europe!
Again, Wim Hoff is wrong, in saying that curing traumas with an ice bath. -This is not efficient or recommended.
Benefits of an Ice Bath:
1. Increases Energy Levels
2. Spike dopamine, testosterone, and oxytocin.
3. Improves your immune system.
4. Improves Resilience.
5. Decrease inflammation.
6. Speeds Up Physical Recovery.
7. Improves Your Discipline.
8. Boosts Your Mood.
9. Helps You Better Manage Stress.
10. Improves Your Sleep.
11. Helps: Burn Fat and Improve Insulin Sensitivity.
12. Improves Your Cardiovascular Health.
In an interview, Tonie Robins said that he has been using an ice bath every day for over 30 years…
Money should not be an obstacle.
I thought an ice bath could afford only the wealthiest people…
On YouTube, you can find videos on how to make an ice bath reasonable with an old chest freezer for $100 to $600… Even Wim Hof uses a chest freezer which he converted to an ice bath…
I bought a cheap 435l, 180W Chest freezer, …I could not get the water cold, so I bought ice cubes, and tried different temperatures, 5 degrees Celsius is fun for me, and below (3.5) is hell… The chest freezer is good enough to keep the temperature.
HOW COLD SHOULD BE THE ICEBATH?
We don’t want to become Mr. / Ms. Ice or do any Ego trip on our health journey!!!
We don’t want to get frostbite or a heart attack!
We ask our physician if we are fit for an ice bath!
We want maximum health instead of boosting our ego!!!!
We start with 15 degrees Celsius and our target should be 10 degrees Celsius if we master that, then we can aim for 5 degrees Celsius.
A typical “ice bath” (cold water with ice added later) is 5-10°c… It has to be cold enough to be uncomfortable, to create a feeling of “S*it, I need to get out, but I can stay in safely”. Only you know what that feeling is like, and it’s personal to every individual. Your threshold of discomfort will get higher as your tolerance increases. Always keep to the simple rule of seeking out ‘uncomfortably cold’. Uncomfortably cold is always the answer. You must learn to relax in the discomfort.
However, there should be no pain and no pushing it.
Altogether (for instance 7 times 1.5 minutes) 11 minutes/per week in an ice bath is enough to get all the benefits!
This means colder temperatures for a shorter duration!
Of course, the more you practice, the more you cold adapt.
Essentially, learn to feel your body respond. It will tell you when it’s had
enough, or not enough.
Stay in control and decide for yourself when to exit… No Ego trips!
When the muscles in your chest and lungs start to shiver, then you have to jump out of your ice bath, longer time to stay in an ice bath would not be beneficial.
Learn to breathe slowly deep in and out. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth.
The best practice after Prof. Dr. Huber, is 2 short inhales and one long exhale.
Try out to “hum” or make the sound “Ohm” (activation of the second chakra) by exhaling.
Slow and steady wins the race. No Ego trips.
Keep it fun. A cold practice is fun. We’re not trying to break records like Wim Hof! Be amused by yourself. It’s not serious, so long as you’re practicing safely. How funny you’re sitting in cold water! That you know how amazing you will feel in a minute’s time.
The best study on ice baths was done by Dr. Susan Søberg.
So the more times you plunge into the ice bath the more benefits the body gets.
Benefits
Dramatically increased Dopamine by 2.5-fold, this is the feel-good hormone when you have done (regardless of what) it.
The increase is as high as taking cocaine and it lasts for hours.
Dopamine gives us drive and motivation…
Increase of Serotonin
After you have plunged four times already in an ice bath you activate your vagus tone…
That will give us a sense of mental balance and this you can’t get from cold showers…
Increase of oxytocin
Oxytocin is our love drug, a natural drug in our brain. Every time we fall in love, we increase oxytocin or have sex or eat chocolate…
You don’t need to dunk your entire body into that ice bath, to reap the benefits. Regardless of what so-called experts are saying!
You lose 11% of heat without submerging your head in the cold water!
And 36% more of your heat if you submerge your head in the cold water.
Even so, just dunking your hands in cold water can be beneficial!
Fishermen get cold-adapted when working in such cold circumstances when they put their hands in this icy water…
So exposing parts of your body to this coldness will benefit you.
When you get out of the cold water your muscles or your entire body will start to shiver.
The warm blood from your core will flow to your fingers…
We should keep moving our bodies, just don’t sit on a couch.
This is called the Søberg principle.
My Video: Benefits of an Ice bath https://youtu.be/dfxRLK6F5OM
My Audio: https://divinesuccess.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/Podcast3/Benefits-of-an-Ice-bath.mp3