Cold exposure therapy, such as ice baths, is presented as a powerful tool for regulating the nervous system, managing stress, and improving overall well-being by intentionally exposing the body to extreme cold in a safe, controlled manner.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
my mind still goes oh [ __ ]
like the survival thing kicks in the
stress response takes over and that's
the point of this
you are putting yourself in a situation
where your mind body and spirit know
holy [ __ ] this is going to be called
alarm alarm alarm alarm
and then
[Applause] do
how are you it's your buddy mel robbins
welcome to southern vermont where the
sun is shining and the snow is not falling
falling
um we might have to adjust the angle on
this as we go i decided to go
go
live with you right now
for a very particular reason
on sunday there was a really big article
in the new york times in their wellness
section and the article was about
mental health
and what research is saying about the
benefits of something called cold
exposure therapy and that's what i
wanted to talk to you about i was
featured in the article i was the person
that they quoted
uh about cold exposure or ice baths or
polar plunges um and
i then posted a a video of myself uh
climbing into a barrel full of ice here
in southern vermont and sitting in it
and breathing
as i sat in the barrel my husband posted
a video on his instagram account which
is soul degree
and the thing exploded uh
more than a million views on the video
in the barrel and more importantly
y'all had so many questions
it was unbelievable and so i wanted to
just jump on and
use this video to tell you all the
reasons well first of all what is cold
exposure therapy secondly how did i
discover it
why did i start doing it what how do i
do it and what are the benefits
that i've experienced now before we get
started couple rules about this video
number one i'm not a doctor and i'm not
recommending uh that you try this i'm
not diagnosing you with anything i am
simply a woman on a mission to
to
live a life that i love and to [Music]
[Music]
truly find ways to be
more at ease to have more fun to feel
more joy
to feel freer and all change
that you create your life really happens
from the inside out and so everything
that i'm about to share with you is just
my personal experience and as you know
nothing brings me greater joy
than sharing my struggles with you and
also sharing the very simple believable
actionable things that you can do in
order to change your life or change some
aspect of your life for the better so
that's the context of this video so
let's just jump into what the hell is
cold exposure therapy and why are people
all over social media and online and
friends of mine sitting in tubs of ice
what the hell is going on
well so cold exposure therapy
is uh this is just my layman's way of
explaining it cold exposure therapy is
when you in a safe way
you expose yourself
to cold or freezing temperatures
and you do so
because you are interested in either
treating health conditions based on the
cold exposure or
or
because you want that cold exposure to
stimulate some kind of health benefit
that's what cold exposure is you know i
grew up in western michigan and i remember
remember
every single winter usually on new
year's day there would be a whole crowd
of people that would go out to lake
michigan and they would cut a hole in
the ice if the kind of the shoreline had
frozen over and people would jump into
the frozen water i did it several times
the idea was to jump in and get out
nobody jumped in and hung out back then
in the 1970s and early 80s we just kind
of jumped in like a dare typically we're
raising money for the local fire
department or something and then we
would all jump out and wrap ourselves in
sleeping bags and so that was my uh sort
of introduction to the cold plunge
well more recently
as i have been really interested in
in
learning more about healing trauma
and learning more about the various
modalities that's a fancy word for kind
of methods the various modalities
for um
quieting the mind
practicing discipline
lowering stress uh
uh
finding what i will call
i don't know if the right word is like homeostasis
homeostasis
but i have always been somebody who has been
been
really emotional like the ups and the
downs and the ups and the downs and the
only solace that i had is kind of
knowing that whatever comes up
ultimately comes down and if something's
really down eventually it'll come back
up but i really didn't have
a strong center and i'm not talking
about abs i'm talking about a strong
emotional center and if you are somebody
and raise your hand or you know give a
comment in the below if you are somebody
that feels like you are easily triggered
that you feel like you're on edge all
the time or that you
feel like you're waiting for the next
shoe to drop
if you're somebody that has experienced trauma
trauma
or heartbreak
and you can kind of feel it in your
nervous system
like it's almost like it's really hard
for you
to turn off
this sense
that inside your body your nervous
system is just on edge you can't quite
catch a break
well that's how i felt my whole life
i have literally felt like i
am just
wired in a way that i'm triggered easily
that i get emotional easily that i feel
stressed all the time
that i snap when i don't want to snap at
my kids or my husband
that i can quickly
start spiraling in terms of my thoughts
and while i've done tons of things to
address the anxiety
from the five-second rule that i
invented and reprogramming my mind to
going to therapy to taking medication
that i've never really addressed what i
am starting to believe is the core
problem for all of us
which is your nervous system
is always
in a state of high alert
and i personally believe this is not a
medical opinion this is just a 53 year
old best-selling author's opinion
who has researched this for the past
five years my personal opinion
is that almost all mental health issues
and all issues that you are facing
whether it's with habits or emotion or
whatever i personally believe that
everything comes back to whether or not
you have what psychologists and
researchers call a regulated nervous system
system
you have
two nervous systems everybody
you have a nervous system that is your
fight-or-flight nervous system how many
of you are aware of this you know yep i
know that mal i've got a fight-or-flight
nervous system
your fight-or-flight nervous system is
really important because that sucker
turns on whenever there's something
that's threatening to you
it turns on when you gotta survive it
turns on when you have to pay attention
so believe it or not your
fight-or-flight nervous system
turns on
when again you're threatened it turns on
when you need to concentrate so if you
take a test and it's really important to
you whether that's the sat or the series
7 or the medical
school entrance exam
if you're about to take a test
if you don't know how to come to center
and stay calm
your fight-or-flight nervous system will
take over
and you will start to feel nervous and
your nervous system will put you on edge
and what that fight or flight nervous
system is doing is it is making you
hyper aware of everything around you and
it is designed to do that
because your fight-or-flight nervous system
system
is something that is supposed to be
protecting you
and when that fight-or-flight nervous
system turns on you only have a few
choices you either freeze right
or you run
run right
right
or you fight like so you can tense up
and snap at people or fight or get
aggressive or you completely possum and
freeze when that
threat happens a lot of you go very
quiet when you're threatened or you run
i was a runner i think i've been running
my whole life just if i'm moving nobody
can catch me
here's the problem with your
fight-or-flight nervous system it's only
supposed to turn on when there's an
actual threat
and how many of you feel like me
that especially after the pandemic
it feels like
you're never not on edge it feels like
somebody flipped that fight-or-flight
nervous system on and i don't know how
the hell to flip it off
and what we're going to talk about today
at least from my personal experience
because i have been doing so much
research about regulating your nervous
system which means
having the ability to
to
have your nervous system go into a fight
or flight mode but then have the ability
to regulate it and flip the switch and
turn off fight or flight
and turn on what is called your
parasympathetic nervous system which is
your calm resting grounded nervous system
system
and i see so many of you in the comments
saying this is me mel i have adhd and
i'm always on edge after the pandemic
i've been on edge i've lost somebody i
love i'm on edge with this working
remote thing it is [ __ ] with my head
like i am on edge all the time my kids
are this way i feel like i've lost the
sense of control and the truth is you
have because what you've lost control of
is your ability
to flip the sympathetic or
fight-or-flight nervous system off
and flip on the resting nervous system the
the
parasympathetic nervous system and bring
yourself back to center
and so one of the things that caught my attention
attention about
about
cold exposure therapy and all of these
people particularly wim hof that i was
watching online
sit in ice baths or swim in frozen
rivers or lay down in the snow one of
the things that caught my attention
is that there are a lot of research studies
studies
that have shown
that when you do cold exposure therapy
in a very safe way which i'm going to
explain what i do and again i'm not a doctor
doctor
um that it has a tremendous impact on
your ability to go from stress to
calming yourself down to go from the
sympathetic or fight-or-flight nervous
system being activated
to you
being able to find your center
and flip on the parasympathetic resting
calm center this is also something you
probably experience if you do yoga if
you take walks in nature
if you chant if you
have journaling methods if you meditate
you're bringing yourself back to center
and so i was very interested in cold
exposure therapy the wim hof method in particular
particular
because there was so much being written
about its impact on being able to flip
off fight or flight and learn how to
regulate your nervous system so that's
number one
number two i was also very interested in
it because from a common sense
perspective it makes sense to me and i
think if you followed me for a while you know
know
i'm a really pragmatic person
i like to understand why things work i'm
not that fancy of a person but it makes
a lot of sense to me
that if you
put yourself in a really stressful
situation that is medically safe for you
and i don't know if this is medically
safe for you i know it is medically safe
for me that is a question that you
should ask your doctor if after watching
this and researching it for yourself
it's something that you want to try but
but
from a common sense perspective
if you're tired of snapping at your kids
and feeling stressed out and feeling
like you're losing control and if you
wish that you weren't so reactive and
you wish that you could not be triggered
by everything going around around you
doesn't it make sense
that it's a muscle that you got to build
to not react
doesn't it make sense that just like you
got to build a bicep muscle and make it
strong through
repetition that if you're going to build
a muscle of not reacting to stressful
situations not losing your cool
not having a panic attack not having a
stress response but literally being able
to feel your stress rise up
and know how to recenter yourself and
stay in control so you can stay grounded
in your values doesn't it make sense
that if you want to learn that as a skill
skill
that it would probably help to put
yourself in a stressful situation that's safe
safe
and use that as a way
to train yourself to go from super
stressed out
through your breathing and through your
mindset into a state of being calm
that's exactly in a nutshell in a common
sense way everybody
what cold exposure cold plunge ice baths
are doing it is a controlled setting for
you to put your body in what your body
believes is a life-threatening
life-threatening situation
situation and
and
in that moment in that ice bath through
your breath
gain control of your body's
survival response
and your racing thoughts
and bring yourself in that threatening
stressful environment
to a stay to calm
that's what this is that's what this is
and again i got to say this again if
you're going to climb
in 59 degrees of water which is what the
experts recommend and what research
shows here in vermont i think the water
i'm climbing into is more like 34
degrees because we have to chip the ice
off the top before we can climb into it
but if you're going to climb into water
that's below 59 degrees please ask your doctor
doctor
there is a lot of science by the way
google the new york times article
they link to a bunch of the studies
there's also a podcast that uh huberman
a professor at stanford hubermann lab does
does
that they recently talked all about this
and he talked a lot about the studies i
am only going to talk about my personal experience
experience
and then i'm going to ask your questions
so uh the way that i learned how to do
this i didn't just jump in a river i
found a weekend a four hour workshop
uh on the wim hof method my husband and
two friends of ours went uh and we drove
a couple hours from vermont we went to
this uh workshop we learned the
breathing technique
we did a bunch of meditation and then we
climbed literally into a chest freezer
that was filled with ice water on
somebody's deck
not a glamorous thing that you're doing
here but something that anybody can do
if you can't get to a
workshop watch a bunch of videos online
there's so much information out there
all about this if you're a fan of goop
they did as part of their first season
on netflix you can watch an entire
episode where wim hof walks everybody
through the method on netflix so much
information out there that's free so
educate yourself
we did this experience it was incredible
absolutely incredible and so ever since then
then
uh chris and i uh my husband chris and i
have turned it into a hobby and then
we've incorporated it into
uh our daily habit so
now i'm going to take any questions that
you have
uh let me talk about the benefits that i
have personally seen by
making it a habit as part of my routine
to submerge myself
in a uh ice bath okay
number one
i was really worried about doing it
well well number one i've seen a
significant improvement in my circulation
circulation
and in my uh uh
uh
this this disorder that i have called
raynaud's reynolds is a circulatory issue
issue
where i literally you guys had such bad
circulation that if i go grocery
shopping and i would pull something out
of the freezer my hands would turn white
by the time i was 50 i would keep a pair
of gloves with me when i would go to the
grocery store and i would wear gloves
when i go into the refrigerator or the
freezer section because my hands would
get so cold and so i was really scared
to try this cold exposure because i
thought it would make
my raynodes way worse
and the truth is
after just a month of really doing this
regularly my raynaud's
is way better
it's incredible
um i was scared to put my hands under
the water because i wanted to keep them
up because i was so worried about it i
mean if you take ice cream out of the
freezer section in a grocery store why
would you put and my hands are literally
so numb i'm having to do this and then
they're tingly why on earth would i
stick them into cold water well here's
what the research suggests the research
suggests that controlled and safe
exposure to cold temperatures
stimulates the growth of what they call
brown fat cells
i'm not an expert in this i'm just
telling you what i've read in the
research studies and what i've
experienced for myself
and the brown fat cells apparently
are what are helping with circulation
circulation
inflammation and
insulation and so i have noticed a very
big change in terms of the raynodes not
being as severe
and me not feeling as stiff and not
having my hands go numb so that's number
one number two i
i
feel significantly less stressed
number three
i used to be somebody who would get
triggered emotionally all the time and
then i would stay in that triggered
state for a while like if i went up and
was really reactive it would take me a
while to work it out of my system i
i
after practicing and adding uh cold
exposure to my routine for about a month
it's freaking unbelievable you guys um
i have a
real physical sense of where my grounded
resting center is
so anytime i get wildly triggered emotionally
emotionally
i can feel it
and nine times out of ten i am able to
take a deep breath in my nose
blow it out of my nose
and i'm back
in my center
it's pretty extraordinary
the other thing that i've noticed is i
sleep so much more soundly
i think that sort of elevated shock to
the system and like i don't know if
you're burning calories i don't know if
it's just like mental energy burn but i
have a much i fall asleep faster it's a
much deeper sleep
uh and that's been a pretty remarkable
thing too
but the real thing that that has has helped
helped
that that i've just noticed is that i
just feel more in control
literally i mean if i've trained myself
to climb into
a barrel of ice
which never gets any easier by the way
i don't care that i've done this dozens
of times
every time i
pull off my sweatshirt and i've got my
tights for my bathing suit on and i'm
about to block off the ice
and pull it out i think what the hell am
i doing why am i doing this
and i start to feel that panicked
nervous response i start to feel my
sympathetic nervous system the fight or
flight kick in
why does that happen well because 34
degree water 59 degree water it's
freaking freezing
if you stay in it too long you would die
if you sit there for too long and you
don't do it in a safe way with somebody
watching and being able to get back
inside pretty quickly you're going to
get hyperthermia
your body knows it's a threat
and it's always going to be a threat and
so anytime you get in cold water how
many of you have jumped into
a really cold pool even or the ocean and
the summer you're like oh my god or like
you know how we go into the ocean in the
summer and it's like real at least we do
in rhode island where you like dip your
toe in you're like oh my god you're like
don't splash me don't splash me and we
all know that you should just dive in
and get it over with right
but we're like oh
oh oh oh oh oh as you weighed in okay
i'm going on oh my god and then you're
like okay i'm better so
so
this is the same way every single time
you do it
and so you are putting yourself in a
situation where your mind body and
spirit know holy [ __ ] this is going to
be called alarm alarm alarm alarm
you climb in
and your body's like alarm a lot what
the hell get out get out get out and
then you take your deep breath
blow it down and then you sit down
and then
here's what happens
the second i'm shoulder deep in the water
i'm gonna take a sip of lukewarm water now
the second
that i'm in that cold water
what happens
is the very first time i did this
i had this experience uh that that i can
only describe the only other time i had
this same experience where i'm like i
can't do this i can't do this i can't do
this i can't do this was in the middle
of childbirth
there was a moment before the epidural
kicked in with our first
child where the pain was so overwhelming
and my mind started spinning and my
nervous system just flooded
with alarm bells
i'm like i'm not gonna live through i
can't handle this i can't handle this i
can't handle it and like it the thinking
i can't handle this i can't handle this
i can it made it worse
it made it worse
and in fact when we cut this together
i'm gonna like cut in right now for
youtube the video of the first time that
i did it so that you can see
what it was like welcome to vermont
we're about to do the cold plunge check
this out
holy [ __ ]
this is like i grew up
on a lake in michigan
you got to break it all the way to the
thick part all right this is yours holy
[ __ ] oh my you got this okay i got this okay
i step in and then i go
you got this [Applause]
[Music]
but the interesting thing is
that every time i get into that barrel
even though i know it's coming
even though i know i can breathe my way
in there for 30 seconds to a minute
depending upon the day sometimes even longer
longer
my mind still goes oh [ __ ] like the
survival thing kicks in the stress
response takes over and that's the point
of this
you're putting yourself in a situation
where your body's automatic wiring
will sound a five alarm signal your
thoughts will start to go no no no no no
no no no
and you are now
in a situation
where you have an opportunity
from the
inside out
to take control of this moment
to quiet your thoughts
and to settle your body and literally
flip off the alarm
and flip on the parasympathetic
nervous system
which will make you feel more centered
now i've got people asking me how long
have i been doing it i literally took
this workshop
back in december so that was two and a
half months ago
and for christmas i bought my husband
this big plastic barrel for us to uh do
it when we first got the barrel we
filled it up here in southern vermont so
you can see the mountains behind me
and uh we did it almost every day for a
week and then the damn thing uh actually
froze solid [Laughter]
[Laughter]
and uh ironically
uh what we did then is we filled up a
bathtub upstairs
and the bathtub we just filled with cold
water and that was cold enough
and um
it's only recently that the weather here
in vermont has been so screwy this
winter that it was warm enough that the
things started to thaw so we like tipped
it over got all the ice out and then
just refilled it this weekend
and so this will be the third day i'm
going to do a
plunge right after i'm done doing this
broadcast this will be the third day
in a row that i've done it but we've
been uh
experimenting with this
basically since december and the results
are pretty remarkable honestly
um really really cool um you know i i
also feel that it is
one of the things that is helping me
with healing stored trauma from
childhood trauma
and the reason why um
um
this is helpful
is for all the reasons that i've
explained you know trauma gets encoded
in your nervous system and can get
triggered by just about you know
anything because it's already uh encoding
encoding
that is in your
nervous system and your neural pathways
and so when you start to develop a skill
of self-awareness that is so deep and
internal that you feel the trigger coming
coming
and you are able through your breathing
and your mindset to pull yourself back
to center and flip off the alarm and
and
have a different response
that is when you are now learning a skill
skill
of choosing how to respond to situations
instead of letting your anxiety or your
trauma or whatever it is that has been
programmed into you by your life experiences
experiences
determine how you react for you
um super super super cool i'm gonna take
a bunch of questions now so jesse what
do we got for questions how often do you
recommend doing it how often do you
recommend doing it um again i'm not a doctor
doctor
but chris
is chris here is dad here
how often do you do this chris oh my god
i'm overheating in the sun are you live
right now i'm live right now
how often do you do cold exposure every
day tomorrow night
i like to do it every day
everybody chris robbins
there's his face okay
here here sit down real quick
he's better at this he lasts a lot
longer than i last
on this um
oh my god i am overheating oh
oh um
um
so uh oh and our dog yolo is here too
it's a it's a family thing um so uh here
it happened
so we're answering people's questions
about cold exposure and why we do it
i've i've explained in the last 30 minutes
minutes um
um
kind of how we got exposed to it how we started
started
um and jessie here who is off camera is
asking the questions so chris likes to
do it every single day
um i
now that our barrel has thawed out uh
this will be my third day in the row i
like doing it
after um
i work out it's kind of like a nice end
cap to a workout
plus whatever you're wearing you want to
strip off anyway and so that's a good thing
thing
somebody just asked who's the motivator
uh what do you mean your fear meaning
that i'm afraid i don't want to go do it
i i
there's always hesitation and
and
so it's the
it's the talk about cold exposure it's
the freaking overheating right now it is
the fear of the discomfort
that is the motivator to move through it
and just do it yes
yes
i am literally so warm right now i need
a little cold exposure at the moment
um so i also think that the answer to
how often you do it is a little bit
relative to you where you are in climate
so like
for us in winter it's just easier to
hit it as frequently as you can
during the winter but in the dead of
summer to have to look up here so you
look at people to have to go source um
you know bags of ice in july and august
to keep the water cold that sounds oh
that's true sounds to me like a hassle so
so
you know if you live in a super warm climate
it does make it a little more
challenging unless you're willing to
invest in
i know that there's technology out there
that keeps the water cold
but for those of you taking the more
organic approach to buying bags of ice it's
it's
can be a little problematic in july and
august except chris ran
a bath tub full of cold water and it was
still really cold so
um you know that worked pretty well i
see a lot of you you know for those who
say i feel like my heart's gonna stop
you need to talk to a doctor before you
climb into this because
um you don't want to put yourself in a
shocking situation if you are not medically
medically
strong enough to do so and so um because
it is shocking you get in and you feel
like your heart is like about to stop
and your mind is completely spinning i
see a ton of questions about cold showers
showers
and the the
research studies and lots of the experts
talk about how yes you can practice cold
exposure therapy
by taking a cold shower
my personal experience i [ __ ] hate
that like i hate that that is more
miserable to me
than standing in than sitting in an ice
barrel even though the ice barrel is
colder and all over my body and the
reason why is because like torture like
water shower darts of cold water it's
like hitting my head and my shoulder and
i just can't get immersed in it and and
it just like everything about it isn't
like fear it's hatred so for those of
you that can
do simulate this by standing in a cold
shower i bow to you because that takes some
some
unbelievable discipline now one of the
things that i do
do though having just trashed that is
ever since we took that workshop
back in uh new york on this i end every shower
shower
with cold water
and i will stand under that cold water
after i've taken my shower for maybe 15
to 30 seconds um
um
just to kind of seal it uh it doesn't
feel quite the same
but just to have a wave of hatred wash
over you
i can't start the shower cold like i
just can't do that because i can't get
my whole body cold it just feels like
i'm torturing my shoulder i don't i
don't like that um go ahead
what's our next how long do you do it
for so the question was how long do i uh
do it i am working up again this is a muscle
muscle
to two minutes
and i do think it has a lot to do with
climate when it is howling here
and and dark outside and 12 degrees the
last thing i want to do is climb into a
barrel of ice
a day like today where the sun is out
and i've actually opened the window
because i'm overheating as we make this
video i'm looking forward to climbing
into that barrel and i think if you
start out warm you probably last but if
and just focus
on your breathing in your nose
out your nose
it's pretty unbelievable
did you get in today not yet
i was waiting to well until jesse was
here so we could film it
what's the warm-up theory with it
oh oh oh so a lot of you have also asked
when you're done are you leaving i'm out
of here why but do you still need me
dude you how long do you last you last
like two minutes
i don't know that i've gotten to two
minutes quite yet but that's a good goal
they say that the medical benefit or the
the physical benefit runs out after five
minutes so who why the hell would you
stay in this for five minutes that's
just a flashlight no that's a question
that people had for me is like you you
know how long should you do it and when
does hypothermia set in and
i think the bottom line is after four or
five minutes feel free to get out and
that question what's the minimum i mean
there is no real minimum except that
the first
30 to 45 seconds
are the most uncomfortable
and it's only after that time terrifying
once you really start to get into your
breath that
you start to realize wow hey i can do
this so
after you get past a minute uh
that's when
as much as it sounds
crazy it feels better than the first minute
minute
so i have a different date than chris i
think that the minimum that uh that
works for me is
as quickly as i can get myself into from
from
oh [ __ ] to oh
i'm gonna be okay
and that's about 20 seconds at this point
point
and then i'm okay for about another 20
seconds i'm breathing in breathing out
but as i approach that minute mark i'm
literally like
this is cold like why am i sitting here
i'm calm now and i start to feel
agitated again
so i think in the beginning for me being
in there 20 to 30 seconds was plenty to
get to that point where you were really
freaking out and bringing yourself to calm
calm
and now i think i have another level of
breakthrough which is
to try to get over that second hurdle
where i'm approaching a minute and i
just don't like it because it's cold
and now my mind is bitching about how
it's cold and so
when i get to that i need to kind of
breathe through it a little bit longer i
think that's what i'm realizing in this conversation
conversation
hiya hello
um another question for you is it
different than cryotherapy
uh is it different than cryotherapy i
have no idea i have never done
cryotherapy but i would imagine the
benefits are the same and if you're
doing cryotherapy you're being
supervised with medical professionals so
that's trial therapy what you did in cleveland
cleveland
where you climb into that bag
is it oh no no that's um chris is
talking about something i did after
surgery that's the oxygen
chamber oxygen chamber
i bet a bunch of you are curious how do
you set up
what do you do what equipment do you do
yes he went don't don't quiet don't just
tell him quiet please okay
please don't don't he he barks at the
neighbors and we're staying at my
mother-in-law's house and it's 65 and up
and not anything against anybody who is
that age but people get really upset
when our dog is barking or when he you
know like get rules here
so um
anyway uh
oh the setup
so we have a barrel downstairs
and it's a big plastic barrel and
there's a step stool in it really
important that rule number one that you
have somebody with you
because if you do go into shock or if
you can't get out of the barrel or just
you know if something happens you just
want somebody there to help you
uh number two i don't really time it um
i think chris time's his but i've always
got chris there or son oakley there and
so i kind of have a general idea
based on the fact that somebody else is there
there
i bet you can time it
third the breathing technique i breathe
in through my nose for about eight
seconds and then out through my nose for
eight seconds in through my nose for
eight seconds out through my nose for
eight seconds
um and
i find that if chris or oakley are there
really helps if they're like good job
mom way to go mel
but if i start talking
i lose focus
and my mind starts to race again
if i look around or if i start getting
concerned about how much time has passed my
my
heart rate increases and i start feeling
stressed out again
and so
it's really important when i do it
personally that i just focus on the
breathing in and out of the nose
if i start to panic or feel stressed i
come back to the breathing in and out of
the nose and
and um
um i
i
now instead of going [ __ ]
i just go i'm doing great
i'm doing great
a little bit longer
i can do this
and it's just been awesome
uh any other questions everybody
no other questions
excellent i see that we have posted the
new york times article um
um
i uh
let's see what else uh any other questions
polar plunges yep yep yep i think you'd
be surprised everybody at what a big
difference it makes if it's medically
safe for you to do so and again uh now i
never get sick after an ice bath oh what
do you do when you get out okay so when
you get out you're soaking wet and your
skin looks like basically a tomato uh it
you will literally look
almost blistered you're gonna be so like
if you have pale skin like me
reddish if you have more uh you know
pigment in your skin
uh even you're gonna feel like you're
glowing a little bit radiate a little
bit why because the blood is rushing to
your extremities to try to keep you from
dying and so what they recommend at
least at wim hof is that you get into a
squat like horse stance where you bring
uh you engage your muscles and your
quads and that
helps warm your quads and then you put
your arms together and you kind of do this
this
torso swinging motion which again
helps you bring the blood kind of
everywhere and helps you start to warm
up your body there are lots of experts
that say
don't quickly get on a towel don't
quickly uh you know strip off your
clothes allow yourself to start to
experience the heat that your body creates
creates
and i haven't done that here in vermont
but when we were at the workshop i went
first because i was i knew that if i
watched everybody else do it i'd get
super super nervous watching everybody
do it so i just jumped in and did it
and here's the interesting thing the
wind was howling it was like 40 degrees
that day i stood out on this dude's deck
and watched about eight people climb
into an ice chest full of ice water and
and
i stood there in a bathing suit
and i wasn't cold at all because
because
going through something like that and
breathing through it and the amount of
adrenaline and the internal chemicals
that start ripping through you feel so
warm and alive and vibrant and just like
you just
grabbed life by the the the
whatever and took a slug i don't even
know if that's a good metaphor but you
just feel wow
wow
and that that
again radiates from the inside out it's
like so damn cool do we have any other
questions everybody any other questions
fresh or salt water i don't think it matters
matters uh
uh
does it uh do something mel breathing
excessive triggers my panic attacks then grace
grace
um you're not breathing
in a way that will calm your panic attacks
attacks
stop with the mouth breathing
it would probably help for you to take a breathing
breathing
workshop and i know that part of the
methodology with wim hof is
to do a certain style of breathing does
this help with depression anxiety um
according to
the research yes it does
um you know it's really exciting because
i think for so long there were all kinds
of really amazing modalities out there
like cold therapy
uh guided psychedelic uh treatments
yoga
treating your gut because your gut is
what's called the second brain and it's connected
connected
to your brain
through neurotransmitters
and so uh all of these new modalities
that were once poo-pooed upon
are now becoming not only fda approved
but they're being studied and researched
and validated and so yes
yes yes yes i can't explain why
but yes studies are starting to show
that this is extraordinarily encouraging
when it comes to depression ptsd
ptsd
and i personally notice that it is very
helpful with anxiety because again
anxiety is living in a state
where you feel like something's going to
go wrong anxiety is living with a
nervous system that feels dysregulated
anxiety is when your thoughts are
focused on what's about to happen
and the only way that you're going to be
able to sit in an ice bath
and breathe your way through it is if
you pull yourself into the moment
and you learn how to flip off that fight
or flight nervous system and flip on the
parasympathetic nervous system which is
your resting calm centered nervous
system and state
and through breathing
take control of the racing thoughts that
are making you think you're about to die
which is something in the future not
right now
and bringing you into this moment
saying it's okay
right now i'm okay
i'm okay uh
uh
i go up to my neck yep i've not gotten
my hair wet yet um
um
in the beginning there is no warm-up
other than avoidance and thinking about
it and wondering if i should do it and
uh breaking the ice off on the uh
cold days um
um
what else do i dunk nope don't knock uh
uh
oh cold tub water yeah you don't need ice
ice
honestly the cold water in your tap
is cold enough
they're saying in the studies that i
looked at a lot of the studies are
looking at 59 degrees
in terms of the water you don't have to
have ice in it ice like kind of takes it
up to the edge but just cold water was
really cold when chris uh filled our
bathtub up the other day
why don't we go down
and uh i'm gonna do this okay coming to
help to medically supervise i hurt my
hip dancing so this is not from the cold plunge
plunge
um so we're gonna go downstairs here in
okay now as i'm about i know what's
coming i'm about to get in an ice-cold barrel
barrel
and so
my heart is starting to race and what
happens when you're nervous anybody
anybody before a test before a speech
you gotta pee
and so i gotta pee i gotta pee because
uh there's actually a bile there's a
there's a uh there's an interesting
reason why you always have to pee before
a speech a presentation a date an
interview an ice plunge or a race the
reason why is when your fight or flight
nervous system flips on
it flips on because
your mind body and spirit
perceive that there's a threat that
you're about to do something he's ready
you're about to do something
that is going to threaten you and so
back in the day our ancestors if they
were out hunting and all of a sudden an
elk or a tiger or somebody like came at
them you have to run so one of the
reasons why if you get a low level
threat you immediately have to pee is
because your body
the second it starts to feel like
something is going to happen oh my god
oh my god oh my god it gets ready to run
it gets ready to freeze or it gets ready
to fight now if you gotta run or fight
do you need a full bladder no it's gonna
slow you down and so if it's a low-level
threat your body's like we gotta get
ready get rid of that urine in the
bladder man cause if you gotta run we
don't wanna be hanging on to that that's
why that happens honest to god it is
your uh sympathetic nervous system
flipping on putting you into a state of
alert saying hey everybody get ready
we're about to do something get rid of
the urine let's go so i'm gonna go do
that right now you're not coming in with me
me
i'll be right back
oh hello you're still here okay
so before i take my shirt off
let me show you the setup um
um
okay he loves this
yolo you're ready to do an ice punch you
are not my medical supervisor though
okay so come on out so this is our barrel
barrel
i bought this for chris for christmas it
is actually a beautiful day here um
um
which it hasn't been for a while so i'm
kind of excited to do this because i'm
not freezing the wind isn't howling
um and so here's our lid oh
oh
take the lid off now
shit's still cold i mean there is ice in
here and you know who loves ice yellow
yellow
okay so there's no real uh method i'm
gonna take my shoes off are you gonna
get in there okay
why not oak stands here
just as a judgy teenager um no okay so
and uh i'm gonna show you what i do so i
i'm gonna climb in here
i'm gonna climb in here and then when
you get in the way that i was taught is you
you
exhale and then you go down and that's
when it starts and then what you're
gonna see is sheer panic on my face as
my thoughts are like [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ]
[ __ ] and then i'm going to go
and try to just
pull my attention
into the breathing
and through the breathing and focusing
on the breathing i'm going to be trying to
to
go from fight or flight panic attack
threat chaos reaction reaction reaction
survival survival survival oh my god oh
and then i'm just gonna sit with it
i don't know for how long
not that long okay you ready here we go
i have not figured out how to get in
this thing without hooking my leg around
my arm so
here we go
oh my god okay hold on that okay i would
not recommend that i would not recommend
that because that
um that actually makes you nervous
okay oakley i like i hurt my hip the
other day and normally i'm not that bad
how about a little bit more cheering
though okay you got it
i think i just got over the one minute
mark uh yeah you did how far away i am i
don't know there's a timer on the thing
how long does this name yeah
yeah
i think you're probably like a minute ten
do you feel different
do i look different
i like actually feel calm yeah you look calm
it's it's weird because i know i'm in
this freezing cold water and my thoughts
are literally
i'm okay
and i think you probably saw in the
beginning there was that panic a little bit
bit
the breathing was not under control
[Applause]
that i'm okay
like the alarm
did not does not need to be sounding
this is the hardest part oh my goodness
okay now you'll notice that my arms are
probably super
flushy okay now what we recommend is
that you get into a stance so that we
okay yes yes and there you have it there
you have it any questions
somebody yelling at me i think they're
yelling at their kids there you go
now we're inside and see how red i am in
terms of how fleshy i am now again my
friends that you know have beautiful
darker skin than me um
um
they just feel they look literally
radiant like they're just glowing
there's an energy to it and this is like
your blood coming back into that part of
your body
i feel so energized i feel like
like
i could do anything because of the like
i don't know if it's adrenaline i don't know
know
if it's dopamine probably all of it um
but that's the longest i've ever gone um
um and
and
i think if you re-watch it you can tell
the moment i go from
freaking out to under control
and then there's a moment where i go
from being in control
to actually relaxing
into a state of
of
being calm
i have never achieved that that was
pretty cool that i could bring you on
that ride all right there you go cold exposure
and of course if you like this video
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
