Let's Cold Plunge
As we embark on this chilly and invigorating journey this week, this page is where all your daily lessons will be!
Each day we'll build onto our length of time in the cold while grounding ourselves in the process.
You are welcome to introduce yourself to the process at the speed we move through in the week or you can move at your own pace - this is your journey.
Cold plunging is such a fabulous tool for a nervous system and overall health and I am celebrating you and your willingness to try.
As you move through this week do let me know how it's going! Reach out - ask questions - post selfies and tag me. I want to celebrate YOU!! You'll find me on instagram @natasha.wilch
Let's step into the water!
Day 0
You're here! I am so freaking excited to do this week with you.
Everything you need for the challenge will be waiting for you right here on this page each day - bookmark it!
As each day goes on I'll be connecting with you here with a note, a little science, motivation, as well as audio to guide you through the water.
Here we go my friend.
Day 1
Welcome to Day One!!
Today we begin our plunge with 30 seconds in the cold. That moment, just before you step into the water, is the moment you ground yourself.
Take a moment, feel your feet on the ground, take a calm deep breath, and on your exhale - step into the water.
That first moment it's going to be cold, your breath is going to catch, your shoulders might rise ... this is natural.
Pause, take a breath, purse your lips, and slowly release the breath from your lips.
30 seconds - you got this!
Prepare yourself:
Shower Plunge:
Have your towel close
Open Water Plunge:
- Consider if you want to have someone with you
- Have warm clothing for when you come out of the water
- Have your towel close
- Depending on the time of year you may want water shoes/gloves
How long do you stay? How do we know to come out?
It's important to remember that regardless of how long I am leading the plunge you remove yourself from the water when you need too.
So what are some cues that it's time to warm up?
- It's becoming difficult to regulate your breath
- Shivering has started and you are unable to settle it
- Your fingers or toes feel "too cold" or are becoming painful
- It's been 5 minutes
Warming Yourself:
Part of the benefit of the plunge is allowing your body to warm itself after. However, that being said, if you find that you are having difficulty warming absolutely take the necessary steps to help your body warm.
In the shower:
- At the end of your plunge you can slowly increase the temperature of the water to help you warm
Open body of water:
- Dry your fingers and toes first and get them covered to help them warm
- If you have a toque put that on your head (I plunge in mine)
- Dry your body and dress in warm clothing (if you can remove your wet swim suit it is recommended)
- Once you return home if you are still feeling cold please consider taking a warm shower
Day 2
Welcome to Day Two!!
If you haven't already taken a moment to connect to your "why" you decided to embark on cold plunging now would be a good time to do it. In the beginning it's fun, it's adventurous - but there are going to be days where you straight up don't want to .... and on those days that's when we need to remember why we are doing this.
So, while this is still fun and exciting and new ... re-connect with your why. And if you feel so inclined - send me an email or a DM on instagram to share.
Today we have the goal of 1 minute in the water. Click your audio link below to have me with you.
Prepare yourself:
Shower Plunge:
Have your towel close
Open Water Plunge:
- Consider if you want to have someone with you
- Have warm clothing for when you come out of the water
- Have your towel close
How long do you stay? How do we know to come out?
It's important to remember that regardless of how long I am leading the plunge you remove yourself from the water when you need too.
So what are some cues that it's time to warm up?
- It's becoming difficult to regulate your breath
- Shivering has started and you are unable to settle it
- Your fingers or toes feel "too cold" or are becoming painful
- It's been 5 minutes
Warming Yourself:
Part of the benefit of the plunge is allowing your body to warm itself after. However, that being said, if you find that you are having difficulty warming absolutely take the necessary steps to help your body warm.
In the shower:
- At the end of your plunge you can slowly increase the temperature of the water to help you warm
Open body of water:
- Dry your fingers and toes first and get them covered to help them warm
- If you have a toque put that on your head (I plunge in mine)
- Dry your body and dress in warm clothing (if you can remove your wet swim suit it is recommended)
- Once you return home if you are still feeling cold please consider taking a warm shower
Day 3
Day Three!!
Cold Plunging is showing up more and more in the literature as beneficial for our health. But what the heck is actually happening to our physiology when we plunge? Why is it helping?
Today we take a walk into the science.
When we initially step into the water we are met with a sympathetic stimulus to our nervous system. The sympathetic system is our "fight or flight" system.
Initially this causes the following:
- increased heart rate
- rapid breathing
- constriction of blood flow
- release of norepinephrine
As you control your breath you're able to calm the sympathetic system and recruit your parasympathetic, or "rest and digest" system.
When we come out of the water and begin to warm, our vagus nerve is continuing to work to regulate our heart rate, breath, allow for our re-circulation of blood, release of dopamine and all the other good stuff!
The cold plunge provides the stress response and then our body recovers. This is the dance we do to create resiliency and increase the capacity and dynamic nature of our nervous system.
I'm sure you know them already - but to recap, here are some of the health benefits we can gain from consistent cold plunging:
- improved circulation
- improved ability to handle stress
- decreased inflammation
- decreased brain fog
- improved mental clarity
- increased mood
- decreased fatigue
- increased energy
- decreased pain
- improved sleep
- improved recovery from physical exercise
- improved ability to focus
- improved immune function
Who doesn't want all that goodness?
Okay friends - today's plunge goal is 1:30min.
If you'd like my voice on your shoulder - just click your audio below
Prepare yourself:
Shower Plunge:
Have your towel close
Open Water Plunge:
- Consider if you want to have someone with you
- Have warm clothing for when you come out of the water
- Have your towel close
How long do you stay? How do we know to come out?
It's important to remember that regardless of how long I am leading the plunge you remove yourself from the water when you need too.
So what are some cues that it's time to warm up?
- It's becoming difficult to regulate your breath
- Shivering has started and you are unable to settle it
- Your fingers or toes feel "too cold" or are becoming painful
- It's been 5 minutes
Warming Yourself:
Part of the benefit of the plunge is allowing your body to warm itself after. However, that being said, if you find that you are having difficulty warming absolutely take the necessary steps to help your body warm.
In the shower:
- At the end of your plunge you can slowly increase the temperature of the water to help you warm
Open body of water:
- Dry your fingers and toes first and get them covered to help them warm
- If you have a toque put that on your head (I plunge in mine)
- Dry your body and dress in warm clothing (if you can remover your wet swim suit it is recommended)
- Once you return home if you are still feeling cold please consider taking a warm shower
Day 4
Welcome to day 4!!
I hope you're enjoying this week as much as I am. I am loving seeing your selfies, reading your messages and hearing your experiences.
I wanted to take today to chat just a little more about our nervous system. It's getting a lot of hype and exposure on social media recently ~ which is fabulous. But I also feel that in order for us to truly harness it we need to have an awareness and deeper relationship with it for ourselves. So HIGH LEVEL here's a little dip into the Nervous System.
Our Nervous System's ultimate job is to keep us safe and optimally functioning. To do that it takes in signals, cues, sensory inputs ++ and processes them in our brains. From there it will decide one of two things:
- Are we safe?
- Are we in danger/exposed to a threat? (from a rehab standpoint an error in processing = threat)
If our system feels we are SAFE then we enter into a parasympathetic state or a place of social engagement (ventral vagal).
Here we are calm, relaxed, we have inflections and changes of tone in our voices; we smile and have various facial expressions, laughter. We tend to feel grounded, calm and have more positive thoughts.
Take a moment and reflect on the following questions:
When was the last time you felt this way?
- How does "safety" feel in your body?
- What do you notice about the way you speak to yourself here?
- How do you engage in your relationships?
- What is the food you tend to reach for to eat?
Now if our systems feel threatened we respond in one of two ways:
1) Sympathetic "fight or flight"
This is our first line of survival and defence. Your nervous system has decided you can either out run or fight the threat head-on. Here our heart rates escalate, our breath becomes more rapid, blood moves to our bigger skeletal muscles, we become more alert to our surroundings, our pupils enlarge.
This also looks like anxiety, panic attacks, hyperviligence ...
Here's the thing .... we have warning signs when we're entering this state. For me it's two things - my shouders get tense and I get a knot in my stomach. If I keep ignoring it I get irritable and snappy ... and if I really keep ignoring it I feel a tightness across my chest like I want to burst and scream, the tears fall ....
This is where we get to practice self-awareness. To begin to think to your own body and the signals it sends you.
- What are your early signs you're entering into a sympathetic state?
- What are your middle signs?
- What are your late signs?
And now let's take this back to our earlier questions:
- What do you notice about the way you speak to yourself here?
- How do you engage in your relationships?
- What is the food you tend to reach for to eat?
2) Shut-Down (dorsal vagal)
Last but not least - if our nervous system doesn't think it can outrun or fight the threat... it shuts down, immobilizes, pretends to be "dead".
This is where our heart rates and blood pressures are low, we breathe slowly, decreased muscle tone, flat affect with no expression in our faces or voices.
This is depression and dissociation.
For me this is no motivation, brain fog, lack of clarity or creativity.
This is where we get to practice self-awareness again. To begin to think to your own body and the signals it sends you.
- What are your early signs you're entering into a shut down state?
- What are your middle signs?
- What are your late signs?
And now let's take this back to our earlier questions:
- What do you notice about the way you speak to yourself here?
- How do you engage in your relationships?
- What is the food you tend to reach for to eat?
Every one of these nervous system states serves a purpose for us. The challenge today is that as a society we are spending so much time in sympathetic and shut-down... we lack the dynamic nature of nervous systems ... we get stuck.
By becoming more aware of what these states look like for you - you can identify them earlier and reach into your toolkit to help you shift.
Cold Plunging is a tool that helps you in bringing back this dynamic nature we should have in a regulated nervous system.
So kudo's to you my friend!!
And now - onto today's plunge!!! We're at 2mins. Let's GO!
Day 5
Day 5!! Heck yes you are more than half way there.
Today might be that day where your motivation is weaning, the curiousity has been met, you may not be feeling changes yet ... so you're debating skipping today.
DON'T.
If this is where you're at, know that it's natural, but ALSO know that this is when discipline over motivation becomes the key.
Remember how I asked you your "why"? Now is the time to remember that.
Because of the expanding interest in cold immersion today, there are more studies being conducted. One topic of interest that has been looked at more than once is the cold immersion (or cryotherapy) as an adjunct treatment for depression.
A meta-analysis completed in 2021 summarized that cold immersion was beneficial for many mental health conditions, but particularly that of aiding in reduction of depressive symptoms. They also reported that there was a medium effect for studies that were focused on quality of life outcomes. The authors concluded that cold immersion was a beneficial add-on intervention for mental health, particularly depression. (If you'd like to read the study click here)
AND NOW WE PLUNGE! Today's goal is 2mins and 30seconds.
Day 6
Can you believe we are already at day 6! You are absolutely crushing it!!
We've been talking science and nervous system the last few days so today we're keeping it light 😉
I want you to think that has surprised you this week.... then let me know ;-)
Let's do this friends, we're adding another 30seconds today to make it a 3min plunge.
Day 7
YOU DID IT!! Seven consecutive days of cold immersion. Celebrating you!
I have to ask - how are you feeling? Have you noticed any changes in yourself over the past week together?
The benefits of cold plunging are cumulative. As we provide a safe environment to challenge and recover our nervous systems we continue to increase our capacity and thus build greater resilience.
My hope for you was that this challenge gave you the starting point, the courage to take that first step, to begin to make cold immersion a regular part of your life.
You have just successfully completed 7 days in a row.... don't stop now!!
And now - we're going for plunge 7. Our goal (in keeping with our adding 30 seconds a day) 3:30 min.
