When I lived in Michigan, there was a guy who built a sauna on a trailer and he would pull it into a park on Lake Michigan and offer contrast therapy. (contrast therapy is alternating from Sauna to Cold Water multiple times.) The owner was a super cool guy who totally nerded-out on the benefits of sauna/cold plunge and he taught anyone who would listen how to get into the cold water so it wasn’t complete torture.
- Stand in the water
- Close your eyes and inhale deeply
- Exhale slowly as you lower into the water
Believe it or not, it works! Yes, it’s a shock when you first get in, but when you focus on your breath, and don’t anticipate the pain and terrible awfulness that is about to happen to you, it’s genuinely not that bad.
The reported benefits for your body and mind are many, but for me, I love the mood and energy boost. It’s like no red bull I’d ever had! Plus, you feel like a complete baddie in February when you’re sinking into a bathtub sized hole that has been chainsawed in the ice for the plunge. (the downside: all your friends think you’re crazy, but you make new friends in the sauna!)
I moved to FL four years ago, and I hadn’t cold plunged since, until last December when my friend Adam told me about The Balance House, a contrast therapy place right in downtown St Pete.
I decided to start going consistently and am LOVING it. I especially love watching THE CLENCH play out with the poor souls who never got the instruction I got on how to get into the cold plunge. They get in slowly, making weird noises the whole time, shoulders slammed up to their ears. They go in about to their waist…the absolute least amount you can get in without actually getting all the way in but still being in, and they watch the clock, shallow breathing the whole time, every second is complete torture. They anticipate the awful terribleness so much that they don’t even try to calm down and realize that it isn’t actually that bad.
Turns out, I do the clench too…when I have to do my taxes. I anticipate it’s going to be boring and awful and terrible and when I’m done, I realize it’s never as bad as I thought it was going to be, and I actually made it worse by anticipating it.
- Moving
- New boss
- Weird food (Yum, crickets!)
- Hard conversations
- Holidays with the in-laws
- Getting a shot
We do it all over the place. The anticipation and expectation of how something is going to be can completely rob us of it being anything other than awful-terrible.
So next time you’re anticipating something to completely suck, pause, take a deep breath in, and sink into it as you exhale while asking “What if this doesn’t have to be terrible. Let me pay close attention to the reality of the experience in the moment and see if this is actually THAT bad.” and see what happens. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Go get ‘em Tiger, and relax your shoulders while you’re at it.
