If you have been anywhere on the internet recently, you may have noticed that more and more people have begun posting about cold plunging. I mean, the trend has BILLIONS of views on TikTok alone. You may be asking yourself, What is a cold plunge? And I have that answer for you, and more. A cold plunge is the act of submerging your body in cold water that is 59 degrees Fahrenheit or less. Ideally, this would be for longer than 30 seconds. But, like, the water is cold, so this is kind of hard. You get the picture.
In the last couple of years in particular, ice plunging has surged in popularity. And part of this is probably because celebrities like Kim Kardashian have posted videos of themselves cold plunging. Kourtney Kardashian is also among the many celebs who have posted about their cold plunging journeys.
And just last week, as I was browsing TikTok, I saw that Hailey Bieber also recently posted a TikTok of herself cold plunging, and she looks extremely relaxed and cool, which made me believe I could also look extremely relaxed and cool while sitting in ice water. (I was wrong, but more on that later.)
At first when I saw the trend of cold plunging more and more on social media, I was very much this comment on Hailey's cold plunging TikTok:
But after seeing people continually talk about how great they felt after cold plunging — and seeing Hailey's relaxed face as she sank into cold water below 59 degrees — I thought, What the hell? Let's do this.
Now, the plunging bath that Kourtney and other celebrities seem to have, the Plunge, retails for juuuuust under $5,000, and 1) I do not have the money for that, and 2) even if I did have the money, I do not have the space for it in my Los Angeles apartment. So I thought, Why not just try my own bathtub?
But before I tried it myself, I wanted to get to the bottom of this new trend and its many alleged health benefits. People have claimed it helps your anxiety, mood, energy levels, and more. So I spoke to Dr. Tracy Zaslow, a primary care sports medicine physician at the Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute, all about cold plunging.
But Zaslow did note that there are some potential benefits that one could experience from the act of cold plunging that are backed by evidence: 1) decreased muscle soreness, 2) a faster cooldown, 3) the potential to boost your immune system, and 4) positive mental health effects.
In terms of helping muscle soreness, Zaslow noted, "Some studies have shown that ... athletes who soaked in cold water for 10 minutes or more, versus those who didn't, had less symptoms of muscle soreness in the days that followed." Zaslow also noted that "at this point, it's more of an individual decision if athletes ... feel a benefit in [the] sense of decreased soreness in the days to come. But the results are a bit mixed."
The second potential benefit is a faster cooldown. Zaslow said, "If you're overheating, I think this is where we definitely have documentation. We use ice baths when we are treating heat illness." She continued, telling BuzzFeed, "In athletes who are training and develop an elevated body temperature, that is dangerous. It's associated with heat illness symptoms, and the first thing we do is put them in an ice bath."
So, said Zaslow, we know that the ice definitely brings down body temperature faster than just resting in a cool environment. Without heat illness, though, Zaslow isn't as sure that this is an important component. But it's definitely an effect that plunging could have on someone.
The third potential benefit is a boost to your immune system, and the results are interesting because, as Zaslow noted, this is where most of the studies that have been done were combination studies, meaning that there may be multiple components as part of the study. This could mean that the result is because of a combination and potentially not just a single thing, like cold plunging. But Zaslow did share that there is one study that combined meditation, deep breathing, and cold water immersion, and it found that there seemed to be an improvement in immune response.
But, Zaslow said, "We don't know if that's specifically due to the meditation practice or the cold water immersion or a combination of the two."
The last area of potential benefit is psychological boosts. Zaslow noted that there are many studies looking at the psychological benefits of cold water swims, and these studies are promising in the sense that swimmers who did these cold swims noticed decreases in tension and fatigue as well as depressive symptoms.
So we know there could be some very real benefits of cold plunging, but what about the risks? Obviously, Zaslow said, hypothermia is one of your biggest risks in this kind of cold submersion. But then there are also rare cases that it can provoke cardiac arrest or arrhythmia, meaning changes in the heart rhythm, or respiratory distress. People who already have underlying health issues, Zaslow said, are especially at risk. So her best advice is to always talk to a doctor before you plunge into cold water.
Once I got all that info and was cleared to safely plunge, I was ready to try it myself. But because I don't have a special ice plunge tub, as noted previously, I just went to my local grocery store and bought several bags of ice to pour into my bathtub.
This is me after returning to my apartment with bags of ice:
I had little to no idea what I was doing, but I ran the cold water and added ice. I had no thermometer, so I have no way of knowing what the actual temperature of the water was, but once I submerged my body, I can tell you it felt COLD!
Here's my face for good measure. It was unpleasant, but I couldn't submerge as much as I wanted to in the tub, and after 47 seconds I called it a day and crawled out. Afterward, I immediately got three tasks done for work even though it was 4:30 p.m., so I can't say it DIDN'T give me energy...
But in an effort to really experience the full cold plunging experience, I began to do some research into different ice pods, and that's when I discovered the Pod Co.
Unfortunately for me, I do not have an apartment that has outdoor space, and while I originally imagined setting up this ice pod in my living room, once I actually got it out of its package, I quickly realized that this would have been absolutely deranged and messy. So I asked my good friend with outdoor space if I could set it up on her patio and host a cold plunging party where we forced all of our friends to sit in ice water. She was down! And here's the pod all set up:
We used a hose to fill the pod up and added about six or seven bags of ice (since multiple people were planning to plunge). Then we tested the water to make sure it was below 59 degrees — it was 56!
And then, because I was the one who brought the ice pod, I got myself ready to be the first to plunge. I was aiming for just 30 seconds to start because I knew it was going to be colder than my bathtub setup, and without the sun, I knew it was going to be *miserable.* Anyway, here's me getting into the frigid water:
In retrospect, I really wish I had gotten my shoulders lower and submerged deeper into the pod, but I cannot emphasize to you enough how much the only thing I cared about for these 30 seconds was how long before I could get out of the icy water. I could not think about anything else! I am not sure I even remembered my own name!
But in the end, I did exactly 30 seconds. The first five seconds were by far the hardest, and by the end of the 30 seconds, I realized that I could probably have done a full minute because after a while, you sort of numb out, and if you concentrate on your breathing, it's *almost* sort of relaxing.
Look how happy I was to know I was done with my 30 seconds! :)
When it was all said and done and I had exited the frigid water, I honestly felt amazing. I was reenergized, I was alive, I was ready to conquer it all. And I felt so good, in fact, that before the night was over, I plunged again! This is my second plunge below, and I did another 30 seconds:
