A cold plunge wellness ritual
Over the past five years or so, I’ve developed an unexpected hobby: banya. Banya is a Russian bathhouse, usually consisting of wet and dry saunas, jacuzzi’s, birch branch platza treatments, and the cold plunge. My husband and I now attend regularly, up to once a week, spending hours alternating between heat and cold, resting and drinking tea in breaks between.
Lately, it seems like everyone is espousing the benefits of sauna, particularly when combined with the cold plunge, and my banya habit now feels hip or on trend. For example, the very popular Wim Hof method suggests that focusing on the pillars of cold therapy, breathing, and mental meditation as foundations to reduce stress, increase energy, and improve circulation. While the science supporting the claims around the benefits of cold plunge rituals is still relatively new, people of many cultures have a long history of using sauna and cold plunge for health benefits.
The one aspect of the sauna that seems to confound new comers (myself included) was the cold plunge. The cold plunge is a small pool, that typically only holds three to five people, and is kept around 40–50 degrees Fahrenheit. The first time I tipped-toed down the steps of the cold plunge, I only made it to my hips before I turned around shivering. I didn’t understand.
But I saw others bravely bound down the steps, fully submerge themselves, and even stay there for extended periods of time. I took it on like a challenge. After each sauna, I would force myself to go deeper in the cold plunge, eventually holding my breath under the water as long as I could, counting myself and always trying to beat my previous time. I made it into a competition, being smugly confident if I could be the first one in and the last one out.
Then one day that got boring. So, I stopped counting. I stopped pay attention to the other people. I stopped turning it into a game of how long I could “defeat” or “beat” the cold. Instead, I welcomed the cold.
It was a simple re-framing, really. Instead of the cold plunge as place where I battled against the elements, my ego constantly pushing for a win, I now see it as a practice of shutting off the ego, turning my attention to my body.
The ritual is:
- At the top of the stairs: take a big breath in, then out
- On the stairs: slowly put my toes on each step, then the heel. Feel the bottoms of my feet get cold against the pool floor.
- First in the pool: I take a deep breath in, then out. Then I submerge my head. I used to find it unnatural to let breath out before submerging my body. But I find that not having lungs full of air makes me have to battle less against the pull upwards, allowing me to actually stay down longer than if I had taken a big breath in.
- First five to fifteen seconds: With my whole body submerged, I do a full body scan with my brain (similar to a Progressive Muscle Relaxation exercise, just under freezing water). Starting with my toes, I feel the heat from the sauna slowly leave them. Then I’ll pat behind my knees, listening to them relax after being responsible for carrying me around all the time. Then the hips. Then I listen to my heart, beat steady through the cold. Up the back of the neck, I can feel to cold invade in between every single hair follicle. I rest my focus there, and sometimes experiment with different body positions based on my mood. Sometimes I like be leaning slightly forward, with my face slightly down, this makes me thinking of grounding movements in yoga, or my connection to the earth. Sometimes I like to be leaning slightly back, so my face is towards the top of the water. Sometimes I feel suspended there, strangely like a fetus. Only when my head, that’s when I go up for air.
- For next however long: I stay submerged up to my neck. I usually like to close my eyes, or have a downward gaze. I’ll do another body scan, trying to assess the temperatures of each body part, if it needs steaming from the sauna or needs more cold. Maybe another head dunk, or a splash from the falls. But I don’t leave based on a minimum time, or what others are doing. I leave when my body says it’s done, not my ego.
- Exiting: Exiting the cold plunge usually makes me smile. I’m at banya, relaxing and taking care of myself, and that high is best right after the cold plunge. So I try to climb the stairs slowly, not in a hurry to leave the cold. And grab a towel, gently wiping my face first.
- After: Sit or lay, eyes closed or open, there are no rules except to keep drinking water! I like trying new after cold plunge rituals all the time. That could be it’s own post.
The cold plunge for me is an opportunity to realize when my ego is talking too much, and even giving me wrong advice. The first time, when I dipped my toe in the cold plunge and my ego started screaming “too cold!” it was lying, my toe wasn’t actually that cold, it just got out of a 200 degree sauna! In fact, I my toe likes the cold, and my ego regularly lies to me.
The regular practice of turning off the constant chatter in your brain, and check it against the actual sensations of your body, has now developed into an invaluable skill that I use everyday in life.
