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The wellness industry is as weird and wild as ever, with more of us looking to alternative ways to stay healthy and improve our wellness. But while wellness tells us to drink the green juice, shouldn't we be questioning what's actually in it?
Welcome to Wellness, Questioned, a deep dive into our love-hate relationship with the weird and wonderful world of wellness, self-development and spirituality. How do you look after yourself in the age of anxiety? How can you tell what to believe and what's bullshit?
Join us, Katie, a yoga teacher and coach, and Annabel, a writer about wellness, as we explore the world of wellness and self-improvement and learn how to do wellness, well.
[00:00:00] Katie Gordon: Welcome to Wellness Questioned, a podcast looking at how to navigate the wellness industry well, hosted by me, Katie Gordon, and Annabel Lee.
[00:00:15] Annabel Lee: Each episode we cover a different aspect of wellness and self improvement, looking at ethics, scandals and red flags. Hello. How are you?
[00:00:25] Katie Gordon: I am alright? Surviving?
[00:00:29] Annabel Lee: Do you think being submerged in cold water would make you feel better?
[00:00:33] Katie Gordon: I don't, no, absolutely not.
[00:00:35] Annabel Lee: What about sitting in a sauna?
[00:00:38] Katie Gordon: I'd like somewhere in between, please, like a hot tub, something like that. Head out, body in.
[00:00:45] Annabel Lee: Warmth.
[00:00:46] Katie Gordon: Maybe even some wine in my hand. Delightful.
[00:00:51] Annabel Lee: Today we're going to talk about hot and cold therapy and cold immersions and there's quite a few things that could fall into that. But specifically, I thought we'd talk about cold plunges, which are all the rage and everywhere and also saunas on the other end and kind of look at why these kind of things are getting so popular now. There's some kind of research on it, there's some theories on, I've got a bit of a theory on it, so I thought we talk a bit about the rise of coal plunges saunas and why we wanna be doing more extreme things with our bodies.
[00:01:25] Katie Gordon: Or do we? I'm hoping you're saying we don't because I don't like either of them, so.
[00:01:30] Annabel Lee: Okay, maybe why some people want to.
[00:01:34] Katie Gordon: Let's find out if I should be getting in a plastic tub.
[00:01:40] Annabel Lee: Yeah. I wondered if it was like the same thing if you just sat in the paddling pool with your children.
[00:01:45] Katie Gordon: I guess you can't, like, submerge in your paddling pool.
[00:01:49] Annabel Lee: Lie flat.
[00:01:49] Katie Gordon: I've seen people do it in, getting in a bin. I just want to give them a good wash first, I think.
[00:01:56] Annabel Lee: Okay, so have you ever done a cold plunge, Katie?
[00:02:00] Katie Gordon: Not if I can help it, no.
[00:02:01] Annabel Lee: Okay.
[00:02:02] Katie Gordon: I mean, I have.
[00:02:03] Annabel Lee: Like, just running into the sea?
[00:02:05] Katie Gordon: Yeah, sea, I used to go to a spa in Bethnal Green that was incredible, really cheap and they had a plunge pool there. I've reluctantly done that to get rid of a hangover.
[00:02:16] Annabel Lee: Nice.
[00:02:17] Katie Gordon: Yeah, that's it.
[00:02:18] Annabel Lee: it. Well, they were early adopters then, were they?
[00:02:21] Katie Gordon: What? It's like one of those Turkish bars that was like, it used to be super cheap. It was like council run. So, yeah. It wasn't the most popular part, shall we say. Maybe it is now.
[00:02:33] Annabel Lee: Yeah. I see lots and lots more people, offering cold plunges as sort of part of spa experiences, or there was a huge rise a couple of years ago, I think it was probably tied into the pandemic, with this massive rise in wild swimming, which is was just huge and now we've got sort of brands like LUMI who make...
[00:02:54] Katie Gordon: Yeah, everyone's got one in their back garden, have you got one?
[00:02:57] Annabel Lee: I haven't got one.
[00:02:58] Katie Gordon: I can see you with one.
Yeah?
Yeah.
[00:03:01] Annabel Lee: So one of the claimed benefits of coal plunging is that it helps with recovery...
[00:03:06] Katie Gordon: That's what I was thinking, yeah.
[00:03:08] Annabel Lee: ...after exercise. So lots of, I see lots of runners who have got, bought LUMI's and have them in their garages or things so after they've done a big run but no, I haven't bought one.
[00:03:19] Katie Gordon: Yeah.
[00:03:21] Annabel Lee: But I have done a couple of cold plunges. I went, I did some in a loch in Scotland last year, which was just lovely.
[00:03:28] Katie Gordon: That's nice. I would do that.
[00:03:30] Annabel Lee: Like natural nature and I have been in a, an ice bath, which actually I kind of enjoyed. But anyway, cold plunging is also known as cold therapy or cold water immersion. And it's yet to fully submerging your body in cold water, kind of, obviously and what happens is once you're in the cold water, your body temperature starts to drop and it changes how the blood flows around your body. I definitely know when I've done my cold plunges, you sort of get this sort of tingly feeling and then afterwards when you get out you kind of still feel that and it feels kind of nice I think. So people like it. Cold water therapy actually dates back to 3, 500 BC. So me saying that the Bethnal Green spa was an early adopter is kind of quite, not a good take on that, because it's been around for a long time and people have sort of done it, for a long time, but there has been this massive trend, I think, for cold water plunging. So people think it can help recovery, it can reduce inflammation and help immunity and there is some evidence it might help with mental health and anxiety. But, I've been doing some reading about it, it's not conclusive, any of this research and I think a lot of the evidence around it is quite anecdotal and ultimately a lot of people do it because it makes them feel good, it makes them feel invigorated, it makes them feel cold, probably, but it's sort of a challenge and you're facing the challenge, getting over it. But, and I've read a good article on this said that the feel good effect is important. So even if it doesn't really have any benefits beyond that kind of instantaneous feeling, that's fine. But important to say that there are some risks of cold plunging. So particularly for elderly people, with heart conditions. So, you know, it does, it's not, kind of like completely risk free. You have to be sort of sensible and safe and obviously you're in water as well. So, do you have any thoughts about why cold plunging is so popular?
[00:05:54] Katie Gordon: Well, Wim Hof comes to mind, right? Is that where it has become popular from?
[00:06:00] Annabel Lee: Wim Hof, okay and another wellness guru. Your pal, Andrew Keefer.
[00:06:09] Katie Gordon: Oh, God,
[00:06:12] Annabel Lee: Yeah, so there's been, there's lots of celebrity fans and so lots of celebrity fans, lots of kind of health adjacent...
[00:06:22] Katie Gordon: Right
[00:06:22] Annabel Lee: ...influencers, talking about the benefits of it and I think cold plunging and sauna is actually to some extent ties into this kind of theme of biohacking.
[00:06:36] Katie Gordon: Yeah. It's a bit of wellness bro-y, isn't it?
[00:06:38] Annabel Lee: It is very wellness bro y. It's very like, push your body to the extreme, take on the challenge and obviously film yourself doing it. Do you remember the ice bucket challenge?
[00:06:50] Katie Gordon: Yeah.
[00:06:52] Annabel Lee: Retro. At the time that was seen as quite an extreme thing to do, but I don't think we would think that was an extreme thing to do now because we're so used to seeing people sitting in a...
[00:07:03] Katie Gordon: Ice bath.
[00:07:04] Annabel Lee: In an ice bath.
[00:07:05] Katie Gordon: Yeah.
[00:07:06] Annabel Lee: So biohacking is a term which is used for lots of different practices or things and a lot of it is to do with longevity, so increasing lifespan, improving health and sort of this idea that you can make yourself kind of impenetrable, like Superhuman, almost and I don't think we need to get too into biohacking because...
[00:07:33] Katie Gordon: Let's not.
[00:07:34] Annabel Lee: I don't really want to. But I think it is, there's something sort of connecting that increased awareness and interest in health from quite a masculine...
[00:07:47] Katie Gordon: Kind suffer for your health kind of thing. You go hard or go home vibes. Yeah.
[00:07:53] Annabel Lee: Yeah and it's quite stoic in a way, I've seen quite a few articles about like the rise of stoicism, particularly for men as this sort of acceptance that like, there is pain, there is suffering and like, you have to do these kind of extreme things to be the best.
[00:08:09] Katie Gordon: Sure.
[00:08:10] Annabel Lee: So there's that side but also you might just like it, you might just feel good, you might want to go and have a little dunk in a body of water.
[00:08:16] Katie Gordon: I mean, it's relatively cheap, isn't it? Like, as, if it's something you enjoy, getting in a lake or, even the LUMI's, they're not super they're not are they? So if you like it, not harming anyone?
[00:08:28] Annabel Lee: And you can also, I know you can kind of do a DIY cold plunge in like the bath at home or lots of people do cold showers for 30 seconds, sort of at the beginning or the end of their shower to sort of...
[00:08:44] Katie Gordon: Pep yourself up. Yeah. Okay, I'd do that, fair enough.
[00:08:48] Annabel Lee: It's all good. Okay, so that's a bit about cold plunging. So let's turn the heat up.
[00:08:56] Katie Gordon: Right, nice.
[00:08:59] Annabel Lee: Thanks! A bridge. Saunas. What do you think about a sauna?
[00:09:03] Katie Gordon: I don't love a sauna, I don't like the dry heat. But I've heard a lot of stuff about red light saunas, infrared saunas, how that can help with injuries and even recovery and even anti aging, of course, because that's got to go in somewhere. Yeah, tell me more.
[00:09:24] Annabel Lee: So let's talk about the difference, super quickly, between a sauna and a steam room. So a sauna uses dry heat produced from a stove or hot drops and the temperatures go up to 90. 5 degrees C with very low humidity. Seems very hot.
[00:09:41] Katie Gordon: That seems very hot,
[00:09:43] Annabel Lee: Steam rooms are moist heat. But they're at lower temperatures. So up to about 49 degrees C and 100 percent relative humidity. So, sauna is dry heat.
[00:09:55] Katie Gordon: Get me the wet heat.
[00:09:56] Annabel Lee: Yeah. Oh, okay.
[00:09:58] Katie Gordon: Are you a dry heat fan?
[00:09:59] Annabel Lee: I do quite like a sauna. I had a lovely, so actually, there's been a big huge rise in beachside Lots and lots popping up on the beaches around the UK and I think in lots of European countries as well. I had a lovely trip to Sandbanks.
[00:10:21] Katie Gordon: Oh, very fancy!
[00:10:21] Annabel Lee: Few weeks ago with my girlfriends, yeah and we booked a beachside sauna for 60 minutes. So it's a private sauna, you would go into like a little box sauna and then you cycle through. So you go and you run into the sea and you do a cold plunge in the sea and then you come back into the sauna and you get lovely and hot and then you sort of do that, like four times and it was so nice.
[00:10:46] Katie Gordon: Did you enjoy it?
[00:10:47] Annabel Lee: I loved it, because you weren't in the sauna for very long, sort of just kind of five, 10 minutes. It was very hot, but it was all good and then run into the sea, had a little swim and a chat and then came back and yeah, it felt really good. I hadn't slept well the night before, we obviously had a bit to drink because we were away together on a girls weekend. But I felt great.
[00:11:12] Katie Gordon: Did everyone like it?
[00:11:14] Annabel Lee: Yeah, one of my friends didn't do it but four of us did and we were all like, come on, we can't mess about jumping in the sea. We've just got to do it, get in, no faffing.
[00:11:25] Katie Gordon: Okay.
[00:11:26] Annabel Lee: And then I was really, I thought it was a really nice thing to do with my friends. Nice experience. We all felt good.
Did
[00:11:34] Katie Gordon: you lose your hangovers?
[00:11:35] Annabel Lee: Yeah! Because we drank so much water and actually the...
[00:11:38] Katie Gordon: I thought you said booze.
[00:11:38] Annabel Lee: The guy that was running the sauna said to try and drink, he just said the more you drink water, the better you'll feel. So you're, I don't know, you're staying hydrated because obviously you're sweating quite a lot while you're in the sauna, but it was a really lovely thing to do. It's the first time I've been in one of those kind of beachside saunas. I've done like a sauna in the gym.
[00:12:00] Katie Gordon: Instagrammable.
[00:12:02] Annabel Lee: Yeah, yeah, it was lovely. It was just, but it was, inscrumable, but it was also, it was just a really nice thing to do. A nice, you know, rather than going for like a boozy brunch or something, just had a nice, lovely time together. So yes, a lot of saunas popping up. There's some interesting conversations around saunas as a sort of new community space. So the idea that in a lot of Nordic countries where saunas come from, people might have a sauna at home and they might do like a family sauna. But what I think some of the conversation around saunas in the UK is saying that saunas might replace kind of a third space, like maybe like the pub. So you might have a community funded or even council run sauna somewhere and it's a space, it's low cost to access, and you can go and you can use the sauna and you can also have a chat, you've got this kind of safe community space, which I sort of love the sound of that. The benefits of saunas are kind of similar to cold plunging actually. So aches and pains, people can say it can help with relaxation, sleep and mental health. as well.
[00:13:19] Katie Gordon: If you're doing a sauna, wouldn't you traditionally do a cold plunge as well? So you're kind of doing both.
[00:13:25] Annabel Lee: Yes, and I have definitely seen at spas and things or in places where they have the kind of facilities for hot and cold and there'll be a sort of certain way to do it, you know, do this and...
[00:13:40] Katie Gordon: So quite often it would be marketed together.
[00:13:43] Annabel Lee: Yes and I have actually I'm seeing more and more people Places popping up which are offering that as a sort of, you know, calm, do your wild swim, do your cold plunge and go in the hot tub, go in the sauna and I think this sort of the combination and then the sort of extremes that you're going between is quite nice and it feels quite, you know, a big thing. The benefits, again, are slightly, the research, I guess, or whether or not those benefits are actually, you know, gonna help. I think, again, it does tend to be that it's more of an instantaneous physical change, that going in a sauna has on you. It makes you hot, it makes you sweat, obviously. It changes how your body is functioning and that can have knock on effects for like your muscles or your perception of pain or how you're feeling. But what seems to be the case is that the long lasting benefits maybe aren't... It's not going to kind of complete, you know, going for a sauna isn't going to change your life but, you know, if you go for a sauna and you feel good and you feel nice and that's something that can work for you as a kind of, you know, one off, fine or a weekly thing as part of your routine, great. But it's not having, it's quite immediate, the benefits.
[00:15:02] Katie Gordon: But not necessarily long lasting.
[00:15:02] Annabel Lee: Exactly. Yes. So, saunas is great. You know, if it's not costing you too much money, if there's one there, if you can support a community sauna, amazing. But some of the claims are quite vague and shouldn't assume that kind of going in a sauna is going to help improve your mental health. It might just make you feel good for half an hour. The other thing to say is, again, there are some contraindications with soreness as well. So certain health conditions, whether that's like cardiovascular or skin conditions as well, need to just be aware of it. So I think these types of therapies or things you can do are fun, I think they're a good way to socialize without drinking, they're a nice community focused thing that you can do. Actually, a friend of mine who lives in Germany was telling me that there's, I think there's a community sauna there, but you have to be naked. So I guess it depends what you're looking for and if you're going to feel comfortable.
[00:16:17] Katie Gordon: I can't imagine that catching on round here.
[00:16:19] Annabel Lee: I don't think, yeah, think we're probably, swimwear on, luckily. There can be benefits with pain, with recovery, with making you feel good. But, I think there are some question marks over the longer term benefits. So I was kind of thinking about, why are these things so popular now? And I definitely think there is part of that longevity thing, that kind of like, optimise your thing, the biohacking stuff. But, I also wonder whether there was this sort of shift, I guess, or this rise of doing things with your body, I think during the pandemic, but I think kind of long tailing off there as well, where people want to do extreme things with their bodies and they want to feel something. They want to feel a feeling because I think there's so much, we're living so much online, we're so extremely not in our bodies all the time. Like I think there is this urge that a lot of people have to like do something big and expressive and expansive with their bodies. So whether that is like jumping into a freezing cold sea or like sitting in something that is pushing your body to experience a new experience.
[00:17:48] Katie Gordon: Although, like, massive rise in ultra running as well is the same sort of thing.
[00:17:53] Annabel Lee: Absolutely.
[00:17:54] Katie Gordon: Like, a marathon is not gonna do it anymore.
[00:17:57] Annabel Lee: And there's this, I saw this thing saying that a marathon has now become the everyman's Everest.
[00:18:03] Katie Gordon: It's not mine. Yeah. But, yeah.
[00:18:06] Annabel Lee: Man's probably being the ultimate word.
[00:18:08] Katie Gordon: Maybe a bit more.
[00:18:09] Annabel Lee: But this idea that I think certainly when I was growing up, I thought a marathon was this absolutely insane, incredible feat of human endurance and now lots of people close to me have done marathons, you know, it's something I sort of started to think, oh, maybe, you know, maybe and it becomes this huge mammoth task that becomes more accessible.
[00:18:33] Katie Gordon: Yeah,
[00:18:34] Annabel Lee: And then probably, yeah, once you've done the marathon, then you want to go off and do your ultra and keep pushing it and I think that there's something in this hot and cold therapy and this desire for doing more with your body, feeling more things like. chasing the high, chasing the sensation that I think is kind of tapping into the popularity of it.
[00:19:00] Katie Gordon: I wonder if there's also something about, maybe this is a bit post pandemic as well, like, future proofing against, like, illness and disease and stuff that people, maybe that's nothing to do with the pandemic, but something around, like, being the healthiest you can possibly be and that might mean doing more extreme things that you perceive as being health giving.
[00:19:25] Annabel Lee: I definitely think that is part of it and sort of this sort of idea that these things are kind of Inherently just like good for us generally like, you know, like it's a good, it's like a good thing for your body to do it. It's a good thing to do. It's healthy. It's going to be like beneficial for your sleep, for your energy. It's helping.
[00:19:47] Katie Gordon: I find it sort of mad that we're probably healthier than we've ever been, right? In terms of middle, upper class people and there are more children than ever before below the poverty line in this country and people are obsessed with being even more healthy, yet there's no way now to actually protect yourself from cancer or Alzheimer's or any of these things. It's like a little bit dystopian, isn't it, of like all these people doing ultramarathons where like there are children that can't eat. I just find it a little bit like maybe you could direct your energy elsewhere? Like, if you love running, like, fine, but there's other things happening? I don't know. We're recording on election day, so it's present. Yeah, it's quite present.
[00:20:42] Annabel Lee: Because I think there is something about access as well, isn't there? So that even if it's going for a cold plunge, right, in the sea, let's say, or in a lake, although we might think that's accessible to everybody, it's not, because not everybody has like the time to go and do that, or the space to go and do that, or maybe they don't have a car and they can't drive there so, or they can't swim, yeah, or they just wouldn't feel comfortable going and doing that and so I think there is some stuff about like, this is a tangent, but how you get these sort of communities of like wild swimmers, you know, on the sea and there's all these memes about DryRobe wankers, which is all, you know, like bougie people on the beach having a lovely time and then putting their Dry Robes on and I think some of these things probably still are quite inaccessible even though they are natural and free. Cold swimming, for example, or open water swimming, for example.
[00:21:47] Katie Gordon: Because you've got to have the gear.
[00:21:48] Annabel Lee: And also if everybody else is doing it is like, in a particular, you know, a particular, like, group, or it's hard, you know, it's hard to feel part of that community because it's, I think, the same thing with, even with, like, hiking and walking and access to the outdoors. Like, we think this is a thing that's available to everybody, but actually it's not and actually you do have to have, like, a certain level of equipment, of like a car to drive somewhere, of time, of like, it's not, there is like inequality with access.
[00:22:22] Katie Gordon: To the outdoors. Yeah, yeah.
[00:22:25] Annabel Lee: And I think it is quite heartening, this stuff around like community saunas and I think there are some people doing some really cool stuff in that space. But I think until it becomes like something that is just kind of completely normalised and completely like feels accessible to everybody, it's still kind of self selecting as to who gets to access that stuff. So, hot and cold therapy, what do we think?
[00:22:52] Katie Gordon: It's fairly alright. I mean, it's not going to hurt you. I guess it's fairly cheap, you could do it in the shower. I prefer to exist somewhere in the middle of this, but I have done cold showers and felt good afterwards. I don't know, if you want to do it, I don't care.
Yeah, I
[00:23:12] Annabel Lee: think so. I think it's pretty unproblematic for the most part.
[00:23:18] Katie Gordon: Yeah. Well, I suppose you get into the monetization of it as well and like the Wim Hof stuff, which is Breathwork and cold and...
[00:23:27] Annabel Lee: Personal development.
[00:23:28] Katie Gordon: Personal development, but there's plenty of ways to do it for lower cost where you don't have to go and hyperventilate before you get in the water.
[00:23:35] Annabel Lee: Yeah, I think great, a good tool, I think a good thing to try if you're maybe open to it because it's kind of fun, it's kind of a nice little, with cold plunging, like a little immediate challenge you.
[00:23:51] Katie Gordon: Something you can do with friends well.
[00:23:53] Annabel Lee: Can do with your friends, a nice thing. So definitely if you're like at the beach or you're near some open water like and it's safe, then amazing. I think the thing is that it's not going to change your life but it might make your afternoon kind of fun and interesting. It might make you feel a bit better.
[00:24:11] Katie Gordon: Yeah, why not?