Cold Plunging: It’s Real

Self-help guru Tony Robbins claims that cold plunging changed his life. Every morning, he jumps into a cold water pool – 57 degreed Farenheit – and sits in it for 5 minutes or so, from what I can tell.

I’ve never been a huge fan of his stuff, but thanx to him, cold plunging has become a fad, and some research has been done on its mental health benefits. I was sold during our last family movie night when we watched “My Octopus Teacher,” a documentary about a guy who free dives in a kelp forest off the African horn and makes friends with an octopus. Early in the movie, he talks about the initial difficulty of spending so much time in 60-degree water, but he also pointed out that it was a bit of a reset for his psyche.

That night, I got in the shower, stood there for a bit, then cranked the faucet all the way to cold (in Denver that’s about 55 degrees). I lasted less than a second.

I hate cold water. There’s nothing more depressing than covering your entire corpus in less-than-body-temperature liquid. I’ll take a refreshing plunge in a lukewarm pool over anything else any day of the week. Unfortunately, every year, Elaine forces us, against our will, to take a family picture of the Landry’s jumping off the Grand Lake pier into the coldest water I’ve ever seen. It’s awful. It stings. You can’t breathe.

But after my brief, one second shot at cold showering, something clicked. For years I’ve been trying to figure out why my entire psyche gets a reset during a good beach vacation. I thought it was simply because we’re at the beach. But it only happens on trips where I get a chance to go surfing. Again, maybe that’s because I love to surf.

But I’m in the water for three hours a day on these trips. And, because I’m not very good at surfing, I spend more time completely submerged than most. Sure, the water’s never 60 degrees, but it’s cold enough to take my breath away. I began to think that there might be a correlation between cold water and my mood, so I decided to go full-on cold plunge.

I filled the bathtub, carefully controlling the temp to make it an even 64 degrees (didn’t want to go too cold), set the timer on my watch, and got in.

64 degrees is cold, by the way. Tony Robbins only goes to 57. My chest was heaving so much that some of the water splashed out of the tub.

I sat, submerged as a man of my size can get in a small bathtub, for 90 seconds, got out, took a super hot shower, then dressed for the day – feeling completely un-different – then headed to my oldest daughter’s room to check in before her day of online schooling. I’m not a super chatty person, but on this particular morning, to her bewilderment, I was. As the day wore on, I noticed a level of energy that I don’t usually have, and far less episodes of depressing thoughts – something we’re all familiar with in this pandemic.

Those are commonplace for me, by the way, long before Coronavirus lockdown came along. Depression runs in my family, and I can frequently be found ruminating on past failures and awkward moments, for they are legion – plenty of material there. Sometimes it makes my stomach hurt. Nighttime is especially difficult, especially if I wake up at 2:00AM and can’t get back to sleep. There’s nothing else to do but lay in the darkness and take inventory of my dumbest perpetrations, and what everyone thinks about me because of them.

I got somewhat of a respite from all of that on the day of my first cold plunge. So, I decided to take things a little further and do it five days in a row; 5 plunges at 64 degrees for 5 minutes. I’m now 10 days in (plunging at 60 degrees) and have no plans of stopping. I’m not bouncing off the walls by any stretch, but do find myself much more engaged in conversation, with much more energy overall. What’s best, my depressive moments have gone down significantly.

I know this sounds like I’m peddling a fad, but given the myriad testimonies about the physiological advantages of cold plunging, not to mention the myriad contributions about its efficacy from mental health researchers, I feel good telling you that it’s a thing. You should try it.

At least give it a shot for a few days and see for yourself. If you don’t have a tub to use, just crank that cold water handle all the way up during your next shower. I’ll admit that it’s ridiculously uncomfortable at first, but the body acclimates in short order. Now, I only have a few seconds of chest heaving, then things get almost pleasant. I’ll be lowering the temperature and extending my time a bit in the coming weeks, but suffice it to say that me and cold water are becoming friends.

A bit of a disclaimer – for some, jumping into a 60 degree bath might present a health risk. Be careful, don’t go too cold at first, and/or consult your doc before trying this out.