What happens in the body during an ice bath?

What are cold and ice baths?

Cold bathing and ice bathing are actually the same thing, but with different names. Cold bathing refers to bathing in very cold water, such as the sea in the fall, and ice bathing refers to bathing in ice water, such as a lake in the winter.

Why cold bathing?

...and what happens in the body when it is exposed to cold water?

If you're new to cold water swimming, it may seem strange that you would voluntarily jump into near-zero water, but there are actually many scientifically proven health benefits to doing so. These are just some of them...

Better and stronger immune system

Exposing your body to cold water can increase your body's production of white blood cells, which in turn act as your body's defense cells.

In addition, it also acclimatizes the body to different types of temperatures and environments such as extreme cold, forcing it to adapt and become stronger.

Improved sleep

Cold baths lower the body's temperature, which is similar to the natural temperature drop that occurs before falling asleep.

Voluntarily lowering your body temperature before bedtime can also help create a circadian rhythm that suits you well and helps you sleep better. This, in turn, improves other aspects such as increasing energy the next day and overall quality of life.

Better at coping with cold temperatures

The human body always tries to adapt as best it can to the environment in which it finds itself in order to have the best chance of survival.

This means that the more cold baths you take, the more you are communicating to your body that extreme cold is a recurring feature of life, which means that the body must somehow keep itself warm. It does this by creating so-called brown fat.

Brown fat, or brown fat cells, is a type of fat that is activated when the body needs to be heated. The brown fat then uses regular fat, or white fat as it is also called, and uses it to warm up the body.

Taking cold baths can therefore also help with weight loss for those who need it.

Faster recovery in cold baths

Taking ice baths can help you recover from exercise in a good way, as what happens in the body in the cold temperatures, among other things, causes blood vessels to contract, which in turn makes it more difficult for inflammatory substances to travel through the body via the blood.

Cold baths and cold have a good tendency to strengthen and improve your mental strength and raise your threshold for pain.

Tips for safe cold bathing

And what are the risks?

Jumping into a lake or a bathtub with near-zero water can be risky if not done properly. Here's a list of what you should do when taking cold baths:

Always be sober when taking cold baths. Bathing under the influence, even if it is a lukewarm temperature, involves risks to your life and health that are never worth it.
Take it step by step. According to research, to get the effects of cold water, you don't have to have near-zero temperatures every time. The main thing is that it feels cold to the person bathing. Over time, you can gradually lower the temperature, as long as you know you can handle the water you are about to enter.
If you have underlying health problems, it is very important that you talk to a doctor before you start cold bathing. Cold baths can be a shock to the system and lead to heart attack, for example, even in relatively young and healthy people, if care is not taken.
If you are not used to cold water, it might be a good idea to start with a cold shower. It's easier to step away from shower water than to step out of an ice bath if the water turns out to be too cold. If you have never bathed in very cold water before, it is very difficult to know what is happening in your body.
Cold swim with someone, or at least take someone with you if you are going to swim in a frozen lake and if you are not experienced. If you don't know how you will react (and going into a frozen lake is shocking for your body and for you), it is important to take someone with you in case something serious happens.
Don't stay in too long. You probably won't last forever anyway (very few people do) but don't stay in longer than feels safe and secure. You can get hurt in such cold water if you are not careful.

How should you cold bathe?

Jumping into an ice bath has many different positive and beneficial effects on the body, both in the long and short term. However, it is important to know what you are doing to achieve these positive effects.

Go in slowly

To start with, it's best to enter the cold water slowly. We don't recommend jumping in in any way (if it's a lake or the sea we're talking about). Cold water can have an incredibly shocking effect on the body and if you can't handle it, you're likely to have a negative experience of it all.

Taking it easy can be more painful, but it's important not to lose control of what's happening in your body.

Take control of your breathing

It's easy to lose control of your breathing when you step into the icy water, and that's okay at first, and hard to avoid your first few dips. However, it should diminish over time, the more regularly you go into ice baths. As with everything else, you get better at it the more you do it and practice.

Do not hyperventilate in the water

You need to control your breathing, but you don't want to hyperventilate in the water. When you hyperventilate, you can lose consciousness which can lead to drowning accidents, and especially in such cold water, it can lead to other horrors even if you don't drown such as frostbite and the like.

We make this point because many cold bathers use the Wim Hof method and you may start hyperventilating in the water for added effect, but that can be fatal, so do that breathing before you go into the water and you should be fine.

What temperature should one even bath be?

You can aim to have between 1 and 15 degrees in the water you bathe in. As a rule of thumb, it is good to keep in mind that you can be in the water for about as many minutes as it is cold in degrees, so if it is 1 degree you bathe for 1 minute, 2 degrees for 2 minutes, etc.

It's also good to remember that you can vary and test yourself with this. Ice baths are a very personal thing, how well you do them and what works best for you.

Portable cold baths

Swedish cold portable cold bath

Why portable cold baths?

Making cold bathing part of your everyday life can have many benefits, as mentioned earlier, but as many people live out of reach of lakes or may not even have a bathtub at home, it can be very difficult to integrate ice bathing into your life and make it the habit you want and you won't be able to jump in the cold as many times as you want as easily.

Cold bath at home

Having a portable cold bath at home (which also doesn't take up much space) increases the possibilities of easily cold bathing every day, whether you take a bath first thing in the morning, after exercise or before going to bed. The choice is yours, of course.

Having a portable ice bath at home has the effect of increasing the power you have over your own health, over your own body and you can feel better for longer during the day.

What portable cold baths are available?

At Swedish Cold, there are several selections of different cold tubs, in all different price ranges. Everything from simple tubs that you can easily assemble yourself and which can be transported without problems (perfect for beginners), to more advanced, self-propelled ice baths.

Max Recovery

The simplest and most budget-friendly of Swedish Cold's ice baths is the Max Recovery. It's quick to put together, all you need to do is insert plastic rods all around, then inflate the ring at the top. Then just fill the tub and jump in.

The thing to keep in mind with Max Recovery is that it is not self-contained and does not maintain the temperature on its own, so you can either put ice in it or have the cold bath outside if the outdoor temperatures keep it cold.

Cold Tub

This cold bath from Swedish Cold is a simple but powerful tub that maintains the temperature on its own. It easily fits one person and holds 410 liters of water.

It's not as portable as Max Recovery, but it works well for those with less space to work with.

Cold Station

The Cold Station is a cold bath that is large and efficient for the enthusiast. It holds 480 liters and has its own cooling system so you can easily get the temperature and power you are looking for. Its size means you can sit longer in this ice bath.

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