Country music star Jelly Roll is stepping up his fitness routine with some cold water dives. The revelation came during a chat with Jon Bon Jovi for Interview magazine, where the 39-year-old said he’s taking his health seriously “for the first time in my life.”
His new habits include drinking less alcohol, eating healthier and exercising a little: “I just walk a couple of miles a day, go into the sauna, and do cold water immersions,” Jelly Roll said, adding, “It’s really intense.”
The musician added that if he spends 30 minutes in a sauna before the ice water immersion “it doesn’t feel so bad,” and he believes the habit helps him feel better both physically and mentally.
Jelly Roll isn’t the only celebrity to endorse cold baths. In March, Dune 2 Star Josh Brolin Saturday Night Live A monologue about jumping into an ice bath on stage. He tells the audience, “I’ve been taking ice baths for 20 years,” and describes the experience. SNL The role of host is both intimidating and exciting. “You can’t prepare for it, so you just have to dive in and be comfortable with the discomfort!”
Actor and director Bradley Cooper also recently told The New York Times that he wakes up and jumps into cold water “every morning,” according to the paper. Maestro and hangover The star, who was pictured floating in a stream in just shorts on a snowy day, said he likes to “meditate in the freezing cold”.
Celebrities and athletes, including Justin Bieber, have spoken about cold-water immersion to speed muscle recovery for years, and cold therapy has also been popularized by the Wim Hof Method, created by Dutch extreme athlete Wim Hof, who claims it improves focus, increases energy and reduces stress levels.
Cold baths are becoming more commonplace, with social media reports suggesting people are even buying ice baths for their backyards to incorporate the experience into their daily routines, and some spas and workout studios even offer them.
But does increased access to ice baths mean more people should take part? Here’s what experts think, and what new research has to say.
What is cold plunging and why do people do it?
Cold plunging is a cooling therapy that involves full or partial immersion in water below 60 degrees Fahrenheit for a short period of time. Andrew Jagim, director of sports medicine research at Mayo Clinic Health System, tells Yahoo Life that immersion can be done continuously or in multiple bouts, with most people starting out with 30 seconds.
“It’s common among athletes and fitness enthusiasts to start the day with a cold bath or take a cold bath after a workout or training session to aid in recovery,” he says.
Cold baths are said to promote muscle recovery by inducing what Jagim calls a “vasoconstrictive state” (where blood vessels rapidly constrict and redirect blood flow to central organs), which in turn reduces muscle inflammation after exercise.
But it’s not just those doing intense exercise who are partaking in cold bath therapy: Jagim says he’s seen claims that cold baths can help treat chronic pain conditions, “improve mood, increase resilience to stress, and support immune system function.”
While the internet touts these potential benefits as fact, experts acknowledge that the research supporting them is limited, including François Hamann, a professor of health sciences at the University of Ottawa in Canada who has studied cold exposure for 20 years.
“Even if we assume that cold reduces inflammation and improves the immune system, that’s entirely unclear,” he tells Yahoo Life. “It’s not actually that easy to measure changes in the immune system.”
While “it’s not scientifically proven,” he acknowledges the importance of anecdotal evidence: “There’s some indication that it actually improves pain. People feel better,” he says.
What Haman knows to be true is that cold water immersion is a stimulant that acts like any other stimulant. “It starts off feeling very stressful, and it’s an extreme stimulus, so it releases dopamine, it releases norepinephrine,” he explains. “So your stress hormones go up, and when you come out of it, it feels like you’ve got new life. You feel super-activated.”
Hamann says the effects on the mind are clear, too. “When you go into cold water, you can basically find a way to get into a meditative state,” he says. “You’re facing very intense stress and learning to stay in control of your body. So there’s evidence that it improves your ability to set a different mindset and that you can learn about meditation.” [mindfulness]all these things.”
These benefits can be achieved by immersing yourself in cold water for up to two minutes. However, any longer than that comes with certain risks. “When we say two minutes is good, people think, ’20 minutes is 10 times better,'” says Hamann. “That’s not the case.”
research result
An analysis of eight trials of the Wim Hof Method (WHM) was published March 13 in the journal PLOS One. The extreme athletes credit their cold tolerance to a training method that focuses on practicing cold water therapy with specific breathing techniques. But the new review concludes that the quality of available research is insufficient to support the health benefits of the Hof.
Researchers say previous studies had small sample sizes and a high risk of bias (e.g., 86.4% of participants were male), which could have skewed the results. The review also reports that it’s hard to measure participants’ psychological outcomes, and that people who tried WHM may simply have experienced a placebo effect.
Some studies have suggested that combining cold water immersion with breathing techniques may have anti-inflammatory and immune-related effects, but the studies could not determine whether the benefits were due to the breathing techniques, the meditation techniques, or the cold water exposure itself.
“Research on WHM has not yet explored all of its purported benefits,” the report states. “There is much still to be explored.”
Is cold water immersion safe?
Hamman said immersion in cold water always involves a “calculated risk” due to the risk of hypothermia, skin damage, stress on the heart, elevated blood pressure and even drowning, and the lack of regulation of the activity puts people at greater risk.
“It’s extremely dangerous to assume that everyone reacts the same way to the cold,” he says. “Some people have a really hard time with the cold, and others have no problems.”
He likens it to vigorous exercise, and says certain precautions must be taken to ensure that people diving into cold water are physically healthy and able to withstand it. As the National Center for Cold Water Safety warns on its website, without information about a person’s health and injuries, the situation could be deadly.
“People with chronic health conditions, such as cardiovascular disease or autoimmune disorders that affect blood flow, may want to consult with their doctor before taking a cold bath to minimise the risk of side effects,” Jagim says.
Hamann recommended a few precautions for people wanting to try cold water diving, such as doing it in waist-deep water to allow for a safe exit, diving with a partner or in a group, and covering limbs to avoid injury, and he reiterated the two-minute time limit.
“You can get two minutes to have a cold shock response to regain control, then a minute of deep meditation and then get out,” Hamann says. “That’s the safe way to do it. If you’re doing it regularly, maybe you should try a little harder. But the longer you go in, the more dangerous it becomes.”
And for those who don’t like the idea of completely immersing themselves in cold water, he advises that a cold shower every now and then can have a similar effect.
“I’m not in the business of stopping people from jumping in cold water,” he says, “I’m in the business of enabling people to do it safely and well.”
This article was originally published on February 21, 2024 and has been updated.
