Ice Bathing Benefits: Founder Case Study

I started Submerge to help you succeed in your personal journey on our mutually desired path to a different and better future. You’re here because you want something different than is broadly accepted, you seek radical change in your health (mind, body, and soul). I’m here to validate your beliefs in a different and better future and to tell you that it’s possible. I hope my story will inspire and motivate you to tackle your own health journey and live in a different, better future because this story is ultimately about you. You are the hero. So let’s move together from the world that is, to the world that could be. Ask questions without answers yet, do unconventional acts, and achieve unconventional success.

First off I want to thank you for visiting Submerge and for your curiosity.

Pretty much everyone has heard of ice bathing by now but if you’re reading this it’s because you’re not clear exactly what the benefits of ice bathing actually are.

I want to help you answer that question. To start its best to define the benefits in the short and long term.

When you Submerge in a cold plunge your body rushes to produce hormones in response to the cold. These hormones make you feel good, calm, and happy. Your mind sharpens up and your metabolism is instantly forced into overtime giving you a burst of energy. It’s instant gratification every time to the max. Thats why people rave about it.

These are just some of the short term benefits but it’s unclear to most how these short term benefits eventually transform into long term benefits, although this is generally more than enough for most people to take the plunge and start Submerging.

I started Submerging because of hip pain I experienced for the better part of a decade and nothing I tried seemed to help. I did every kind of exercise and visited every kind of professional one could imagine to claw my way back to health but kept hitting a brick wall. After years of repeat misdiagnosis by every chiropractor, osteopath, and physiotherapist an MRI finally revealed a labral tear in my right hip, a soft tissue injury I sustained at some point. Surgery was overkill so I was left to eat Advil all day and bear the pain.

The medical status quo had and still has no answers for me. That just wasn’t a reality I was willing to accept.

If I couldn’t totally eliminate painful flare ups then I needed to lower the frequency, length of time, and intensity of the pain when it did occur. After years of research and trial and error the only thing I hadn’t tried was deliberate cold exposure therapy but there wasn’t any way to buy an ice bath and I was desperate to see if doing cold plunges would help. Buying ice every day wasn’t going to work long term. I needed something fast, easy, and convenient.

Something I could do everyday without thinking about it.

So I reached out to different factories and material suppliers to put together a solution for myself that worked. My first setup was far from perfect. The shape of the cold plunge tub wasn’t right, the color was ugly, the ice bath chiller I customized was total overkill (loud, heavy, hot), nothing connected intuitively, and water maintenance was a nightmare.

But after I solved every issue and managed to successfully ice bath every day, a few months later things started to change.

When it come to taking cold plunges more stress = more benefit so when you start a new practice you’re likely not Submerging at lower temperatures not getting the most benefit right away. It takes time and patience to figure out how to handle yourself in the most impactful temperatures. Thats something really important to remember when you begin your practice. It takes time.

The pain didn’t change so much in the first few months, but as my practice began taking shape, when the temperatures started to drop below 50 degrees and I was staying in for at least 4-5 minutes the long-term changes started stacking up.

When you’re in pain off and on all the time you almost forget you were ever in pain when you’re not. Its the most incredible amnesia ever.

I’m 2+ years now into my practice as an ice bathing cold plunger. I used to flare up once a month and be in pain for 1-2 weeks. Now, in a year I might experience just 1-2 flare ups with less than half the pain than before lasting 3-4 days tops, not weeks. I became harder to kill. I could sleep in any position, in any bed, I could sit in any chair, on any plane, for any length for any journey. I was less cranky, more social, began playing sports I hadn’t touched in a decade. My injury won’t fully heal (yet) but I can push myself harder, am stronger than ever before, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

In the past I often flared up from doing too much or not enough, it was a trap. My new daily ice bathing habit provides the opportunity to do more and not suffer the negative consequences that were too difficult to navigate where the line was. I ice bath after every zone 2 session and after every workout and ever morning first thing. It reduces and regulates the inflammatory load required to get stronger and escape the trap I was stuck in.

Now I’m surprised if I’m ever in pain at all. It’s possible it could heal eventually if I manage it well enough, I know the problem didn’t go away but I became strong enough to endure it.

To all of us for whom the short term benefits aren’t enough and are searching for the next unconventional, contrarian idea to add the next brick in the the wall of the most important thing in our life, our health, this is how the long term benefits will likely manifest for you too.

For many serious migraine sufferers ice bathing can reduce the frequency, length and intensity of their problem giving them their life back.

For many who have injuries like me ice bathing creates the pathway to management of chronic illness or faster recovery for those with more acute issues.

I started my ice bathing journey to solve a specific problem but by incorporating it into my daily routine have I become more acutely aware of its impact on my weight, sleep, mental clarity and focus, stress management, mood, ability to challenge new physical limits and recover, its impact on general fatigue, and my ability to just do more. I can’t remember the last time I caught a cold either. I’ll address these benefits in greater detail in future blog posts.

Choose to live in a world of possibilities, the world of the future. Submerge for health, happiness, and determination!

ideas make radical change possible movements make radical change real do not accept the world the way it is take action and live in the future move into the water, Submerge