It’s mostly about physiological responses but not only. Link to the publications they talk about are in the shownotes. https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/dr-susanna-soberg-how-to...
For participant 7 (who is an experienced cold plunger) we could see clear changes in their alpha power (dropping during the stroop task - attention & rising during resting state/cold plunge - being more relaxed)
Could you explain what you mean by that? Why can't unhealthy individuals participate? And even if they can't, are study results still not applicable for healthy people?
You could also argue that almost all studies are done with adults, or individuals who aren't deceased, etc.
PS: Look up the Doomsday Argument
A core reason why we need to do as many trials as possible for different interventions is that there's no one-size-fit all approach. I believe that some things will work for some and not others.
The bottleneck is in having a standard framework to validate the impact of interventions and understanding "whether or not it works for you" with empirical evidence (not anecdotes)
On the thought of that "I accomplished something hard today" feeling, after a cold plunge I also experience a decrease in how hard it is to get myself started on some difficult task I've been dreading doing. Would you say you have the same thing, where you've already done one challenging thing, so the next domino falls more easily?
It’s the opposite of addiction’s dopamine cycle - a small pain the leads to a long-lasting high, rather than a drug’s small high that leaves you in its debt.
On a side note, I will take a cold shower after workouts and it extends my feeling of ‘magnificence’ and the ‘I worked out today’ sensations.
It was stressful until I put my head under. The experience became amazing, I felt fantastic, and the entire event became a blast. I told everyone I'd start doing it weekly, which of course never happened. But I recommend more people give it a try.
A fun side fact for those knowing University of Wisconsin Madison -- the established outdoor activities club is called Hoofer's, but my friend named his ice plunge club "Hoffer's", appropriately named after Wim Hof. Hoofer's gave him a laughably hard time over affront, but he hasn't backed down.
I a similar experience: If I start a cold shower by splashing cold water in my face it is totally doable. If I start with any other body part it is extremely stressfull
I now wish I had one at home, it is different from just taking a cold shower imo.
I had the opportunity to do a cold plunge (twice over two days) recently and I really enjoyed it. I felt "better" for several hours afterward. All my little aches and pains were gone, felt more clearheaded somehow.
Now that we have this. We can use it as a reference for future longitudinal studies with larger groups of people.
If any of them would work you would have to see significant results in the real world and not just in papers. Like somebody living 120 years because they always drink antioxidant teas. Or a geographical area where psychological well being is incredible because meditation is a local custom. For saunas and cold baths as well, they are long traditions in some places. What can we observe in those populations that is clearly out of the ordinary? If nothing, then they can't be doing much, can they?
We already know elixirs that really boost our "stats". We have PEDs which have very clear effects. You don't need to calculate p-values to see that somebody has 3 times the muscle mass of a normal person or can focus to study uninterrupted for 48 hours after taking some pills. And we already know why the general population doesn't use PEDs on the regular. Because they have serious side effects. Why would you assume that we can find something with significant beneficial effects in one area that would have no drawbacks? It's like putting weights on one side of the scale to push it, but expect nothing to happen on the other side.
The number of years a person has lived is a good metric but that means if we're trying something new now, we need to wait for X years before saying this has an effect. X in your example being someone reaching 120years.
We can't wait that long :)
At a bare minimum there’s a mental aspect to forcing yourself to do something extremely uncomfortable.
Lots of people are seeing results in the real world.
It’s really not equivalent to PEDs or medicine, or trying to replace those things. It’s just another tool that people into fitness can use in their routines
I’d recommend trying it before having such a strong opinion on it
