Yes so I realise the irony of my New Year’s resolution of 1) trying new things regularly and 2) writing about them weekly, has fallen by the wayside at the first hurdle (week one) thanks to my old habits of procrastination and general laziness. I’m reminded of that famous quote (often, but mistakenly I’m told, attributed to Dorothy Parker): “I hate writing, but loved having written.”
I will get better at this, I promise!! Anyway thanks for sticking around and not unsubscribing yet. Got a couple of goodies coming up for you - I am doing the new things, just being bad at writing about ‘em. Takes a while to form new habits and that.
Onto New Thing #2: trying ice bath and sauna.
In a triumph for targeted social media advertising, my very first official “new thing” for 2024 was trying ice baths and saunas.
I’d been getting bombarded by online ads for cold plunges, pop-up at-home baths and sauna kits, and sports recovery centres for some months. As an early-30s man, with interests in active stuff and clearly too much time on my hands, it wasn’t hard for the algorithm to figure out this was a vibe I’d probably have a passing interest in.
You know when you absent-mindedly click on one ad for one thing on one platform - then Google and Facebook serve it up to you ad nauseam, on every single platform, at every single opportunity, over and over and over until you die? I kind of hate that online advertising, which could be a very good and helpful tool, has been devolved to the “so you like donuts? Well have all the donuts in the world!” scene from The Simpsons after you click on one thing… but in this case, the targeting nailed me right between the eyes, and I got sucked in.
Meta 1, Josh 0.
Anyway. I’d been looking at the pop-up home ice baths for a while. Taking a little dip in the mornings or afternoons, an invigorating wakeup or recovery (I get sore ankles and feet from running. Again, early 30s, do not recommend), or the purported mental/clarity/sleep benefits - there was a wide range of positives that the ads spruiked. I was under no illusion that it was probably mostly pseudo science, and in any case, I could barely bring myself to stick with a cold shower for more than 12 seconds at a time, so I wasn’t sure how I’d fare with a full body immersion.
And yet, in the spirit of this blog and this “new things” enterprise, I wanted to give it a go, at least.
Doing a bit of research, I thought the best way would be to try out ice baths at a recovery spa, rather than buying my own, in case I didn’t dig it. I’ve got enough useless plastic junk at home, I don’t need another large hunk of black canvas from an ice bath I used once and threw away. Searching around Canberra for a while, I found a few quite bougie recovery businesses that I will definitely try in future when I’m keen for a treat, but locked in on Recovery Lab - a business nearby me in the Canberra town centre, which fantastically had a 10-day intro offer for unlimited access to ice baths, saunas, and a bunch of other stuff I’d never entertained like compression boots, sleep aids and more.
And dear reader - I bloody loved it.
Now I know ice baths carry the connotations of the weird paleo cryptobro, shivering through hours in the cold then sprinting off to tear into a pound of raw liver. But honestly I really got into this.
Imagine an old-school chest freezer. Now fill it with very cold water (Recovery Lab’s bath is set at around 6* celsius), a little pump to keep the water flowing, and jump in.
I won’t lie, it’s not pleasant to start. I’m not a fan of very cold water, and got about 15 seconds on my first attempt before leaping out. But each booking slot is 20 minutes, so I warmed back up a little, shook my arms out and rubbed my chest… and got back in.
I’m sort of hovering in the bath at this point, my legs fully submerged but the water somewhere between my navel and chest. It’s very cold. I’m counting the seconds, trying to keep my mind off the temperature and trying to distract my brain which is suddenly VERY confused about why we were just in 35 degree summer heat only a moment ago and now we’ve been plunged into waters off the Antarctic coast.
30 seconds. 40 seconds. I maybe got to a minute straight in my first session. Hopping out and warming up with a towel, I’m numb from the nipples down. But strangely… feeling sort of nice. Like the feeling when your leg falls asleep, tingly and painful but vaguely good in a way, somewhere there in the background. I didn’t look up any tips or strategies on how do this ice bath stuff before jumping in (maybe a rookie error) but I thought the strategy of long-distance running wouldn’t go astray: just make it to the next lamp post, then when you get there, make it to the next tree, and then the next lamp post, and so on.
Just make it to 20 seconds. Then make it to 30. 40. 50 seconds.
It gets better. But at this point I haven’t talked about the sauna yet.
In the same complex, an infrared sauna. Same as the traditional sauna you know, but without the heat rocks and steam - instead, picture a bar heater, sizzling heat into the room. I’d never really heard of an infrared sauna before trying them out. Apparently they drive heat directly into your body, making the room less warm than a normal sauna (so you can breathe easier, no steam) but still making you sweat like a pig.
They call it “contrast therapy”, switching quickly between the cold bath and the hot sauna. It’s meant to charge your body up, get it switching between different modes, helping in managing inflammation and injuries. One of the Recovery Lab staff summarised it as, the sauna opens up your blood vessels and the ice bath “freezes” them in place, promoting better blood flow.
I just liked it because it felt nice. Switching from a cold bath that left you numb and tingly, then jumping into the hot sauna, I felt myself warming up from the outside in. Of course, going the other direction (hot to cold) means your body, warmer than usual, is in for an even bigger shock.
The shock is the fun bit, though. I started getting up to several minutes in the bath - one, then two, then three. I think I got up to nearly five minutes at one point, but it’s obviously hard to time yourself. I slid deeper and deeper into the bath on each subsequent pass, working up to plunging up to my neck.
So. The benefits.
When all you can do is count the seconds, to keep your mind off the cold (the sting of which really wears off faster than you’d expect), your mind clears. I found myself a bit more clear-headed than usual, just a bit. Less cluttered thoughts. Fewer little nagging things at the back of my head. That feeling lasted for a few hours afterward.
It’s meant to be good for sleep quality too - I’ve always slept well and heavy, and I was on holiday at the time, so I was already sleeping in without an alarm clock set, but I think I did start to feel the benefits of deeper and less restless sleep. Since I’ve stopped (my 10-day pass ran out, obviously), my sleep has gotten a bit more disturbed, waking up in the night etc - but I’m back at work too, with more on my mind, so I’m not ready to ascribe that only to the bath.
The tingly feelings from the ice gradually started lasting a few hours after. Some mental clarity made my head feel lighter, but my body felt a bit lighter too - fresher, newer, my skin felt nicer. It’s a hard feeling to describe. It felt like I had cool air trapped between my layers of skin, warm on the inside and cool in the middle and warm on the outside. It was a good feeling.
In any case, I’m a convert. I switched my gym membership to one that has a sauna (it was the same price as my old membership and it’s much nicer, so the sauna wasn’t the only factor) and an at-home ice bath is next on my “little treats” list.
Anyway. I enjoyed it. It’s not for everyone, but I’m into it. If you get the opportunity, give it a go, and let me know what you think.