Warming up to the cold
To overcome something hard, some times you need to do something harder.
As a guest on Evan and Haiko’s podcast Curiousaholic, I spoke about the lifestyle changes that are helping me to manage my wellbeing, the symptoms of Adult Onset Still’s Disease and the side effects of my medications. One protocol I have adopted recently is deliberate cold and heat exposure.
This decision to incorporate deliberate cold and heat exposure is based on a growing body of evidence that indicates that deliberate cold and heat exposure can support hormetic stress. This intensity of stress is a sweet point between insufficient and excessive stress and can lead to improvements in metabolism, cardiovascular and brain health, assist in balancing hormones, and decreasing inflammation. At the bottom of this letter I’ve included a discussion on the topic between Dr Andrew Huberman and Dr Susanna Søberg. The former a tenured professor in both the department of neurobiology and psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford School of Medicine and the latter a leading expert on cold and heat as a stress management tool for physical and mental health.
I started going to the sauna twice (or so) a week a few months ago. Initially, I was nervous because I was concerned I might pass out! I’ve lost a lot of confidence in understanding my body and I have allowed this fear to prevent me from doing a lot of things. But recently I have been purposeful in creating safe environments to test my body and as a result I am starting to grow in confidence.
An example of this is taking a cold shower in the outside shower at the gym after doing a sauna session. I didn’t know how my body was going to respond to the rapid contrast in temperature. The first time, it was a miserably cold evening. I stepped in and then immediately out again. Not for me I thought.
The next time I splashed the water on me but I wouldn’t commit to going fully under. After a few sessions I gradually built up to 10s and then 15s. Then I decided I had to commit. I would set my timer to 1 minute and 18 seconds. This gave me 18 seconds to hype myself up and then I needed to commit to 1 minute fully submersed. It felt awful. My body started to shiver and everything in me was telling me to get out!
But to my surprise I felt great afterwards! I felt clear in my mind. I felt like I had energy! I could come home and have the energy to do things that felt overwhelming previously. Having lived with chronic fatigue for most of my adult life, I can not express adequately what this has meant to me. To just have energy. Wow, I felt so blessed!
A few weeks ago, the gym installed a cold-plunge pool. Since then,
and I have been meeting up a few times each week to do a sauna and cold-plunge session together. Our meet-up has aptly been called our Recovery for Resilience session — an extension of the incredible community. The first time I was really nervous. This was a new frontier for my body and I didn’t know how I would go. It felt like a major step up from the outdoor shower.But something interesting happened. When I hopped out of the sauna, I stepped straight into the dreaded outdoor shower to rinse off before the cold-plunge. A task that had taken all my willpower just a week before didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. No long visits to the water bubbler after the sauna to delay the inevitable. I had bigger fish to fry… or freeze. If it wasn’t for the prospect of needing to overcome something harder, immersion in 5C water to be precise, and knowing I wasn’t doing it alone, I wonder whether I would still be at the outdoor shower umming and arrring like I usually did and fumbling with my watch to set it to 1:18. Then I got to the cold-plunge pool and my mind didn’t put up any resistance, nothing. I just got in…
This got me thinking. How many of the roadblocks in my life are a consequence of either setting the bar too low or trying to do things in isolation? How many things have I avoided doing because of a perceived barrier that only proved to exist in the space created by hesitation.
I have always hated cold water, but Benny and I’s Recovery for Resilience sessions are teaching me to face these challenges head-on. To practice doing hard things deliberately with the support of community, so that when we inevitably face life’s challenges we will be better prepared to work through them.
If you’d like to join a Recovery for Resilience session Aequus Movement is kindly hosting a free trial.
When: Thursday 6:15am from 7th Dec
Where: Aequus Movement
What: Cold Plunge and sauna
How: sign up here for a free trial and book via Zenplanner
BOOKING AND WAIVERS ESSENTIAL
I am grateful to be a part of the Writing 4 Resilience team. We’re a community who are striving to build resilience in our local community with the goal of making Canberra suicide free by 2033. I would encourage you to check out their newsletters!
Alfred
As I've been rebuilding my body and re-introducing more exercise into my week I have been using the Alfred App to ensure I’m fuelling my body sufficiently. Alfred’s streamlined calorie estimation process means I can track my calories in under 1 minute per day without the headache of having to measure or weigh my food. Just select what you ate from the database or send through a text or photo and the Alfred team does the rest!
After starting Alfred I was surprised to discover that even though I didn’t necessarily feel hungry, I was chronically under-fuelling my body. This has prompted me to make important changes in my diet to ensure my body has the energy it needs to recover. You can try Alfred free for two weeks here. If you have any feedback on the app please let
or I know!
Also, under fueling is a very common issue and can be a reason why people who are trying to lose weight don't lose weight even if they are carrying excess. I'm glad you're tracking that now and I'd love to see if you notice the impact it has on your energy :D
Great post Tim! Thanks so much for sharing! I have some knowledge of the benefits of cold exposure for nervous system regulation but, I don't like the cold haha. So maybe I'll think about it haha :) (my version of cold exposure is forcing myself to swim in the beach even when the water is freezing)