The health benefits of heat followed by cold blast showers.
There is nothing quite like a hot sauna to relax the muscles and ease the mind. But did you know that there are also many health benefits to be gained from using a sauna regularly? In fact, regular sauna use has been shown to improve circulation, promote detoxification and even boost the immune system.
But what if we took things one step further and combined hot saunas with cold blast showers? This is known as hot and cold hydrotherapy, and it can provide even more health benefits than using a sauna alone. Hot and cold hydrotherapy has been used for centuries to treat a variety of ailments. The ancient Greeks and Romans used hot baths and cold showers to relieve muscle pain and fatigue, and the practice was even recommended by Hippocrates himself. Today, we know that hot and cold hydrotherapy can help to improve circulation, reduce inflammation, boost the immune system and even promote weight loss. But how does it work? When you expose your body to extreme temperatures, whether hot or cold, your blood vessels constrict and dilate in response. This helps to improve circulation and can even help to reduce inflammation. Exposing yourself to cold temperatures can also help to boost the immune system by increasing the production of white blood cells. And, if you suffer from arthritis or joint pain, cold hydrotherapy can help to reduce inflammation and ease pain. Hot and cold hydrotherapy can also be used as a weight loss tool. When you expose your body to extreme cold temperatures, your body has to work harder to maintain its core temperature. This helps to boost your metabolism and can even help to burn calories. So, if you’re looking for a way to improve your health and well-being, hot and cold hydrotherapy could be the perfect solution. Give it a try today!
Transcript:
Dr. Kathryn King ND (00:02):
Dr. Kathryn King here. And today we're gonna talk about contrast hydrotherapy. So that's going from hot and cold back and forth, uh, in either a sauna and a shower or a hot tub and a shower, or even just in the shower back and forth, hot and cold. So there are so many benefits and even more when you, uh, add in that cold part. So the hot part, yes, we can kind of figure it out. It helps with pain reduction, helps improving circulation, helps with relaxation, stress reduction. This improves sleep. So the hot part is great. Some people think, oh, it's gonna help me lose weight. But actually I think mostly just if you're using a sauna, you're kind of sweating a little bit more and losing some water weight, but that sweating detoxification. So that's fantastic. The cold part is very great at like boosting energy, improving your mental health, boosting your immune system, really strengthening that cardiovascular system.
Dr. Kathryn King ND (01:03):
Whim h is all about the cold plunge, okay? So I love it, but I love the combo more. So the combo really seems to help stimulate your vagus nerve, which just turns on your entire parasympathetic nervous system and you get all the benefits of that. So hot and cold alternations. And this is how you do it. If you have a hot tub sauna, then you get in there until you're hot, like 10, 15 minutes, you're sweating, you gotta get out. Then you go and do a one minute cold plunge or cold shower, whole body. It doesn't have to be freezing at first. You can work your way up, start cool, and then slowly make that temperature gradient. Uh, make the difference larger and larger and larger. And do a colder shower if you have a, uh, just having a hot shower at home. If you don't have a hot tub sauna or don't have time to do that whole thing, then just turning your shower up at the end, making it a little hotter for about a minute, and then doing a 10 to 15 second cold blast.
Dr. Kathryn King ND (02:05):
Yes, on your whole body, but make sure for sure you get your chest and your back. Okay. And then we go back and forth with these. So if you can, if you have time and if it feels good, if you start feeling, uh, dizzy or not great, then you should stop. It's too much. But if you have time, do two or three rounds of the hot sauna, cold shower, and uh, three rounds as well in the shower of the hot and cold. And this is the hardest part, but always end on cold. So finish that cold shower and let your body warm itself up and that will just do wonders for your health.