The Cold is Calling You!

Happy Friday, friend!

By now, you’ve likely noticed a pattern.

If I was to boil down my approach to next-level performance and vibrant health, it’d come down to this.

Nature knows, learn to listen.

I’ll spare you the “running from saber-tooth tigers” trope and you’ll never hear me bash the miracles of modern science. BUT, as far as the foundations of human flourishing go, we’ve got a 300,000 year proving ground for what it takes to build an almost bulletproof foundation of health and performance.

Today we’re talking cold exposure, a tool I was introduced to the hard way.

In March 2014 I was in Finland for a long weekend of training and fitness fun. In true Finnish fashion, the cabins, each of them with their own hot-stone sauna, were located on the edge of a beautiful, partially frozen lake.

(The actual lake)

When in Finland, do as the Fins do. So on day one, after the day’s training was done, we spent a few hours jumping from sauna (20-minutes @ 90C/194F) to lake (3-minutes @ 2C/35F) and lake to sauna. Majestic!

On day two, same schedule, get to the cabins early afternoon and jump in the sauna. Only this time, a few of us decide to up the ante…as if 3-minutes at 2C/35F with no wetsuit wasn’t bad enough.

In the lake, about 100 meters from our steps, was a pontoon that connected back round to the deck via a long floating walk-way. I’m sure you can see where this is going...

“Who’s going to be the first to swim out there?”

My buddy Matt laid down the challenge. I’m a strong swimmer so fancied my chances. First attempt, I made it halfway and psyched myself out.

I knew I had it in me, so after my second stint in the sauna, I went for it.

The swim itself went by in an adrenaline fueled blur. I made it to the pontoon, and I felt great! Swimming round the back side to the handrails of the steps…

“Ooooh shit!”

The steps into the water had been removed for the winter, leaving only the hand rail on top of the pontoon, a good 5ft above my head. There was no way of getting out and my now numb body was next to useless for anything other than rigidly bobbing about in the water.

I was starting to panic.

After what felt like hours, but was more like minutes, I was hurriedly hoisted up and literally dragged up onto the pontoon. Back at the cabin, Matt had had a sense about the steps and ran round. I’m lucky he did, and was strong enough to pull all 100kg/220lbs of dead (cold) weight out by himself.

After the initial relief, and as I thawed out, the most intense euphoria I’ve ever experienced, descended on me.

I was clear, I was vibrant, I was energized.

An awe-inspiring balance of feeling utterly alive and invincible, yet calm, assured and focused. Feelings I’d come to realize were not limited to my foray in the Finnish lakes. All of this, and more, was available to me everyday, hiding in plain sight in my bathroom.

For the vast majority of human existence, we’ve been subject to the wilds of the weather, and even in the hottest climates, periods of intense cold. I’m grateful for modern tech, don’t get me wrong, but there’s something to be learned from our adaptation to conditions consistent across 99.99999% of our evolved existence.

What recent research and now years of personal experience have taught me, is that getting uncomfortably cold, even for as little as 90-seconds a day in your own shower or bathtub, can have profound benefits for;

• Mood

• Mental clarity

• Hormone function

• Body composition

• Nervous system functioning

No lakes or near death experiences required. Just some goosebumps and a short-lived shiver.

Let's take a quick look at a few.

Mood

The most noticeable immediate result of cold exposure is a boost in mood. Studies have shown that cold water exposure raises blood levels of the neurotransmitter, dopamine, by 250%.

Dopamine is the molecule of motivation. It’s what makes effort feel good.

“Cheap” sources of dopamine such as doom-scrolling on social media rightfully get a bad rap because they promote dopamine release without us having to ‘earn’ it, tanking motivation, drive and productivity.

Training the dopaminergic system by doing small yet challenging things such as 2-minute cold showers, strengthens the beneficial reinforcement loop and rewards taking meaningful action.

Mental Clarity

Back in 2018 I started working with clients at one of the big hedge funds in midtown Manhattan. The first thing I noticed, walking through the trading floor, was the finance ‘uniform’.

Fleece vests...fleece vests everywhere!

The second thing I noticed was how much I wanted a fleece vest. It was cooooold in there. The A/C was cranked UP!

I later found out that it was quite literally to keep people sharp.

You see, the same studies into dopamine show that the cold also elevates blood levels of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline by up to 530%! Not only can noradrenaline reduce inflammation, but it plays an essential role in the regulation of arousal, attention, cognitive function, and stress.

Body Composition

Something I started to notice after a few years of patchy commitment to cold immersion was how much leaner I was during the periods where I was more consistently braving the cold.

The science shows a direct impact on the body’s ability to burn unnecessary fat, centered around something called “brown fat.” Leading metabolic and stress scientist, Susanna Soberg, PhD, of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, explains it far better than I ever could…

Brown fat is fat we all have and need, and is separate from the “white fat” we associate with obesity and many metabolic diseases. Cold exposure activates brown fat, which in turn makes us more efficient at burning the harmful white fat.

One study showed that brown fat was activated after subjects were exposed during 10 consecutive days in mild/cold conditions.

This brings up important questions that, if you’ve made it this far, I’m sure you want the answers to. How cold, how long, how often?

It was Soberg’s PhD research that provided the answers. 11-minutes of cold exposure per week, PER WEEK, was the minimum threshold for the myriad health benefits, some of which you’ve learned here.

In terms of how cold, reports vary.

A general rule is that you should aim to feel uncomfortable but safe. The shower’s a great place to start as you can easily adjust the temperature if you go too cold too soon. To be clear, significant cold exposure’s not recommended if you have a heart condition.

The more we learn about the science of cold exposure the clearer the picture becomes.

For hundreds of thousands of years, our status quo was being cold.

Therefore most if not all of our biological systems, including metabolism, cognitive and nervous system function, were designed to adapt to the cold. “The new status quo,” writes Matt Fuchs in his Washington Post article, Are ice-cold showers good for you? I tried it for two months, “derails our health because it eliminates the biological challenges our bodies had adapted to.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/03/10/benefits-of-cold-water-immersion/

As human beings, we’ve got a lot to learn about health and performance, and it’s such an exciting time. Perhaps, however, we’d do well to start with what we’ve already forgotten.

In love and health,

Alex