Ice bathing remains the hottest topic in wellness, but is it really for everyone? Every day, sometimes twice a day, Vivien Solari , 45, swims in beautifully clear and crisp water of around eight to 10 degrees Celsius, depending on the time of year. The image on 93 was taken on a visit to Loch Linnhe, where the model and cold water swimming enthusiast rubbed shoulders with seals, but more often you’ll find her carving through the waves of the sea on the south coast near the Solent, the strait that separates the Isle of Wight from mainland England, where she has lived for 22 years. Her skin has the kind of glow that looks like she is intravenously fed Hailey Bieber & Erewhon collagen smoothies.
She is strong, resilient, confident. She feels revitalised. “To be immersed in something powerful and wild is often a humbling experience, and the water demands your respect but it is nurturing too.
It helps me to reconnect with the nature within myself.” It’s Solari I am thinking about as I stare blankly at the distinctly underwhelming grey plastic blow-up ice plunge tub in front of me, yet to be assembled. It’s true, my curiosity is awakened, but it’s a little more pedestrian than Solari’s.
Mine is more about whether I can persuade/manipulate/coerce someone else to pump up the world of pain that sits across from me into a tub-like shape. Then there’s the troublesome question of has the elastic perished in the orange swimsuit tucked at the back of my wardrobe, never mind the fact that it’s tipping it down with rain outside and I have an Australian and a Norwegian coming to stay this weekend, known for being robust, vital, outdoorsy sorts of people. What on Earth will they think of this flimsy looking thing before me? Ice bathing, cold plunging, deliberate cold exposure, call it what you will, isn’t new.
The Vikings did it, the Romans did it, Ancient Greek physician Claudius Galen advocated its use as a treatment for fever and, truth be told, it’s not entirely new to me. Last summer, I swam in the wild in a lake in Snowdonia. It was a heavenly blue-sky day but our aquatic idyll was ruined by some irate anglers, who pointed out several “private, no swimming” signs we’d missed.
I have also plunged in a tub at The Club by Bamford in the Cotswolds and have road-tested the frigidarium and Scottish bucket at the new Eynsham Baths at Estelle Manor, also in the Cotswolds. Inspired by the ruins of a Roman villa nearby, as well as various baths all over the world, from those in Budapest to spas in Baden-Baden, founder Sharan Pasricha was resolute in his commitment to the concept and dug deep into clinical research from Dr Andrew Huberman (a rock star professor of neurobiology at Stanford University School of Medicine) and Dr Susanna Søberg (who has a PhD in metabolism from the University of Copenhagen). Pasricha also worked with breathwork master Emma Estrela, the only instructor in the UK to hold a Level 3 Wim Hof certification more on Hof shortly.
At Eynsham Baths, you can have a guided group plunge outdoors to feel more at one with nature or follow a circuit indoors, going from the warmth of the hay sauna and tepidarium back to the shock of the frigidarium, finishing with an icy pour from the Scottish bucket. I enjoyed wandering around by myself in the Romanesque baths, going from hot to cold and back again, having enforced time away from my phone, knowing there was a nice café upstairs with specially designed healthy snacks to suit my ayurvedic dosha. And I thought to myself, I could get into this.
According to the number of views on TikTok for cold water baths, millions of other people have also thought they could get into this. There is a lot of showing off: it’s an excuse to show people how fit, tough, and brave you are, or how knowledgeable you are about its supposed benefits on mental health, self-care, and longevity. It seems there is nothing it cannot do.
“It’s hugely popular with athletes to repair damaged tissue, relieve pain and regenerate the muscles,” says Pasricha, “but I also find it’s an exercise in mind over matter and has exceptional powers in sharpening the brain.” I watch a video on YouTube of Wim Hof, the most famous cold plunger of all, completely submerged in an icy lake. After what seems like ages, but is in fact a few minutes, he calmly hauls himself up and out, and without so much as a shiver or an expletive-heavy shriek sits cross-legged on the ice in his underpants.
Remind me why this is good for me, I ask my friend Dr. Nathan Curran, the longevity practitioner at London’s Galen clinic. He emails me back with the purported benefits: deliberate cold exposure can help with things such as noradrenaline and dopamine, helping our focus and motivation; it improves our ability to regulate our temperature and circulation; it reduces inflammation, which can be beneficial in autoimmunity; it improves our insulin response and metabolic health, reduces the blood markers associated with increased heart disease risk, improves thyroid function and basal metabolic rate, and helps with mood and cognition.
In a sentence, it’s all about slowing down the progressive loss of cellular efficiency. “Given the benefits of cold exposure for improving drivers of ageing and heart disease, it could, in appropriate circumstances, be considered to be a valuable tool for supporting overall health and health span.” Would he cold plunge? Having grown up in South Africa, he admits cold exposure is one of his least favourite things to do, but he finds it useful during stressful periods, after he’s exhausted all the other options (fasting, lifting heavy weights and intermittent hypoxia training).
Me too. Others aren’t so positive. There are specific sex differences to our response to cold water, as pointed out by Dr.
Stacy Sims, an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist who focuses her research on such differences. For starters, women have slightly more brown adipose tissue than men, which is “activated” in non-shivering thermogenesis. “Women don’t need ice for cold plunges – a cool water temperature of around 14 to 16 degrees Celsius is ideal.
” Some traditional Chinese medicine practitioners view the practice as detrimental to our long term health, especially for menstruating women or those with fragile immune systems and chronic illnesses. “Formal research studies have yet to validate this,” says Sandra Lanshin Chiu, a licensed acupuncturist. “But in Asia it’s widely accepted and understood.
” Her feeling is that while research suggests there are benefits, such as mood enhancement, depression alleviation and reduced inflammation, these may be short term. You might find it invigorating when you start, but watch out to see if over time you feel more – not less – depleted of energy. But back to the blow-up ice bath.
“It’s a bucket!” says my boyfriend. “You might as well get one of those green wheelie bins and fill it with ice.” Gavin Teague, the founder of the patented Lumi portable cold plunge in question, begs to differ.
I talk to him on the phone while he is driving, sounding stressed because his wellness business has boomed so quickly – £1 million in preorders in one month sort of booming. Unlike my boyfriend, he actually tested the wheelie bin option in his garden, along with a whisky barrel and a steel bath; the portable bath he designed as a result is now considered to be number one in the world, in a market he estimates is worth £8 billion. Teague did 365 days of consistent ice plunges, has tried all the viral social media dances, the special breathwork and thinks most of it is rubbish.
He is a healthy dose of reality in a wellness-washing world. “I don’t listen to any of the wellness social media people, just the science ones, such as Susanna Søberg, but even then ice baths are still in their infancy and we need to listen to our bodies.” Does he have any tips for me and my guests? “Yes,” he says.
“Take a deep breath and, as you exhale, drop down to your shoulders as quickly as possible. For the next 30 seconds, continue to take deep breaths and then breathe normally. And don’t share this tip with your guests.
Let them all panic. You’ll look better.” My guests arrive and obligingly assemble the bath for me.
The pump to blow it up is a bit useless and you have to fill the tub with water from the outside tap, and pepper it with ice cubes from the freezer, all of which feels a bit Blue Peter. There’s no temperature control, so you can’t tell how cold it is, but I find one of those turkey-roasting thermometers in the kitchen drawer and it bobs about in the water, giving us a very cold 12 degrees, which is punitive enough. Obviously, the men go first, all gung ho and macho – and brrr and “Where’s the Dryrobe!” My six foot two boyfriend struggles to get his shoulders underwater but braves it out.
And then it’s Maddie, my Norwegian guest’s turn. She pops in and out as casually as if it’s a bath. “Well, that was a bit.
.. boring,” she says.
It turns out she’s been swimming in icy lakes since she was 10 years old. And suddenly I am back to thinking about Solari, and I remember her tip for the best way to swim in the cold or plunge into an ice bath. “Leave your ego on the shore,” she says.
“It doesn’t matter how long your friend is swimming for, you need to listen to your body and learn when you need to get out.” It’s my turn and 30 seconds into the plunge I listen to my body and it says, “I am not Norwegian. How about a nice long, hot bath?”.
