I’m standing in my swimming trunks over a wooden tub filled with near-freezing water that looks more like a casket than a pool.
The temperature gauge says 39F (3.8C) and the water is so cold that a cloud of condensation has formed above it.
In five seconds I’m supposed to get in.
My physical therapist is doing the countdown and shouting at me to control my breathing, but my heart is pounding.
I hate the cold. I’ve never taken a cold shower (not even in the heat of summer) and to make matters worse, a fellow patient who I met in the changing room moments ago told me the cold bath here is ‘the coldest he’s ever felt’ — and he’d tried dozens.
I’ve also spent my career debunking wellness trends, so I feel like a bit of a hypocrite.
But after almost five years of crippling lower back pain, I’m willing to try anything.
To avoid prolonging the torture, I decide the best strategy is to go in hard and fast. I launch both feet into the tub and immediately sit down, immersing myself up to my neck in the ice water.
I follow a daily stretching routine to keep my back pain at bay which involves putting my body in some awkward positions
I quickly realize this tactic may not have been optimal as my chest suddenly becomes extremely tight and it feels like I’m suffocating.
I’m trying to deeply and calmly inhale through my nose but my body won’t let me.
My nervous system appears to have gone into autopilot and short, shallow gasps for air are all I am capable of. For a brief moment my mind wanders and I imagine this is what it must feel like to be in space without oxygen.
But, after what feels like an eternity, I manage to re-gain control — and some dignity — and begin breathing normally again.
‘Well done, Connor, you’re at 30 seconds,’ my PT shouts. I can’t believe how little time has passed. He wants me in here for five whole minutes. Is he crazy?
But I do, in fact, manage to survive the full session, while being coached through several breathing exercises to regulate the heart rate and focus the mind, making time seem as if it’s going faster.
I’ve spent my career debunking wellness trends, so I wrote cold plunges off as another fad
Then, as I get out and the numbness wears off, I notice something miraculous: the severity of my back pain has been cut in half.
But, as someone who has spent years working as a health journalist, I know the placebo effect is real so I try not to get too excited and sleep on it.
The next day, there is further improvement.
I did the plunge on Thursday. And by Saturday I am back at one of my Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes that I so love and which, in recent years, I’ve often had to forgo. I’m sparring with my opponent virtually pain-free.
How was this possible?
Less than a week ago I was struggling to walk after aggravating a weightlifting injury I had suffered during the Covid pandemic in late 2020.
Gyms had just re-opened after the first lockdown and I rushed back to lifting too heavy, too quickly.
As I performed a deadlift (which is, I must admit, a notoriously injury-prone exercise) two of my spinal discs popped out of position, making an almighty ‘bang’ sound.
I couldn’t walk for days. I could barely even sit up.
The slightest movement would cause sharp pains to shoot from the base of my spine to the bottom of my heels. It was agony.
After years of misdiagnoses, a scan in 2023 revealed I had herniated the two discs where my spine meets my tailbone.
Those discs are made of fibrous tissue with a jelly-like inner layer which act as cushions for your vertebrae, stopping them from grinding against each other as you bend and twist.
In my case, the combination of lifting too heavy and wrongly arching my back had caused my spine to buckle under the immense pressure. That caused the discs’ soft inner-layer to burst out of their fibrous coating and press against nearby nerves, where they remain to this day.
I’ll never be able to get the discs back into their proper position (no one can after such an injury) so the best I can hope for is to manage the pain.
Initially, I relied on an hour of daily stretching to relax the tight muscles surrounding the inflamed area.
That kept the discomfort at a tolerable level for a while but flare-ups became increasingly common — and they were brutal.
Soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo enjoys an outdoor cold plunge in Poland
Hailey Bieber and Mark Wahlberg both use cold plunges
They could be caused by something as simple as picking something up too fast, sleeping in an awkward position or sitting at my desk for too long.
Stress — which increases inflammation and lowers your pain threshold — was also a major trigger.
After a particularly bad flare up that left me unable to stand up straight or even lie down for too long, a physical therapist urged me to try his clinic’s in-house cold plunge.
Luckily, my health insurance covered the therapy, but there are spas all over the country offering one-off cold plunges for as little as $20.
Also known as ‘cold water immersion therapy’, the aim is to startle the body into a state of shock which causes the release of unique compounds.
In basic terms, when our bodies become extremely cold, our cells stiffen and stop functioning properly.
To counter this, the body releases ‘cold shock proteins,’ which prevent cell degradation and help repair any damage that has already taken place.
Researchers believe that this process – when utilized in a controlled way – may also have the added benefit of and reducing inflammation and healing tissue damaged by previous injury.
When cold water therapy first burst onto the mainstream in the 2010s, I wrote it off as another fad.
At that time it was mainly being cited for mental health benefits (which the data is still shaky on) and ‘longevity’, an ambiguous buzzword usually associated with quack science.
But what I didn’t appreciate was the impact it could have on my pain.
My PT, Dr Shawn Kato, from Fabian Garcia physical therapy in Manhattan, said: ‘The cold causes blood to constrict, reducing blood flow to inflamed tissues. This limits swelling and prevents excessive fluid build up, helping to control pain.
‘Cold exposure also numbs pain receptors (nociceptors), temporarily reducing pain signals sent to the brain. They also decrease the release of pro- inflammatory cytokines, which are also responsible for prolonged inflammation and pain.
‘After exiting the plunge, blood vessels dilate (vasodilation), flushing out metabolic waste and delivering fresh oxygen and nutrients to the muscles.’
Most top sports teams have been using the therapy for decades, with some high-profile athletes, such as Lebron James and Stephen Curry, even having cold plunge facilities set up in their homes.
Yet, despite their widespread use, I still — to this day — struggle to find robust research that corroborates my own positive experience.
Soccer star David Beckham takes a selfie in an ice bath. The calm expression on his face suggests to me the water couldn’t have been very cold
The science is mixed on icing injuries and only a few small-scale studies have shown cold plunges to be beneficial for muscle soreness after intense bouts of exercise.
Doctors tell me that studying pain relief is tricky because of how subjective pain is.
People have varying levels of inflammation, circulation and nerve sensitivity, and pain is as much about psychology as it is physiology.
Dr Kato said: ‘While pain has a physiological basis, such as tissue damage triggering nerve signals, its perception is shaped by factors such as biological, psychological, social and cultural. Because of these variables, two people with the same injury can experience pain differently.’
I’m not saying cold water therapy is a silver bullet — I started getting some discomfort again about a week after taking my first plunge.
But since incorporating a weekly dip into my routine, I’ve seen a reduction in the overall severity and duration of my flare-ups.
So, if you’re in pain and, like me, have dismissed cold plunges as just another fad, they could well be worth a try — even if the jury is still out.
