The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 201. Sam Maxwell & Kyle Ponton: Cold Plunging Science & Health Benefits + How You Can Start!
Episode Date: September 16, 2025Two Atlanta entrepreneurs discovered something more valuable than any business strategy: a daily practice that builds unshakeable mental resilience while creating thriving communities nationwide. Kyle... Ponton and Sam Maxwell share how their journey from DIY ice barrels to building Cold Life into a revolutionary wellness company reveals the power of customer-driven innovation and authentic product development. From Mark Wahlberg’s 4am routine to Coffee & Chill events transforming social wellness culture, see how cold plunging is creating alcohol-free communities focused on health, connection, and personal growth. COLD LIFE: THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp Join the Ultimate Human VIP community for Gary Brecka's proven wellness protocols!: https://bit.ly/4ai0Xwg Connect with Sam Maxwell & Kyle Ponton of The Cold Life Website: https://bit.ly/3IcsvK6 YouTube: https://bit.ly/465iQhz Instagram: https://bit.ly/4pGxEer TikTok: https://bit.ly/3K29r1K Facebook: https://bit.ly/3K4F3Ui X.com: https://bit.ly/47LsWFG LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3KoNbis Thank you to our partners H2TABS: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4hMNdgg BODYHEALTH: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV BAJA GOLD: "ULTIMATE10" FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa EIGHT SLEEP: SAVE $350 ON THE POD 4 ULTRA WITH CODE “GARY”: https://bit.ly/3WkLd6E WHOOP: JOIN AND GET 1 FREE MONTH!: https://bit.ly/3VQ0nzW MASA CHIPS: 20% OFF FIRST ORDER: https://bit.ly/40LVY4y VANDY: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: https://bit.ly/49Qr7WE AION: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4h6KHAD A-GAME: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: http://bit.ly/4kek1ij CARAWAY: “ULTIMATE” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3Q1VmkC HEALF: 10% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/41HJg6S BIOPTIMIZERS: “ULTIMATE” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/4inFfd7 RHO NUTRITION: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/44fFza0 GOPUFF: GET YOUR FAVORITE SNACK!: https://bit.ly/4obIFDC GENETIC TEST: https://bit.ly/3Yg1Uk9 Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST: YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 Connect with Gary Brecka Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo X: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2 Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU Merch: https://bit.ly/4aBpOM1 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/47ejrws Ask Gary: https://bit.ly/3PEAJuG Timestamps: 00:00 Intro of Show 02:06 Starting the Cold Life Journey 13:17 Engineering behind the Cold Life 16:54 Debunking the Myths on Cold Plunging 20:01 Evidence-Backed Benefits of Cold Plunge 25:09 Mammalian Dive Reflex 26:25 Recommended Duration and Temperature of Cold Plunging 34:37 Community-Building through Cold-Plunge and Wellness Activities 38:24 Cold Exposure is Not Just a Trend 42:31 The Absence of Dopamine is the Presence of Addiction 46:37 Best Testimonials Received 49:39 Contrast Therapy Benefits The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The Content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
My favorite part about cold punching is that it changed my life completely.
I was diagnosed with severe ADHD when I was young.
I was just Googling what can help me with an adderol addiction.
So when I found the cold therapy being able to substitute that, I was buying ice every single day.
I'm a walking testimonial of what we sell and what we created.
I literally call it my drug of choice because nothing makes me feel better for longer.
That aspect of getting out and just being so clear, people are realizing, man, there's so many ways to feel really good.
drug and alcohol.
And that's when we then connected on how much he believed in cold plunging.
He was like, dude, let's stop everything we're both doing right now, put our brains together,
and let's create our own product.
Most people see comfort very aggressively.
They avoid any level of discomfort, not realizing that some level of discomfort can make you
stronger.
There's really something to be sad about pursuing the discomfort to where then when stuff
comes out to you, you just feel like you got it.
I always say if your morning is hard, your day will be easy.
Doing that very hard thing in the morning just sets me up for my day.
I feel like cold exposure is one of those things that is going to still be mainstream 5,000 years for now.
When you look at the intelligence, really break this down, you get into a cold punch.
What is the body going to do in that situation?
One of the things that I found very interesting was, and I didn't really learn about this really until this past year or two, is...
Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.
I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brecker, where we go down the road of everything,
anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between.
Today's going to be a really special podcast because it's on a broad topic that so many people
are interested in and even more people are confused about.
So I'm really, really excited to run this podcast on cold plunging.
And I've asked two of my very good friends and partners to come to the podcast today.
So welcome, Sam and Kyle from Cold Life Cold Plungees.
Welcome to the podcast, guys.
Thanks for having us all, Gary.
We're pumped to be here, man.
This has been an awesome journey.
I mean, in full disclosure, I'm a shareholder in Cold Life, a proud shareholder.
I met you guys a few years ago through my son.
I fell in love with the purpose and the passion.
It reminded me a lot of, you know, when I was getting going off the ground,
young entrepreneur, passionate about an idea.
unrelenting, but what I really appreciated about you guys was the level of intentionality that
you had in bringing your product to market. You wanted it to be American made. You wanted to have
the best motors. You wanted to have the most durable plunge. And I don't want to turn this
into a commercial for Cold Life because I want to go into the science of cold lunging. But I want to
get that out of the way first. This is not a podcast to sell you a cold lunch. Of course.
the podcast, you know, talking about all of the benefits. So let's just rewind the clock a little bit.
I mean, how and why did you decide to take the leap into cold plunging and make that your life?
I'll start. So for me, my journey was honestly a little simple. You know, I got invited one Saturday morning.
I don't know. This is probably four or five years ago now, probably right before COVID era.
I'm from Atlanta. So in Atlanta, the wintertime, it gets pretty cold. So thankfully, we have some pretty cold water near us and all the showers and such.
I had a couple crazy buddies of mine and we said, hey, let's just go to a local pool and do this in the morning.
It's like 8 a.m. Saturday morning.
You know, what else better do I got to do than go jump into a pool of cold water?
So I started to do this.
And it just, it was incredible for me.
I literally came out of there.
I had no idea what any of these benefits were.
I didn't know any of this, the mental clarity, the inflammation.
I didn't know any of these buzzwords.
I just knew I felt like incredible.
And it was just so addictive.
So we kept on coming back.
And then five of us turned into 20 of us, turned into 60 of us.
turned into 60 of us,
turned into almost hundreds of us
getting together weekly back in Atlanta.
Really?
To jump in the lake.
To just jump into a pool.
There used to be something in Chicago.
I went to grad school in Chicago.
It was called the Polar Club.
Yeah, exactly.
Do you remember that?
Like once a year they'd all go,
I actually didn't do that for the record,
but they would all go bum rush Lake Michigan.
I was like, yeah, yeah.
That guys are crazy.
Yeah, yeah.
But it was like women.
Yeah, everybody.
Kids, a whole nine.
Yeah, there's a big community of everything.
So that, and that's what this turned into, it was just a big community, which is why I loved it.
And then Sam and I had, you know, had met and we were doing some different, you know, business things on the side.
And so one day I walk in, this is while I'm doing these events and such, I walk into Sam and I'm going over there to say, hey, you need to come check out this coal punch thing we're doing.
We're doing pools.
You know, next weekend you got to come by.
And I walk in and I'll let Sam share his side of the story on that.
But that's really where I discovered, wait, you're doing coal plunging too?
Yeah, I had just discovered cold punching.
And my favorite part about cold punching is that it changed my life completely.
You know, so a lot of people do say that.
And for people that are watching this,
are like, okay, golfing really changed your life.
Yeah, sure.
I get it.
Where's the affiliate link, guys?
Yeah, no, seriously.
But for me, I'm, you know, I'm a walking testimonial of what we sell and what we created.
And going into that, I was diagnosed with severe ADHD when I was young.
And when I met Kyle, I was just trying to get over my addiction of taking Adderall.
as I got older, I hated that I was absolutely dependent on a medication.
Wow.
And the older I got, the more I was aware of how horrible the person it made me.
That's a tough one, too, man.
My family, everyone that was close to me was scared to confront Sam about his addiction to Adderall.
I wouldn't sleep for days.
I would take multiple a day.
I got down like 145 pounds, and I was oblivious.
So the older I got, I was looking for an outlet, a natural way to battle my
ADHD but not take the medication anymore. Right. So after doing some research, I saw that cold therapy
was a possible solution to fix that. And I tried cryro and just for me personally, it didn't make
me get over that edge. I was still craving the medication. Then I discovered ice bass. So I bought
a plastic barrel at my office. I didn't want to spend thousands of dollars on the few that were on the
market at the time. And I bought a barrel and I was buying ice every single day. And I didn't miss a day for
like 14 days. Really? And within 14 days, I reflected and I was like, I'm not craving the
adorn. But who was the one that was like, hey, dude, I think you need to try. Was that you? It was
you. Well, it actually wasn't me. I won't take the credit for that. I came in. It was completely
independently, which is probably why we're, like an article, I think. I was like up at the office,
like late at night, didn't have my prescription. I was just struggling, right? Drink so much caffeine
every single day. And I was just Googling. I was out of curiosity. Like, what can help me with an
Adderall addiction. And I looked at cold therapy. There was a few articles at the time that
said that it could help. Yeah. Which we'll dive into in a little bit. But I started doing ice bass
and a plastic barrel. And he walked into my office at the time when we were doing a different
venture together. He's like, bro. He's like, no, what's going on? What do we got to go out here?
He's like, what's this Jeffrey Dahmer bucket in the corner of your office? It is true.
This crusty thing. He walks over to it. And he's like, dude, this water's disgusting. And I'm like,
I'm like, dude, I don't care.
I'm like, I get ice every day.
I'm like, I'm tired to buy an ice, but I was like, I don't miss a day, dude.
And that's when we then connected on how much he believed in cold plunging.
Yeah.
I started telling him about, I want to start a cold punch company.
And he was like, dude, let's stop everything we're both doing right now, put our brains together, and let's create our own product.
And what were you guys doing at the time?
I was, I had my own prior, like, e-commerce business selling a 360 spending photo boost.
Okay.
I used to always follow trends.
And what I like to say about the cold plunge is that I'm not in this because it's a trend.
I'm in this because it changed my life.
And now we want this to impact as many lives as possible.
Good for you.
So I'm very proud of myself for getting off that drug.
And now every day communicating with customers and possible prospects to join the cold life and be a customer.
People are battling ADHD and it's not talk about enough.
Yeah, you know, I talk about this a lot, you know, because I've studied genetic methylation pathways
and how the body converts nutrients and what have you.
one of the nutrients that we make in the human body,
we make dopamine, we make serotonin,
we make the neurotransmitters,
that create our mood, that create our emotions.
And so if we're making them inside the body,
when we take things from outside the body and put them in
in an effort to try to fix that deficiency,
it never works, right?
I mean, it works for a period of time,
but it creates dependency or creates something called tachyphylaxis,
which is desensitization.
So, I mean, unknowingly, you basically stepped on a physiologic secret
in that your body can produce these chemicals on its own.
It was so powerful. Within myself, I was 25 at the time, and I was like, this is me going to the
next chapter of my life, trying to become a better person.
Yeah, I literally call it my drug of choice.
And the reason why I say drug of choice is because nothing makes me feel better for longer.
And there's no downside to it.
There's no downside to it.
There's no downside.
Yes, there's no doubt.
Other than the apprehension right before you get it.
Exactly, it's always cold.
But then that gives you that kind of sense of accomplishment.
Which you'll kind of learn as an upside down the road, you know, doing that hard thing.
What are the top three reasons why I prefer a vertical cold plunge versus a laydown tub?
Well, I've used both.
When you're in a vertical position, your body naturally regulates your breathing better.
So if you're holding on to the sides and you're in a vertical position, you can just focus on your breathwork and you can stay calm.
A lot of people feel more calm when they're in a vertical position than when they're
laying down in the water and think they might slip under the water. So when you're vertical
plunging, you're fully immersed faster. You can focus on recovery, inflammation reduction,
and you're not struggling to just stay in a lie-down position. Your body floats in an awkward
way sometimes. So it's just a more efficient, comfortable experience in my opinion. It takes up
way less space too. It has a smaller footprint. So you can put these on your patio, your garage,
your bathroom, your locker room. You can really put it anywhere. I've got one on my balcony.
I've got two in my bathroom. So this is why cold life is my favorite cold plunge on the market.
So click the link below and you can order yours today.
Make sure you get the ultimate human version.
Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast.
Yeah, that's great.
So how about you?
What was your first kind of for me?
You're into the cold plunging now.
You've got a little bit of background.
You walk in.
He's in the dirty algae water.
That's a guy I want to be in business with.
It was a fucking bucket full of algae.
Give him the honest.
Great choice, dude.
Well, you know what?
You know this because now we've gotten to know each other for some years now.
And so we know this, but in life, everything is about relationships.
No question.
And so when I met Sam, we actually had a whole complete different business together.
I'd given him some money for really just kind of an investment into some e-commerce stuff he was doing.
And it completely flopped and failed.
And through that process, Sam really showed the kind of person he was by not only making me whole and making efforts to do that,
but the communication and showing and being transparent and showing all the effort.
And so I like to judge a character when things are not good, not when things are great.
it's very easy to hide things.
I will say you guys have done, proven that to me too.
Well, thank you.
We appreciate that because it's easy to hide when things are good.
You know, numbers help, right?
You know, everyone's doing well and everyone wants to really poke the bear.
But when things are tough, everyone looks to go point fingers.
And that's not what Sam did, which I really respected.
And I said, hey, I don't really, you know, I want to do something with you.
Let's find a project together.
And so for me, I was starting this coal plunges out, and it was just five of us.
And then so fast, it turned into 20 and then 30 and then 100.
And I was like, there's so much more people who want to do this.
There's so much more people who want to be a part of this.
And so when I talked to Sam about it, I said, man, we should start something.
Well, when it happened for a reason, clearly, because he was actually coming to my office to pick up a partial check to me to get him closer to be at home.
I didn't want him to come by that day.
Just being honest with you, I was.
That's why the cold punch was dirty.
He's like, get in here, bro.
Literally, literally.
I was dreading that day.
To be honest with you, it was a rough, like, season of life I was in.
The business flopped.
And he came by and we didn't talk about the check for three hours.
He was just like, we just talked about it in the corner of the office forever.
He's like, dude, what do you like about it?
What do you want to do about this?
Like we just looked up on Google trends, like the search volume on Google of cold plunging was slowly increasing.
And then thanks to Kyle, truthfully, he just was dedicated.
And every single day after that day, he showed me that.
I got a real sense for that too when I met you guys.
because, you know, the cold plunge space was by no means saturated,
but I was actually just coming out of a very difficult cold plunge experience.
You know, with my clinics, we invested heavily in this gold plunge company
that was actually sourcing everything from China.
And I don't have anything against China except everything that comes out of China.
But Chinese people are great.
That's good way to you know.
Yeah, exactly.
I love LoMaine. Is that Chinese?
Yeah, I think so.
Okay. We'll go with that.
A lot of good things come out of China.
But, and we bought like 250 of these things, sold them to our biggest clients.
And there were thousands of dollars.
And then we had a 65% failure rate in the motors.
Cost my partner and I seven figures because we did the right thing.
We refunded everybody's money and let them keep the coal plunge.
And I was, you know, just coming off of this shell shock and I met you guys.
And I was like, oh, gosh, here we go.
Yep.
But when I started talking to you, you know, American-made, right here in America, American labor,
the factory is right down the street from my house.
I'm like, I'm going to come put a finger on that guy.
Yep.
You know, powder-coated aluminum, durable.
And I think I ran mine for about a year before I put my toe in the water with you guys.
Yeah, we didn't hear from it.
Remember, we came and dropped it off.
I was beating that thing up.
I had it out in the sun, on and off and then I brought it into the house.
And then I started letting everybody get in there every day and I was like, man, these guys are pretty legit.
And then I remember I was like, you know, it's motors like, you know, it's a little bit noisy.
You're like, don't worry, next generation we've gotten.
You brought the motors over.
They're whispered quiet.
I was like, okay, I like these guys dedicated to customer quality, dedicated to customer service.
What I like to is that you shaped your company, at least from my perspective, on the backs of the feedback you were getting from your customers.
1,000%.
We still communicate with our customers frequently.
And no matter how big we get, I mean, since July 1st of this month, nearly every day, I've been helping with sales being on the phone with sales opportunities or even we call customers to get feedback.
Ask them how it's going.
And it's been a great way to get good clarity that we're at a great position.
We have been that the products have a good.
It's hard to, I think, do anything, right, if you don't have customer feedback.
Because you're just sitting in your own kind of siloed world thinking, I think I have the best sauce of whatever it is.
even whatever you for selling product services, media companies, whatever.
You know, if you don't hear the feedback from the people,
then you're never really going to know how to make the best thing.
Yeah.
So for us, we kind of knew, we knew some of the things right early on
by going out there and testing the market a little bit.
We knew American Made was going to be a massive one.
That is a huge thing.
I mean, this is even, you know, pre the current administration,
which is really incentivizing that.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
And I saw some of your competitors get smoked by the tariffs and whatnot.
And it was tough because we know some of our competitors,
people, they're not bad people. It was just a really challenging thing that, like you mentioned
about China, there's, you know, there's people have their opinions on China and there's certain
things that we use every single day that come from China and chillers should just not be one of
those things. Right. Yeah, our supposedly had ozone filtration and all this stuff. I mean,
it sounded great. Yeah, exactly. It's super gimmicky, right? It kind of looks like a shiny toy object
syndrome is what I call it. You know, looks good, sounds good, that's a cool screen and all that,
but our philosophy is very simple when we go about building products. I don't want this to turn
into a whole cold life episode about our products, but we're passionate about it. We have a lot of
passion behind what we build. And we really take a simple approach behind the engineering and the
development of these things, which is just build simple products that look beautiful. And
the more you complicate things, the more gadgets and widgets and things and this, you put
inside of these machines, the more likely you're going to have something break. And that was our
biggest problem. If you go call any coal punch company and I can guarantee you, you know,
they're struggling because the failure rates are high because most of the machines do come from
overseas. So we really wanted to stand on that and say we wanted to make an American made
product, which, by the way, takes a significant more time, significant more resources, significant
more energy, money, everything. It's very challenging to do things here in America. It's also
way more expensive. So we went that journey, though, and it took us, you know, coming up on,
it took us over a year from just development, you know, before selling anything. Yeah, to really go
out there and the tub itself and build these things. So let's delve a little bit into
you know the science and the benefits i mean clearly i'm i'm i'm a believer um you know cold plunging
was definitely a tipping point uh for me but now that i'm out there and and looking at the research
and you can't you know you're on instagram the stuff comes into my feed you see the people are
all over the place on on on cold plunging i think the hardcore cold plungers like like myself
um try not to go a day without it i mean in colorado got a hundred and sixty five dollar
cattle trough that I jump in
because I can't, I don't have electricity, right?
Literally, so I can't run a,
I can't run a chiller. So I just
bought a $165 aluminum
cattle trough. There we go. The water comes out
of the glacier at like 42 degrees and I jump in
and I don't let it get moldy like yours.
I change it every day.
But I guess it's not, it wasn't in my office.
I would be extremely healthy then.
Yeah, yeah. You hadn't taken my
mold detox class yet.
Not yet. You can sign up for that challenge.
So, you know, but one of the articles I read lately studies was that cold plunging actually
reduces the benefits of exercise.
And I think that this threw a little, no pun intended, but cold water on the cold plunging
space and maybe clarify that or talk about that a little bit, you know, timing or whatnot.
I can share some stuff on that.
So there was a recent study that came out.
And I think it kind of scared people a little bit thinking like, oh, no, coal plunging is bad.
And it's really kind of like anything, it's a very nuanced discussion.
It's not general.
It's very nuanced.
And so when they talk about inflammation being bad after a workout, they're talking about the concept of when you're working out after a heavy lift, right, in a heavy, in a gym exercise where you're actually inflaming the muscles.
And that's the intention of the exercise.
Then immediately following the exercise, you probably don't want to now de-exercise.
flame the muscle. I would agree with that. Now, you might know more about this. I'm sure there is a time
period and that's, I think, where the nuance comes in. Is it an hour? Is it four hours? Is it three
hours? I think that's where the kind of the conversation comes in. I think safely, just for
everyone's purposes, if you wait a couple hours and just use logic and then you go hop in the cold punch
recovery, you're going to be okay. Or if you do it prior to exercise. Or just do it prior to exercise.
And I think that's where people misunderstood. It makes, it seems like common sense. Right after the workout,
we're going to get in the cold punch for recovery,
which like you just said, though,
now I cold punch before I work out.
I do too.
I don't have to take pre-workout or caffeine or nothing.
That's it right there for me.
And then additionally, if I want to do it again,
I just wait until later in the day.
You know, I've actually used it as a contrast therapy sometimes
even before I go to bed.
Now, I won't get in for a long time,
but I'll do a short tonne of session.
Then I'll just go in the cold punch for about 30 seconds,
quick, dunk, come up to my neck,
hang out for about 30 seconds,
and then get out.
So it doesn't actually give me that massive spike of, you know,
naraphenephrin, dopamine.
Yeah.
And I find that I sleep really, really well on those nights.
But let's go into the science a little bit of cold plunging.
I mean, we know that there are stresses you can apply to the body called hormesis or hermetic stresses.
These are stresses that we apply to the body and the body strengthens in response.
I often say, we're talking about it before the podcast that, you know, aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort.
and most people seek comfort very aggressively
and they avoid any level of discomfort,
not realizing that some level of discomfort
can make you stronger.
So talk a little bit about direct evidence-back benefits
that come from cold plunging.
Yeah, absolutely.
Actually, interesting enough,
so my wife, who you've met, Kayla,
when I was doing this whole coal-plutch thing,
she never really got into coal plunging.
I kind of did it.
Mine took a solid two years.
Yeah, that's that right on.
Sage was slow.
Right on that timeline.
Yeah, that's about right.
Hey, guys, let me tell you about one of my favorite new hydration drinks.
Now, this is for distance athletes, hits cardio exercises,
people that sweat a lot or exercise intensely.
An A game is a hydration drink.
It has eight essential vitamins.
It has all of the electrolytes, the entire suite of B vitamins.
Before you freak out and read that it has 21 grams of sugar,
which it does, the sugar is coming from natural cane sugar
and honey, my preferred mechanisms for getting glucose into the blood during intense exercise.
It also has natural flavors, but these natural flavors don't come from bacterial fermentation.
They actually come from real citrus fruits, and the color is from vegetable juice, not artificial dyes.
So next time you're looking for a great hydration drink and you're exercising intensely,
a game is your choice. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast.
You know, for me, you know, it was more like a hurrah, you know, get in there, a hard thing to do, you know, that kind of thing.
why, you know, she'd see me do that. And she's like, I'm not doing that. I don't need any of that stuff. So until, you know, about a year ago, she ended up getting like a health coach. And one of the things that she particularly was challenged with was she had high cortisol. And she tended to maybe just say mismanaged stress in that sense, right? And so because of the high cortisol, because of the high stress, when more stress would come on, situations, it'd be very high stressful. And she'd have a hard time managing that. And so one of the recommendations that her coach, you know,
gave to her was, hey, have you considered cold plunging?
She's like, well, funny enough, you know, I've got access to one.
So she started to cold plunge regularly, and there was an absolute massive change in her
behavior.
And I think the reason why, which I've actually come to learn a lot more about this, even just
being in the space, is yes, it's one of those hard things to do, which is probably one
of my favorite benefits from it.
People talk about the science and the benefits and the mental and the inflammation and all
those things, which are great things.
but for me, it's very difficult to do, and I do it every single morning.
And so doing that very hard thing in the morning is just, there's nothing else.
It sets me up for my day.
And that doesn't get talked about enough because there's really something to be said
about doing difficult things, like you said, kind of pursuing the discomfort to where then
when stuff comes out to you, you just feel like you got it.
Yeah, and doing them early, doing the difficult things early.
Doing the difficult things early.
Morning is hard, your day will be easy.
Exactly.
And so to go deeper into that, though, but one of the things that I found,
very interesting was, and I didn't really learn about this really until this past year or two,
is, you know, when you go into a coal plunge, everyone talks about it. I think even one of your
listeners might have asked a question about this. You know, hey, it's, it's so hard to get past
that first 30, 60 seconds, that shock. I want to get out. I want to get out. And when you experience
this, you know, we see a lot of first time cold plungers come in and they want to just get jumping and
jump out. And when you jump into a cold plunge, as you know, you go into a fight or flight
response state. Yeah. You go into that sympathetic state where you forget to breathe. You forget to
breathe and you're pretty much, you know, your body is thinking, okay, I need to kick in
because I'm going to die, right? Your brain knows you're just in a cold punch, but your body is
telling you something is off. And so doing that, and then we know that if you get past that
30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, marker, it's different for everybody and you get on to that
kind of parasympathetic state where your heart rate comes down, you start to find calm,
you start to find peace, you start to find that balance again. And then all of a sudden, everything's
okay. You can actually stay in that cold punch at that point for probably as long as you want,
really. We don't recommend anything past a couple minutes, but it's a lot easier at that point.
And what I learned was that there's actually a lot of data behind that transition of going
from sympathetic to parasympathetic and actually training the nervous system to combat
and activate in the normal world. And so for my wife, I've seen that transformation where
you know, those same situations will come up or those challenging things can come up.
up and it can be very stressful, but it's not that same level of stress or that same
reactivity that's there because you've trained the mind, you've trained the nervous system that,
hey, stress is coming, it's coming, I'm gonna go through it, I know I'm going through it. Now on the
back end of this, I know there's kind of a smooth sailing coming. And I think that's a very powerful
thing because there's a lot of people who deal with high stress, high cortisol, that's a very
challenging thing. Totally agree with you. There's actually something fascinating, well-documented
in the literature. It's called the mammalian dive reflex. And the mammalian dive reflex is,
is germane to all mammals.
And when mammals dive, whales, dolphins,
when they actually dive in the ocean
as the water temperature cools
and it's passing over their face,
it shifts them from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state.
It actually reduces their heart rate,
calms them down.
So you can actually capture this benefit
by putting your face in the water
when you first get in, either dunking
or splashing cold water on your face
will activate the mammalian dive reflex
and actually make the cold plunge easier.
Yeah.
it's well documented in the literature.
You can look up the mammalian dive reflex.
It's a well-known reflex that's germane to all mammals.
So that's essentially what's happening there.
And if I can, if I can, we are more less scientific saying.
Oh, sorry.
Of everything you just explained is we have a saying it's called,
I don't count if you don't dunk.
Oh, okay.
That's our less scientific way of saying.
You don't count if you don't do the mammalian dive reflex.
Yeah, exactly.
Actually, shout out to Andrew.
because he was the first one that said,
I was like, hmm, that sounds a little.
I started looking it up.
I was like, all right, Andrew, yeah.
He's barely wrong, so he would write again.
But so talk a little bit about time temperature,
because that's the big one.
Yeah.
Is like, should it be 35 degrees and I do 15 minutes?
It would be, you know, 60 degrees and I'd do five minutes.
You know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Yeah, I mean, we've heard it from yourself
and from the research we've done.
there's no studies that say the colder, the better.
Right.
So we always recommend people when they're starting,
you know, the machine goes down at 37 degrees Fahrenheit.
Right.
I myself rarely cold punch at 37 degrees.
That's brutal, man.
Unless I'm having a rough day
and I want to do something extremely extreme,
we do it,
we generally recommend around 48 to 55 degrees.
Perfect.
And we tell everybody start at one or two minutes
and get your body used to it.
Don't go in there at 37 degrees
and try to do it for five minutes.
You know, we have people reach out to us
that say, oh, I did it for 10 minutes yesterday at 40 degrees, what should I do next?
And we're like, actually, you can get the full benefits just doing 10 to 14 minutes a week.
That's very true.
Breaking it, you know, breaking it down at two or three minutes a day, even just four to five days a week.
So, you know, if people don't want to do a cold plunge at first, start off with a cold shower,
start doing it for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, get it obviously as cold as it possibly can.
I think cold showers, in my opinion, are actually harder than a cold plunge.
Yeah. Because part of your body's wondering what's going on, the other half.
I don't wonder what's going on.
It's like, yeah, it's like being in line of the torture.
You know your necks.
You see it coming.
I hate not having a cold punch because then I feel obligated to do with my cold shower.
And I'm like, this is miserable.
I would rather just be sitting all the way up to my neck in a cold plunge.
But that's kind of the quick breakdown that we explain to everybody.
I mean, a lot of our customers always ask for our advice.
And we always say, like, if you want to go down at 37 in a few months and you feel like
you can handle it, where the footies for your feet, you know, to keep your feet warm at least.
Yeah.
But yeah, we always suggest people.
Man, it's the same thing.
48 to 50 to 55 degrees,
three minutes minimum, six minutes maximum,
get all the benefits.
I mean, of all the literature and I've exhaustively gone
through the literature.
And, you know, if you think about it,
when you get a peripheral vaso-constriction
and you constrict,
if you actually keep reducing the temperature,
it doesn't constrict any harder, right?
It doesn't like that.
It's not, once you make a fist
as tight as you can make it,
if you keep putting it in colder water,
you're not going to make a tighter fist, right?
So you're not going to increase
their peripheral vaso-constriction.
What I found fascinating,
which, not to completely jump topics,
but the more I study the human body,
the more I believe in God.
Because when you look at the intelligence,
the architecture of what happens,
if you really break this down,
you get into a cold punch,
you get this peripheral vaso-constriction.
But it vaso-constricts in a very specific physiologic pattern.
It shuttles blood.
Shuttles the blood first to the brain.
That's the first organ to receive the blood
right up through the carotid arteries.
Then it shuttles the blood,
to the heart and then out to the lungs and then everything else.
And if you think about the intelligence of that, you know, let's say you're walking on the
ice and you're by yourself, you break through the ice, now you're in 38 degree water.
You're alone.
You have no resources.
What is the body going to do in that situation?
I mean, it has no external resources.
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So first thing, preserve the brain.
Second, heart, third, lungs.
And if you think about that sequence,
I mean, if this goes out, nothing else matters.
This stops me, nothing else matters.
And then these are not working.
But you can tolerate those in that sequence, right?
And then, you know, after it does that,
it starts this entire physiologic cascade
to prepare you to best get out of that situation.
Release of cold shock proteins.
I think one of the most fascinating areas
of clinical research now is in cold shock proteins.
We're just scratching the surface of these fascinating proteins
that are locked up in the liver.
There's a few of them, Lin 28A and Lin 28B
that are being investigated for improving insulin sensitivity
and decreasing insulin resistance,
scouring the blood of free radical oxidation.
So if you think about that and then, you know, releasing norepinephrine, say it.
That's norepherin.
Don't ask how many times I've tried to learn that word.
He was practicing it before the podcast.
We're like out of the screen right here, like N-R-N-O-R-E-E-ephinephrine.
I was on Google.
I was going to say it to me while I was pacing in the hallway.
I was like, come on, Sam.
I told him they said the porcupine one, it started with an end.
you know that one, there you go.
Where do?
But if you think about it, what does that do?
Widenes your field of vision, makes your hearing more acute,
makes you more alert, focused, concentrated,
increases your short-term processing speed.
Why?
Because you've got to survey the environment around.
You've got to critically be able to think.
And to me, it's even understanding the physiologic mechanisms,
it's an eerie form of meditation
because I'm one of those folks, and you with an ADHD background,
probably fall in the same category,
category that has a very difficult time quieting my mind.
Yes.
Like to just sit, be still.
Like my wife and I play the silent game,
I last 30 seconds.
Like sage could go three days.
Right.
Right.
But I'm like, I need to say something, you know.
And I've tried guided meditation, but dude,
when you're in a cold plunge, yes,
your mind is not, you're not...
Nowhere else.
Did I get everything on my grocery list?
I wonder if I returned that email.
No.
You're not thinking about your Instagram.
grandpa, you're like highly present.
Yes.
And so good.
And I think that, you know, that aspect of getting out and just being so clear, you know,
it's like what an amazing way to start your day.
Yes.
And the fact that we can tap into this every day, God gives us an endless amount of this resource.
And I always tell people, look, we're trying to cold shock the body, not cold, adapt the body.
Very important.
And that's why I say not hanging out and cold.
cold water forever is not a great idea.
In fact, when I, I was a mortality researcher for years
and when I started in the mortality space,
when I was born in 1970,
Eskimos had the shortest life expectancy
of any race.
Really?
They lived at the poles, very little sunlight,
very little vitamin D3.
Wow.
Very high fat with high carbohydrate diet.
And they were called adaptive.
So they were learning, their body was adapting
to the cold. So it was adding out of post layers. It was increasing the amount of visceral
and body fat. So this is one of those tools that you throw in the arsenal. You know, you use it
for its advantages and don't overuse it and don't abuse it. Exactly. And it can just really be
integral part of your day. So time, you know, temperature are big ones. And so what about people
that have, you know, renounds or people with heart conditions.
There was one question in here.
There was a very specific questions he was asking about.
We'll get to that in the VIP community.
Okay.
But do you find, are you finding a wider adoption of cold plunge outside of like the
hardcore crossfare, like, you know, go rocker, you know, high rocks racer.
I get that community.
Of course, yeah.
They were the first adopters.
We called them early adopters.
I feel like a lot of people in their midlife crisis
that are trying to turn their life around.
Honestly, just trying to live healthier,
want to live longer.
People that are working a normal nine to five corporate job
or people that, you know, are looking for that.
We actually did cold plunge challenge.
Yeah.
On the ultimate human hands of people,
you guys gave away a cold punch.
And the family that won,
we gave it to them because they brought the whole family over it.
Oh, that's incredible.
I think they used, remember those little plastic
like pools that you got in as a kid.
They were like,
oh, yeah.
It was like a kitty pool.
Baby pool, yeah.
So they filled it full heist
and the entire family got in.
That's incredible.
Like the kids, the uncles,
the,
her parents, they looked like
they were easily in their late 70s.
Wow.
And I was like, you guys.
They deserve it.
Wow.
That's incredible.
My nieces do it.
That's awesome.
They're seven and ten.
So good.
So I think it's becoming
a really cool way
to even build community, you know.
Yes.
Like here in Miami, I love this coffee and chill.
Yes.
You know, where you're, you walk into these parties
and you would think, if you didn't know any different,
that it was like any other South Beach rager.
Yep.
You know, DJ.
Yeah, DJ, party, crazy people.
Like, you know, but it's like safe.
Everyone's sober.
Everyone's networking.
Yeah, yeah, yep.
And I love seeing that trend.
I mean, because people are realizing,
man, there's so many ways to feel really good
without drugs and alcohol.
Yes.
And the community side is one of our favorite things about this business.
Yes.
The community side is incredible.
Coffee and chill specifically, you know, we've partnered with them.
And that's really been a part of that, a way that we've been able to really get involved
with the community, you know, outside of obviously selling the products.
But, you know, we're now in Miami, Austin, L.A., New York, San Diego, all over the place.
And, you know, so if you've talking about access and accessibility for any of those markets,
definitely go check out a coffee and chill, especially if you don't, you know, have a place
to put one of our products or the money or whatever it is, you can go there for 20, 30 bucks
and have a great time meet great people and go to get started in cold plunging.
Also, fantastic way to just do a first cold punch.
Because there's nothing like getting into the water.
Well, you have the peer pressure, right?
Yeah, you got like six, seven, eight people.
You're doing there's a bunch of hot chicks standing around.
You're like, I'm getting in here.
Oh, this is great.
I love this.
Try to be all stoic looking and everything.
No, but it's incredible for that part of it.
We love being a part of those communities.
And honestly, honestly, a lot of those times.
types of communities are growing all over the place. I mean, we sell, you know, a product to those
communities, the party plunge, and those products go all over the country. I mean, I would
probably say any given weekend there's got to be at least 10 or 20 these events happening
across the country all over the place. I'm so crazy to hear that, man. None of them are involved
with alcohol. It's all just coffee, cold plunges, health and wellness stuff. And they're selling
out almost all of them. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing to touch on, though, because I just want to say
earlier, you mentioned, you know, access and, you know, we're a big component of just get started,
right if it's a cold shower or you want to have a DIY setup or if you don't want to have anything at
your house go to a gym you know we we as our company we're in over 200 i think locations now we just hit 200
um and so whether it's a cold life plunger going to or another you know whatever go find any gym
that's carrying this stuff but gyms and wellness centers and clinics and yoga studios and contrast
therapy places i mean these places are popping off like they never have before i guarantee you for all the
listeners if you go to google right now and type in cold plunge near me there's probably one pretty
That's pretty close to you.
You know, and you can usually go to a free trial.
Yeah, free trial or it's low cost, you know, to go out there and try.
Yeah, man, I tell people, look, if you got a bathtub, just take Tupperware containers,
put them in your freezer, freeze them, take the big blocks size, throw them in your tub.
You'll, you know, sometimes those will last two, three days even.
Yeah, yeah, they will, yeah.
It's a good way to, you know, just get yourself into it before, you know, you bite the bullet
and decide to commit to it.
And I think once people commit and it becomes a regular part of their life, then they're,
it means you like Dana Light and all, when they travel, they travel, they
They ship the cold plunge.
Walberg is the same way.
Crazy.
I guess we can disclose it.
He's a now.
We can now disclose that.
Okay.
Welcome,
Mr. Mark Wahlberg to the cold life.
Yeah, I remember when he sent me,
I sent him out,
well, we sent him out one,
and then he sent me back to the video.
He's like, dude,
I love this thing.
I'll tell you what, man.
There is, there is probably at the search
far and wide to try to find somebody
who would beat the consistency of Mr. Walberg.
A.m. Club, man.
Every day at 4 o'clock in the morning, before the sun is up, that man is inside of a
cold plunge, which is extreme dedication.
Before he arrives to a new city, he makes sure he has one waiting for him the next day.
He doesn't miss a day.
Yeah.
I send him videos sometimes and, like, mess with him in the mornings because, like, if I'm in
a different time zone and I know that maybe I beat him up, like, you know, like, there's no,
I'm not in the gym for you.
Sorry, Mark.
And, yeah, so the other day, I'm in my, I'm in my, I'm in my,
Cole, I mean, in my hyperbaric chamber,
I'm actually, bro, and I sent him a video.
I'm like, get out of bed, you know,
what did you do this morning?
You lazy bum, and he texts me back,
and he's like, just got off my knees from thanking God
for everything.
I'm grateful for it.
Oh, I'm like, all right, you win, dude, you win.
You got it.
I'm just in here in my hyperbaric chamber.
I thought I was cool.
Exactly.
So these, you see now, you know,
before I think like you were talking about,
this was a trend, fad, sort of gimmicky, if you will.
It was kind of like a cool thing.
It was almost like a TikTok challenge.
What was the big challenge that went around where everybody was the ice bucket challenge?
That was for ALS.
ALS, yeah.
And I think that really caught on, which was really cool.
I did the ice bucket challenge.
And but it's not a gimmick.
No.
Right?
And I think that, you know, when you look at things that have been around for sustained periods of time,
like I say this all the time about medicine, you know, when you look at acupuncture,
for example. It's been around for 5,000 years.
Why do you think it's lasted 5,000 years?
Because it works, right?
So, okay, maybe we don't have the peer-reviewed,
randomized clinical trial that we have for X or Y or Z,
but these people have been doing the same thing
and the same points with the same results for 5,000 years.
I feel like cold-punging cold exposure
is one of those things that is going to still be mainstream 5,000 years for now.
Yes.
Because I find that it works.
And in your experience,
when people get into this game,
what kind of feedback?
Are you getting feedback like,
this is too much for me,
I'm sending this thing back,
or this is changing.
This is probably the easiest way
to explain it in a nutshell.
You know, we have sold thousands of units,
and I will say this very truthfully and candidly
on both of salmon I's hands.
We can count the amount of returns
that we've had inside of our entire.
of those is simply because it didn't fit through their door.
And honestly, probably 80% of those
because they didn't fit on their balcony or something
crazy. So very, very, very
dedicated customers and community.
I mean, once you go into this thing, you're not going back.
You're not going to get started in cold plunging
and make this a daily party of your routine
or a weekly part of your routine or whatever it may be
because it's just, it's like you said, it works.
You know, and so when you start doing yourself,
you feel proud, you did something hard.
And we hear it all the time.
People end up buying one for their second home.
because they hate not having it at their vacation.
Or for their friend or for their cousin or for their wife
or for somebody like, hey, I need to get this person cold plunging.
You know, they're going through this depressive state
or they're going through this health thing or whatever it is.
Like, you know, they'll call us, can you get them as fast as possible?
You know, ship it to them tomorrow kind of thing.
Is that wild that, you know,
so, you know, we define depression in this country
as an inadequate supply of serotonin.
You know, we've always said in the addiction space
when I was in the mortality space that the absence of dopamine
was the presence of addiction.
You know, addicts weren't really seeking high.
They were seeking normalcy, right?
They didn't wake up one day and go,
I wouldn't get really banged up.
I woke up one day and said,
I want to feel normal.
It's like you with Adderall, right?
Your first time taking Adderall,
you weren't like, man, I just want to get high.
I just want that buzz.
I want that, you know, amphetamine hammer.
You're trying to feel normal.
Yeah, I want to be able to function.
You're bouncing around all over the place
and you just wanted to feel normal.
And I think that's where most people begin their journey
addiction is the search for normalcy.
And I think what this gives people is a way to do that with a lot of beneficial
consequences instead of having that cliff like kind of right behind you that, you're
running from a low, not running towards that, which I commend you a lot because getting
off Adderall and amphetamines system is one of the most difficult because, again, not because
it makes you feel banged up, it's because without it, you don't feel normal.
I was a slob.
Yeah.
I couldn't get anything done.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, so how was that struggle for you and do you, do you ever think about?
Oh, no.
I think it's been just about four years now that I haven't taken one.
Yeah.
Never going back.
The side effects are not worth it either.
The best part about the cold plunges is there's no crash.
You know, four to six hours at minimum, I feel phenomenal.
I'm focused.
I have attention compared to taking medication like Adderall
or Vivance.
I was on both of them.
Yeah.
And your girlfriend's going,
Wednesday asshole coming.
It's probably about two hours away right now.
No, literally.
And I'd be doing too much at once.
Or, you know, I'd be dusting my fan
instead of doing something productive.
I would just see it had me.
It had me all over the place.
You know, I'd be cleaning my shoes.
I didn't even need me to be cleaned.
But I wasn't doing something actually productive.
I need to get done.
Yeah.
And it's crazy over the last few years
now that I've been off Adderall
and I love sharing my story.
A lot of people are currently started to identify
that there's more
cons than pros to taking that type of medication. Yeah. And in particular, too, I was a hothead.
So it was affecting me in business relationships, my family, and it was a struggle. But that was
the biggest problem was I would try to get off of it when I didn't have another solution to fall on. So I would
immediately after two days, if I couldn't get any from the pharmacy, I'd be contacting people,
hey, can I get an Adderall? Just to get by for a day or two until I got my subscription, my refill.
and a lot of people are like that
and it's hard to admit it
because it's an addiction
that you don't want to admit that weakness.
So when I found the cold therapy
being able to substitute that,
I was like, this is phenomenal
because even if I don't have a cold plunge,
I can do a cold shower.
And sometimes I was doing like two cold showers a day
until I had a cold plunge in my place
just to get by.
And then when you live somewhere
where it's cold, you know, a lot of our customers
they are on the fence,
they don't want to spend the money yet.
It's like earn it for yourself.
earn that reward of a cold life, cold punch, where do you live? You're in Minnesota. You got a hot tub.
Don't turn the hot tub on. Use that as your cold punch. Yeah. You already got it. You already got the body of water.
Yeah. Sometimes up there the water comes out nice and cold in the winter too. Exactly. Exactly. So we always
suggest that the people too. Like we're from Atlanta, the Chattahoochee River is like 40 degrees all year around.
Oh, is it really? Yeah, all year round. So when I was in high school, you know, we'd go there and, you know, do stuff, stupid stuff and maybe get in the water for like 30 seconds to swim across the river.
little did I know what benefits I had in there.
And back then, you might see, like, one guy that I thought was crazy, like, laying in the
cold water, and I'm wondering what he's doing.
But now any natural body of water you go to, especially in the wintertime, it's so
normal now.
Yeah.
And now there's all these movements from the communities to the polar plunges people are doing.
In Austin, Texas, they have that area that's like a really cold body of water that people
go to all the time.
Yeah.
And it's very fascinating, seeing how normalized it's becoming.
What are some of the customer feedback stories, testimonials that come in to you guys that you find to be really, I mean, getting off Adderall?
You got to share one of the most recent ones.
There's so many good ones.
I wish we had more time to share them all.
But there's one that sticks out to me.
We have a customer who is battling stage four cancer.
And I had the opportunity to actually talk to himself.
there was something up with his delivery or something so somehow it got brought up to me and so
I just talking to the customer how'd you find us what's going on you know what's your story
and come to find out he's battling stage four cancer and you know I'm not going to sit here and say
cold plunges cures cancer because he's certainly still still going through that but to me
especially for the reason why I do the cold plans which is like it's a hard thing to do it's the
mental benefits it's that clarity I get coming out of it but for me I get that win for the day
That's when I do that cold plunge.
I'm checked off.
I got my win.
I feel very great about myself.
For me, in the days where I'm like slack in or I don't want to do it or I get up into that cold water,
this was probably a few months ago now.
I talked to that customer and it is still, it is the first thing that comes to mind thinking
there is a man that's battling stage four cancer who struggles to get out of bed every single
morning, who has aches and pains and is throwing up and is doing fear.
So going through the worst of worst and the fear that it's all about to come over.
And that man is getting in to a cold plunge every single day.
And yeah, it's just, it's insanely inspiring to see customers that have that level of commitment.
And a lot of our customers.
And veterans with PTSD, all kinds of stuff.
It's crazy.
We hear from veterans that are in their 60s that are like, this is completely calmed me down,
hangs with help with my anxiousness and just in general helps me get by on days that used to be
challenging and it's been like one after one after one um and for me i've connected with multiple
people and there are 50s or 60s that are my my dad's age and they're all like you know your story about
adderall is remarkable i hate to admit it but i'm i drink like eight coffees a day um i don't want to
take a medication but i drink a ton of caffeine i do this i do this i'm a slug and now that i've
invested into a cold life cold funds are like i'm performing better than ever i feel younger yeah um and
the confidence i even have as a man you know a lot of people lack you know self confidence they're like
it's it's elevated my own confidence within myself because i used to be weak and i you know i needed
to find something to overcome that yeah yeah feeling yeah and as a man you want to feel you know
like an alpha man yeah and a lot of guys can't admit it feel alpha when you get out not so much when you get
Yeah, but you don't feel like an alpha man to get in there.
Yeah, yeah.
Especially when we got an audience, like, you know, we're the cold punch founders.
Like, we have a game face on.
You got to remain calm.
You're like, yeah.
Sit here, see, and it's not that bad.
You just got to breathe.
You got to breathe.
You know, you're like, stop dying.
So where do you guys fall in the contrast therapy?
You know, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of, you know,
gyms and wellness and recovery centers that are now using the contrast therapy.
what have you found works, what have you found doesn't work, where do you find in the, in the, son of
Colplands? Contrast has always been an interesting one because I think it's quite, it's quite personal
and different in the sense that Copeland, to me, at least, has a relatively specific outcome you're
trying to achieve, right? For me, it's the mental stuff. It's the hard thing. For some others,
it's recovery coming from the gym. For some others, it's inflammation, right? Everyone I feel like
kind of has their main reason why they're getting into the Cold Plains. But for contrast, to me,
Contrast is almost more therapeutic, you know, than a recovery aspect of it.
You know, you're going from, you know, you could probably explain the science behind the constricted blood vessels and then them opening up very quickly.
And so you're doing that back and forth, back and forth.
For me personally, on my own journey, I actually fell in love with contrast therapy.
My wife and I, once a year are a big thing as we would go to Asheville.
There's a place there called the Omnigrove Park Inn.
And it's like a big old, you know, kind of castle thing.
In Nashville, North Carolina.
Yeah, that's a beautiful area.
It's a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous hotel.
And it's in the mountains, and it's beautiful.
And they have a spa that's actually in, like, the basement.
And then it looks out of the mountains.
And it's just beautiful.
But they have these areas in this area, it's a cold plunge, it's a hot tub.
It's a steam room, and it's a sauna.
And actually, right during COVID, when COVID was all happening, we got a chance to go up there.
And I didn't know if I had COVID, I was sick, whatever.
And we were there.
And I just started feeling like awful.
I mean, horrible.
And I was taking, you know, anything I could.
It was going online, taking all the Z-packs and whatever I could get my hands on.
I was taking.
Couldn't feel better.
It was just the worst couple days.
Go and do contrast therapy for like two and a half hours.
And I came out of there and I literally felt like an absolute new person.
Like I felt like better than I did before.
And I was like, oh my gosh, this is the best thing ever.
Why is nobody talking about this more often kind of thing?
Yeah.
Yeah. And that really let me up. So for me, I love contrast therapy. I don't think it for me is something that I recommend doing daily because it's one of those therapeutic things. To me, I kind of put it in like the massage category in that sense and my own personal view. However, if you are doing it daily or you're doing it more often, the one thing I will say is that I do highly recommend you end on cold. You don't want to end on cold. Yes. I agree with that. Guys, this has been amazing. I've got a whole list of questions for you from my VIP community. So I have a special.
community that this is my community I've been building for the last few years called the
VIP community so I always spend private time with them so we're going to go into a little
private room now they've got a bunch of questions for you guys for the rest of you guys
if you're interested in joining the the ultimate human VIP community can go over to
the ultimate human dot com forward slash VIP sign up you get private podcast you get
one-on-one private coaching with me when we do it in a group setting we have a course in
there called becoming the ultimate human version of yourself you meet great guys like
Kyle and Sam. Until next time, that's just science.
