Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff Josh, Chuck, Jerry,
Speaker 1: not Dave, but Dave short stuff. Let's go.
Speaker 2: That's right. We're talking about a the very hot trend.
Speaker 2: It's been around for a long long time depending on
Speaker 2: where you are in the world, but it's a very
Speaker 2: hot trend of course among probably celebrity types and influencers.
Speaker 2: We're talking, of course about cold plunging and specifically the
Speaker 2: sort of hot cold thing, either hot tub or sauna. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, souna.
Speaker 1: Is that just you that says that?
Speaker 2: No, we got When we did our sauna episode, every
Speaker 2: finished person in the world wrote in and said it's
Speaker 2: pronounced sona.
Speaker 1: Wow, great, nicely done. I'm gonna start saying sausage, sausage.
Speaker 2: I already say sausage. Yeah, you want to see how
Speaker 2: the sausage is made?
Speaker 1: Do you? Are you part finned? No?
Speaker 2: No, I wish I was, but I'm not.
Speaker 1: Okay, So yeah, it does kind of make sense that
Speaker 1: this would be like big in Finland because the Fins
Speaker 1: were the ones who were credited with inventing the sauna. Sauna,
Speaker 1: which supposedly in Thinn sauna means bath, essentially what you
Speaker 1: would call bath and before the Fins had running hot
Speaker 1: water that was handy everywhere. They used saunas to basically
Speaker 1: bathe rather than having to just go out in the
Speaker 1: snow and bathe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess like a dry bath, a hot dry.
Speaker 1: Bath exactly that you make yourself wet in.
Speaker 2: That's right, exactly, You're you're you're lathering up with your
Speaker 2: own liquids. That sounds really gross. If you go to
Speaker 2: like the Finished Tourism Board website or something, you might
Speaker 2: see them also say something like this when you come
Speaker 2: out of the sauna, jump into a lake, or roll
Speaker 2: in the snow.
Speaker 1: Because they all sound like Freud.
Speaker 2: Apparently they do. If you do roll in the snow,
Speaker 2: make sure it is fresh and powdery. Old icy snow
Speaker 2: can have an effect on your skin like sandpaper that chuck.
Speaker 1: One of that voice is one of your Halloween episode voices.
Speaker 1: I recognize it from some Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what they're talking about, though, is this hot to
Speaker 2: cold thing which is leaving a sauna and jumping right
Speaker 2: into some cold water or in their case a lot
Speaker 2: of times, snow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is awesome. It can be really great, But
Speaker 1: just like any trend or thing that everybody's behind, it's
Speaker 1: worth taking an extra look to see if it may
Speaker 1: or may not be actually beneficial, could even be harmful.
Speaker 1: And it turns out there is a lot of evidence
Speaker 1: on each saunas and cold therapy, cold plunges, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing that say, yeah, these actually do have some
Speaker 1: pretty good beneficial effects, but both of them also pose risks,
Speaker 1: and there's not a lot of actual research on combining them,
Speaker 1: which is purposefully shocking your body temperature wise, that's the
Speaker 1: point of that hot cold thing. We're not exactly sure
Speaker 1: if it's a good thing for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think we all know that like
Speaker 2: a sauna or something like that, getting a good sweat
Speaker 2: in can be good for you. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: benefits to sweating. You're regulating your body temperature, you're activating
Speaker 2: your cardiovascular system. It kind of can mimic exercise, even
Speaker 2: cardiovascular exercise. We also know that it can help detoxify you.
Speaker 2: And we also know that cold stuff has benefits and
Speaker 2: it's a great anti inflammatory. And athletes have long you know,
Speaker 2: sat in like ice baths and stuff after like the
Speaker 2: big game or something like that, not specifically the Super Bowl,
Speaker 2: any big game, not Capital T H E. Big game. Sure,
Speaker 2: But these two things separately we already know and it's
Speaker 2: kind of proven that they both have a lot of
Speaker 2: great benefits. But there are people that say, well, when
Speaker 2: you combine them together, you can reap even more benefits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and what the benefits arise from, ostensibly is called
Speaker 1: the hormetic effect or hormetic stress, which is technically a
Speaker 1: good kind of stress. It's the kind of stress you
Speaker 1: put on your body when you're exercising, and in doing
Speaker 1: so by kind of pushing your body beyond its normal
Speaker 1: homeostatic you know, status quo. Yeah, you're actually you're training
Speaker 1: it to better respond to stresses that you don't intentionally
Speaker 1: put on it, like just being stressed in general. And
Speaker 1: so supposedly, according to this idea, the hormetic effect, which
Speaker 1: seems to be pretty legitimate, by just kind of slowly,
Speaker 1: little by little stressing your body, you improve your body's stress,
Speaker 1: respond to your immune system, that kind of thing, and
Speaker 1: exercise is one way to do it. But also exposing
Speaker 1: it to temperature extremes like through a sauna or a
Speaker 1: cold plunge also produces hormetic effects because they put hormatic
Speaker 1: stress on your body too. That seems to be the
Speaker 1: basis behind health benefits from sauna in or cold plunging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know people will tell you that it
Speaker 2: really also can help you mentally. It can I could
Speaker 2: be an invigorating experience and people, you know, there is
Speaker 2: a little bit of research that says that people have
Speaker 2: shown to like improve their mood and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So you know, there are a lot of people that
Speaker 2: say a lot of things about all the benefits what
Speaker 2: you haven't seen a whole lot of and I guess
Speaker 2: we'll discuss this after the break. Is like, all right, well,
Speaker 2: then show me the large scale, randomized controlled studies with
Speaker 2: large data pools of people from all kinds of age groups.
Speaker 2: I guess not randomized, but just large, you know, a
Speaker 2: variety of people doing this thing. And then like, then
Speaker 2: we can actually talk science. So we'll get to that
Speaker 2: right after this. All right, So go anywhere online to
Speaker 2: any influencer blog and they tell you how amazing this
Speaker 2: is for you. A lot of websites will say this
Speaker 2: is wonderful and you should all do it. But then
Speaker 2: when you start digging a little deeper and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: let me see if there's any studies about this. It
Speaker 2: turns out they're trying to do it now and we're
Speaker 2: only just now, like the research or these articles that
Speaker 2: I kind of picked from, we're from just a couple
Speaker 2: of months ago, like late in twenty twenty three, where
Speaker 2: they're just now starting to say, like, hey, we need
Speaker 2: to get a thousand people, not you know, twenty healthy
Speaker 2: young men, you know, twenty healthy young finishmen who are like,
Speaker 2: this feels great. Need to really because you know, some
Speaker 2: of this stuff is plausible, these doctors are saying, but
Speaker 2: we really need to dig in on it because it
Speaker 2: also could probably be dangerous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean it seems like what the whole
Speaker 1: idea is predicated on is that we do have, you know,
Speaker 1: like substantial research showing that there are health benefits from
Speaker 1: the sauna, like it lowers blood pressure and improves cardiovascular health,
Speaker 1: and that there's demonstrable benefits from cold plunges, like it's
Speaker 1: an anti inflammatory, like you said, it can improve mood. Apparently,
Speaker 1: a technique for breaking a panic attack when you're in
Speaker 1: the midst of it is to sink your face into
Speaker 1: a bowl of ice water for about ten seconds, and
Speaker 1: it produces what's called the diving reflex, and it releases
Speaker 1: dopamine and orapinephrin in enough amounts that it can actually
Speaker 1: derail or short circuit of panic attack. So there is
Speaker 1: like actual legitimate benefits to each one, like you're saying,
Speaker 1: though it's them combined that the jury is still out
Speaker 1: on right.
Speaker 2: I wonder if Huey Lewis was having a panic attack
Speaker 2: when he plunged his face in ice water and the
Speaker 2: I Want a New Drug video.
Speaker 1: He wasn't after that, I'll tell you that much.
Speaker 2: Not to make light of panic attacks, of course, I
Speaker 2: was just kind of making light of Huey Lewis and
Speaker 2: his news. Well we had someone right in actually, because
Speaker 2: we've been flipped with that term. That's like, if you've
Speaker 2: ever suffered a panic attack, you probably wouldn't just say, oh,
Speaker 2: almost had a panic attack.
Speaker 1: Sure that doesn't sound say what that doesn't sound like us?
Speaker 2: Oh it was us. So depending on who you talk to,
Speaker 2: there are doctors that say this actually can be very dangerous.
Speaker 2: The National Center for Cold Weather Safety website says, you
Speaker 2: know you can. This is something called a cold shock response,
Speaker 2: where you have such a rapid increase in breathing and
Speaker 2: heart rate and blood pressure that if you're not in
Speaker 2: great cardiac health, this could possibly kill you, Like you
Speaker 2: could have cardiac arrest right there on the spot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's nuts, which makes sense because I mean it
Speaker 1: feels like you could, like when you jump into a
Speaker 1: cold plunge, especially if you're already really hot, but supposedly
Speaker 1: in less than a minute, you could die in water
Speaker 1: that's sixty degrees parreheight or lower. And there's other things
Speaker 1: that can happen too, if you jump all the way in,
Speaker 1: Like a lot of cold plunges don't involve your head,
Speaker 1: which is way way worse than just jumping in or harder,
Speaker 1: I should say, more difficult. But if you do jump
Speaker 1: in all at once, the shock of the cold could
Speaker 1: be enough that you involuntarily gasp, and if you're underwater,
Speaker 1: that's not good for your lungs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, the first time I kind of
Speaker 2: reconsider this because I had done this kind of thing.
Speaker 2: I've done some and it wasn't like, oh, let's do
Speaker 2: a cold plunge. Like literally in high school in the eighties,
Speaker 2: we would like jump into the icy lake at this
Speaker 2: sort of youth group camp. So that wasn't being tripped.
Speaker 2: It was just the fun thing to do. Gotcha, It's
Speaker 2: like a polar plunge. But I was with my good
Speaker 2: friend Adam Pranica of the Greatest Generation over not too
Speaker 2: long ago, and I was moving to do this. It
Speaker 2: was Hey, we're in the hot tub, let's jump in
Speaker 2: this cold pool and he said you better watch out, bro.
Speaker 2: Adam say, bro, and what do you mean? He went, well,
Speaker 2: I'm just getting ready because you could have a cardiac arrest.
Speaker 2: I was like what, and you yeah, it's something that
Speaker 2: can happen. And all of a sudden, I was nervous
Speaker 2: because you know, I'm not in you know, like headed
Speaker 2: toward the emergency room anytime soon. But I have a
Speaker 2: cardiac score that gives me a little bit of pause
Speaker 2: when it comes to thinking about something like this. Sure,
Speaker 2: so I was like, well, geez, I'm not in high
Speaker 2: school anymore. Maybe I should think about this. And I
Speaker 2: jumped out of the hot tub and I dove into
Speaker 2: the pool head first. And it was great and it
Speaker 2: was awesome and it was fun and I didn't have
Speaker 2: a cardiac arrest. But it did make me think twice.
Speaker 2: And each time I moved to do this, from now on,
Speaker 2: I will think twice.
Speaker 1: I have to say I was really surprised by that
Speaker 1: twist at the end there that you actually want to
Speaker 1: jump in. Yeah. I was to be like, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not doing that anymore.
Speaker 2: No, And you know what what I gathered, And of
Speaker 2: course we need the real research and the real data
Speaker 2: to know this, but from what I gathered from the warnings,
Speaker 2: it was like, there's probably a middle ground between like
Speaker 2: being a healthy twenty two year old finish person and
Speaker 2: having like being in really really poor cardiac health. And
Speaker 2: I'm somewhere in the middle there, and you should not
Speaker 2: do it if you're like in really really bad cardiac.
Speaker 1: Health, not even really really bad. If you're being treated
Speaker 1: for any kind of cardiac condition, you probably shouldn't cold plunge,
Speaker 1: especially not after a sauna too. At the very least,
Speaker 1: talk to your doctor about it. Don't listen to it,
Speaker 1: don't don't take our advice.
Speaker 2: Please.
Speaker 1: But not only is the whether you have a heart
Speaker 1: condition or not a differentiator temperature. It's a differentiat too.
Speaker 1: You'll see people who are like, yeah, jump into water
Speaker 1: that's like fifty seven degrees farentheight. That is astoundingly cold.
Speaker 1: That's the water temperature that killed the survivors of the
Speaker 1: Titanic going down like that's North Sea in February. Cold
Speaker 1: water temperature, right, you can get the same effect from
Speaker 1: much warmer yeh water, I mean I'm talking like seventy
Speaker 1: degrees still sounds warm. That's not warm, especially if you're
Speaker 1: in like a hot tub first, or a sauna first,
Speaker 1: or you've exercised or something like that. It does the trick.
Speaker 1: It does everything you need to do without or I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say without the chance of killing you, with a
Speaker 1: much less chance of killing you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I've even seen that you can take
Speaker 2: a very hot shower and then turn it to cold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's nice to see that.
Speaker 2: And that's even enough to sort of give you some benefit.
Speaker 1: Even worse chuck is not taking the hot shower first,
Speaker 1: just getting into a cold shower immediately turning the water on.
Speaker 1: It's it's rough, but if you can train yourself to
Speaker 1: do it, it's very rewarding.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I did that for a summer in Athens when
Speaker 2: I didn't feel like turning the gas on.
Speaker 1: Man, and you were like ripped from it. I'll bet
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: More ripped than I was now. And of course it
Speaker 2: was Athens in the summer, so it was hot. So
Speaker 2: it wasn't quite as bad as you might imagine for.
Speaker 1: Sure, So I guess we should probably just wrap up
Speaker 1: one more time. This can be dangerous. You should probably
Speaker 1: do a little more research on it, especially if you
Speaker 1: have a questionable heart or your heart's questionably healthy. Just
Speaker 1: use your head, use your noodle first. Don't just listen
Speaker 1: to what people on TikTok tell you. Listen to what
Speaker 1: people on podcasts tell you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and maybe even a pool noodle in case you
Speaker 2: lose consciousness.
Speaker 1: Its smart. That means short stuff is out.
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