Cryogenic Chamber Therapy / Cold Adaptation

[Carl]

And then another I steps in to help. It starts singing. Not only singing, but sometimes growling or hissing (I did not find the right word perhaps, in German - at least in Austrian German - we say "pfauchen" - doing like a cat when she is angry) or screaming like "Pumuckl", snickering like a horse, making grimaces as ugly as possible - and after a short time I really feel as if a bad spirit is leaving, I relax and feel happy again.

And then the singing changes. It becomes music again. Sometimes its just juuh-huhu, la, la, la , sometimes simple children songs like "ba ba black sheep have you any wool" (99 times ;) ) - sometimes Christmas Songs - everything that comes to my mind, how stupid or wonderful as ever and as loud as possible - and I repeat it very very often. It helps to get through these 10-12 minutes. And since my body always reacts to music it starts moving under the shower as well. And that keeps me fresh and relaxed in a different way, too. And I won! (I mean, we won)

I get this too in cold showers. Over summer it was heavy breathing and groaning, to the point where my housemates were convinced I was passionately masturbating in the shower, LOL.

Now in winter it's more like outright howling. Now they just think I'm crazy.

(On the Russian Wiki the "open water hole" is understood as a 20-40 meter long opening cut out of the ice of a lake, river or sea.). For me paying attention to ones body could include knowing the signs and stages of hypothermia, as well as how one's body reacts to cold water.

Seems like that's a popular thing in Russia!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V13ARK9g578

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8Z239e3ss

Now to find a nice frozen lake to carve a strip out. With the crazy low temps coming probably won't be long ;)

Russia is starting to look more and more appealing every day.

 

[s-kur]

They do similar celebrations here too, so my friends already started to remind me about my promise to try it out, because they want to take pictures of the whole process.

The same thing, Keit. I feel completely ready for doing it :D

Like Niall and Scottie I take cold bath with 3 C (the coldest I've experienced) but for 5-7 minutes. As I said earlier right after that I start workout. CT improve results and now warming takes about 10 minutes.
After doing CT for 3 month it is easy to keep feet and fingers under the water all the time...But forearms become numb, maybe because of its most skinniest after fingers and feet.

While I took baths on regular I have been walking unbuttoned and feel extremely OK...As soon as I violated such a routine (new year holydays) I caught a cold. After three days being colded I decided to take cold bath. It was 5X5 with workout after, as result I'm healing easier and faster then usually.

Added:
Approximately after one and a half months I started measuring skin's temperature with skin infrared thermometer. That time I took 8C baths, my skin's temperature became 11-12 C after 9-10 minutes. It didn't fall below. At the present , when I take 3-6 C baths, the skin temperature doesn't fall below 13,6 C irrespective of time spent in bath.

 

[naorma]

Another experience

When I was on my 5th day of taking cold showers the weather changed and it got cold. So a lot of people had colds.
Since I have to use public transportation I found myself on a Friday afternoon sitting in a waggon with a very sick person. Always coughing and obiously having fever. And I felt my body react. My nose started cribbling etc.. I started feeling sick, too. How I was angry about this person!
But: I learned some lessons:
First - the very simple one: "Change the waggon!" (it was not so easy, because I had a lot of things with me)
Second: After I got home I felt like staying in bed for the Weekend and accepted having got a cold. And it seemed far away to take cold showers . . .
But next morning - still did not feel better - I was so angry about me not changing the waggon and this person not staying at home ;D - I stepped under the shower though I felt sick.
And this was the best thing I could do.
My body accepted the fact that he did not need to get sick and therefore stayed healthy. On Monday I was as fit as ever!

 

[s-kur]

I've found interesting things about hormone Irisin

___http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(14)00006-0

Irisin and FGF21 Are Cold-Induced Endocrine Activators of Brown Fat Function in Humans

Highlights
•Shivering stimulates irisin secretion in humans
•Nonshivering cold exposure increases FGF21, which may be a brown adipokine
•Irisin and/or FGF21 upregulates brown-fat-like program in human adipocytes
•Exercise may be a shivering mimic exemplifying muscle-fat thermogenic crosstalk

Summary
Rediscovery of cold-activated brown adipose tissue (BAT) in humans has boosted research interest in identifying BAT activators for metabolic benefits. Of particular interest are cytokines capable of fat browning. Irisin, derived from FNDC5, is an exercise-induced myokine that drives brown-fat-like thermogenesis in murine white fat. Here we explored whether cold exposure is an afferent signal for irisin secretion in humans and compared it with FGF21, a brown adipokine in rodents. Cold exposure increased circulating irisin and FGF21. We found an induction of irisin secretion proportional to shivering intensity, in magnitude similar to exercise-stimulated secretion. FNDC5 and/or FGF21 treatment upregulated human adipocyte brown fat gene/protein expression and thermogenesis in a depot-specific manner. These results suggest exercise-induced irisin secretion could have evolved from shivering-related muscle contraction, serving to augment brown fat thermogenesis in concert with FGF21. Irisin-mediated muscle-adipose crosstalk may represent a thermogenic, cold-activated endocrine axis that is exploitable in obesity therapeutics development.

Even before I've read it i had a though that cold bath before workout provides warm-up without losing ATP in the muscles.

Another thing I observed that while I'm in bath shivering disappears after some time and being in the bath become more comfortable and I really feel warm (Though, I know that people who froze to death was feeling a warm and wanted to sleep...On the other hand, I didn't talk with any of them :D)
I mean, may be the clue is: after shivering stops really healing begins.

But next morning - still did not feel better - I was so angry about me not changing the waggon and this person not staying at home ;D - I stepped under the shower though I felt sick.
And this was the best thing I could do.
My body accepted the fact that he did not need to get sick and therefore stayed healthy. On Monday I was as fit as ever!

Great example, naorma! Also maybe it's a reaps of conscious suffering

 

[naorma]

Another thing I observed that while I'm in bath shivering disappears after some time and being in the bath become more comfortable and I really feel warm (Though, I know that people who froze to death was feeling a warm and wanted to sleep...On the other hand, I didn't talk with any of them :D)
I mean, may be the clue is: after shivering stops really healing begins.

Hi S-Kur, thanks for this!
That's what I learned too: I have to use an alarm clock when staying in the bath: Once I overheard it (it was in the room nearby) and I was laying in the cold water, feeling very comfortable - and after a while I thought: Okay my ten minutes must have been gone by now - and oops! - 40 minutes had passed. I did feel "a little bit cold" a while but in fact it was a really good feeling. Cold to the bones!

I think I will do this again, because it was really a good feeling!

 

[Niall]

I was initially impressed watching footage of those Ruskies taking a quick dip in and out of the Moskva River for 'Epiphany'... until I learned that the air temperature was +1C and the water +3C!

Wimps!

We stay submerged for one minute per degree, and the record low so far is 2.3C (water temp) = 2mins, 20 secs.

We're more Russian than the Russians. So there! :P

 

[Siberia]

I was initially impressed watching footage of those Ruskies taking a quick dip in and out of the Moskva River for 'Epiphany'... until I learned that the air temperature was +1C and the water +3C!

Wimps!

We stay submerged for one minute per degree, and the record low so far is 2.3C (water temp) = 2mins, 20 secs.

We're more Russian than the Russians. So there! :P

You are Russian, no doubt! :)

This winter is mild, indeed. Usually we have the so called "Epiphany frosts" here in Russia: mid-January is the coldest time of the year with temperatures around -20C to -30C. But this year it was warm even in Siberia.

That said, here is a video and an article posted earlier by me in our RuSott blog: it's an international contest which took place on January 19, 2015 in Khabarovsk region, Russian Far East. The participants from the US and France share their impressions in the video: they say that it was their coldest experience. The air temperature was around -10C to -15C and the water was constantly freezing.

 

[Scottie]

We're more Russian than the Russians. So there! :P

You are Russian, no doubt! :)

Awesome. When do we get our very own bears?

 

[Niall]

That said, here is a video and an article posted earlier by me in our RuSott blog: it's an international contest which took place on January 19, 2015 in Khabarovsk region, Russian Far East. The participants from the US and France share their impressions in the video: they say that it was their coldest experience. The air temperature was around -10C to -15C and the water was constantly freezing.

Ok, I'm impressed.

It's very hard to keep focussed in freezing water, so swimming races is beyond me just now!

 

[Aiming]

Standing regularly in cold showers for nearly 4 months I would like to tell some of my experiences.

Thanks for sharing, naorma. I've had similar experiences with respect to singing, even "dancing", making grimaces; evading blisters; that the key moment is shortly before the shower ("I don't want to!" - "You'll have to." - "But it's so cold!" - "Get in there already.", etc.), and especially, that the body itself seems to really like it, it's only us who need to learn to like it! :P

Since I have to use public transportation I found myself on a Friday afternoon sitting in a waggon with a very sick person. Always coughing and obiously having fever. And I felt my body react. My nose started cribbling etc.. I started feeling sick, too. How I was angry about this person!
But: I learned some lessons:
First - the very simple one: "Change the waggon!" (it was not so easy, because I had a lot of things with me)
Second: After I got home I felt like staying in bed for the Weekend and accepted having got a cold. And it seemed far away to take cold showers . . .
But next morning - still did not feel better - I was so angry about me not changing the waggon and this person not staying at home ;D - I stepped under the shower though I felt sick.
And this was the best thing I could do.
My body accepted the fact that he did not need to get sick and therefore stayed healthy. On Monday I was as fit as ever!

I wonder whether it wasn't your mind accepting the fact you didn't need to get sick? After all, it's considered "everyday wisdom" that e.g. coming too close to someone who's sick makes you sick, too. Which is more of a belief, we're programmed to believe it, and perhaps comes from the discovery of germs and that it's them responsible for a disease, when in fact it's the condition/vulnerability of your physical/psychological immune system. Just something that came to my mind here.

Added:
Approximately after one and a half months I started measuring skin's temperature with skin infrared thermometer. That time I took 8C baths, my skin's temperature became 11-12 C after 9-10 minutes. It didn't fall below. At the present , when I take 3-6 C baths, the skin temperature doesn't fall below 13,6 C irrespective of time spent in bath.

That's interesting!

 

[naorma]

Since I have to use public transportation I found myself on a Friday afternoon sitting in a waggon with a very sick person. Always coughing and obiously having fever. And I felt my body react. My nose started cribbling etc.. I started feeling sick, too. How I was angry about this person!
But: I learned some lessons:
First - the very simple one: "Change the waggon!" (it was not so easy, because I had a lot of things with me)
Second: After I got home I felt like staying in bed for the Weekend and accepted having got a cold. And it seemed far away to take cold showers . . .
But next morning - still did not feel better - I was so angry about me not changing the waggon and this person not staying at home ;D - I stepped under the shower though I felt sick.
And this was the best thing I could do.
My body accepted the fact that he did not need to get sick and therefore stayed healthy. On Monday I was as fit as ever!

I wonder whether it wasn't your mind accepting the fact you didn't need to get sick? After all, it's considered "everyday wisdom" that e.g. coming too close to someone who's sick makes you sick, too. Which is more of a belief, we're programmed to believe it, and perhaps comes from the discovery of germs and that it's them responsible for a disease, when in fact it's the condition/vulnerability of your physical/psychological immune system. Just something that came to my mind here.

Thank you Aiming! You might be right with the programm-belief you suggested!
maybe when you take those cold showers you are on one hand also programming yourself to stay healthy.
Meanwhile I very often think : Okay, this persons illness will do nothing to me: I go home and take a cold shower or bath , and that's it - meaning my mind is already prepared to keep the body healthy.

 

[Skyalmian]

(I just saw these by Wim Hof ("4-hour hike in winter wonderland to Czech border. We forgot our passports, so we had to turn around."); awesome! :D )

 

[naorma]

(I just saw these by Wim Hof ("4-hour hike in winter wonderland to Czech border. We forgot our passports, so we had to turn around."); awesome! :D )

Huii!!! Thanks for that link!!!!!! Icy, wicy, whoo!

 

[Leonarda]

I didn't know where to put this, I hope this is the right thread.
In order to fight resistance to cold adaptation, I found this passage of the book "A guide to the good life: the ancient art of stoic joy" by William Irvine, useful:

Why shoud we welcome even minor discomforts when it is possible to enjoy perfect comfort?In response to this question Musonius would point to three benefits to be derived from acts of voluntary discomfort:

To begin with, for example, choosing to be cold and hungry when we could be warm and feel fed, we harden ourselves against misfortunes that might befall us in the future. If all we know is comfort, we might be traumatized when we are forced to experience pain, as we someday almost surely will. In other words, voluntary discomfort can be thought of as a kind of vaccine: By exposing ourselves to a small amount of a weakened virus now, we create in ourselves an immunity that will protect us form a debilitationg illness in the future.

A second benefit comes not in the future but immediately. A person who periodically experiences minor discomforts will grow confident that he can withstand major discomforts as well, so the prospect of experiencing such discomforts at some future time will not, at present, be a source of anxiety from him, as Musonius says, he is "training himself to be courageous".

A third benefit is that it helps us appreciate what we already have . As Diogenes observed, we can greatly enhance our appreciation of any meal by waiting until we are hungry before we eat it. Musoniuos would argue that someone who tries to avoid all discomfort is less likely to be comfortable that someone who periodically embraces discomfort, because the latter individual is likely to have a much "wider comfort zone" than the former and will fell comfortable under circumstances that would cause the former individual considerable distress.(the strategy of avoiding discomfort at all costs is counterproductive)

Intense pleasures, when captured by us, become our captors, the more pleasures a man captures, "the more masters will he have to serve". After all, if we lack self-control, we are likely to be distracted by the various pleasures life has to offer, and in this distracted state we are unlikely to attain the goals of our philosophy of life.

Edit: spelling

 

[A Jay]

Good quote Leonarda, and very apt for this thread!