When Heat and Cold Need a Gentler Dose Transcript

Full transcript from the source video, grouped into clickable timestamp sections.

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Hello and welcome back to another episode of the chronic fatigue and burnout recovery podcast. Today on the podcast, I'm going to be talking about heat stress and cold stress. So basically the use of sauna or in some cases maybe even hot baths and cold stress, the use of cold showers or ice baths or cold water plunges in your fatigue recovery journey. We're going to be talking about the appropriateness of using these what we would call hormetic stresses in fatigue recovery. When are they useful? When are they not useful? Um and how should we approach them in a way that is safe? And at what stage in our journey should we be thinking about approaching them? We'll be looking at why we would even want to approach them in the first place, different considerations, looking at modulating the dosage of heat stress and cold stress, and really tips and tricks for getting started, getting into it, and just knowing if it's for you as a whole. But before I go into the episode, as always, just a kind request to ask if you could take a moment if you haven't already to leave a review on Spotify or iTunes. It will take 20 seconds of your day, probably even less. And when you take the time to leave a review, it improves the podcast ratings. Other people who

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the podcast ratings. Other people who need this information can find the podcast and and hopefully get a little bit of support on their fatigue recovery journey. So if you haven't already, please do that now. I will be super grateful and we'll we'll go straight into the content of the episode. So we're talking today about heat stress and cold stress. And as I've mentioned already in the introduction, these are what we call hormetic stresses. So, hormetic stresses, as the name suggests, are stresses to the body that when applied in the appropriate dosage can create a positive adaptation in the way that the body works and the way that the body functions. And that's one of the reasons why we might want to use hormetic stresses like heat stress or cold stress in fatigue recovery. It's cuz we're looking for the positive adaptation in response to exposure to these stresses, whether there's heat or there's cold. You might already be using some other hormetic stresses in your fatigue recovery journey. If you're exercising, even if your exercise is just a walk or a few little isometric exercises in bed, exercise is a hormetic stress. When applied in the right dosage, the body create positively, we become fitter and stronger, and we can do more over time.

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stronger, and we can do more over time. And that's essentially what we're looking for when we're looking at this journey of fatigue recovery. We're looking at our ability to increase our capacity, our ability to do more over time so that we can get more from life. So, exercise is a common hormetic stress that many people use as part of their fatigue recovery journey. I honestly believe you can't really get out of chronic fatigue without exercise because we need that positive stimulus in the appropriate dosage. But we can use other stresses, too. Fasting, for example, is another stress. But today, I want to focus on heat and cold specifically because these can have many different benefits in the fatigue recovery journey, depending on your case and depending on the symptoms that you're experiencing. So, let's start with heat. Why would we want to expose ourselves to heat in our fatigue recovery journey? Well, one of the most popular reasons is to sweat. Especially if we've got some sort of toxic overload, if there's been a mold exposure, if we're dealing with mycotoxins, if we're dealing with heavy metals, if we're dealing with other types of toxins or chemicals that are overloading the body. Sweat is one of the drainage pathways. It's how we are able to eliminate toxins from the body, in addition to obviously via the feces, via the urine. Sweat is

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via the feces, via the urine. Sweat is another channel that we can open up, and it can be a really, really effective channel for those people who need it. So, one of the reasons why we might want to expose ourselves to heat would be so that we can sweat. Whether that is heat induced by having a hot bath, heat induced by sitting in sun, heat induced by exposure in a sauna. Anything that makes us sweat could potentially be beneficial. But, for the purposes of today, I'm going to focus on the use of sauna specifically. Another reason why heat could be a potential positive thing is because it challenges the cardiovascular system. If you've ever been in a sauna, maybe pre-illness or even currently now, you'll know that your heart rate goes up, and your blood pressure goes up. So, we get a lot of the cardiovascular challenge that we might see if we were doing exercise without actually having to move the body. So, that can potentially be beneficial. It can increase metabolism, which can also help to be supportive for weight loss. But, it can help in the sense that it is stimulating the cardiovascular system without having the impact on the muscle tissue and maybe the impact on if you were to go for a run and then you have impact on the pavement or the treadmill or whatever you're running on.

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treadmill or whatever you're running on. Those additional challenges can complicate post-exertional malaise. But if we're increasing some stress on the cardiovascular system without necessarily increasing stress on the musculoskeletal system, we might be able to tolerate that cardiovascular stress and then that over time could then convert into being able to increase our exercise capacity, potentially. So, we've got detox, cardiovascular, and metabolic, and weight loss. Many of my clients feel frustrated if they've put on weight through their fatigue recovery journey. And although that's beyond the scope of this episode to talk about in detail, one of the things that I sometimes recommend to those people who are just looking to get their metabolism up and running again is to use sauna, is to use heat if they can tolerate it because tolerance is a really important part of the conversation today. And here, I'd like to just share a little anecdote of my own journey. Uh in the early stages of my journey, before I knew I had a mold exposure or anything like that, I started doing infrared sauna. And I definitely noticed after doing some sauna, that I always felt better. I had less brain fog. I felt a little bit more mentally clearer. And I definitely had the sense that it was something that was really positive for me.

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was really positive for me. At the time, it was within my capacity to drive and I was using a sauna that was actually very affordable, surprisingly. And then I would come home and I was doing that several times a week. And then I decided, actually it would probably be a better investment if I got my own sauna. So, I bought my own little infrared sauna cabin, and I was using that on a regular basis, um and it it all worked very well. And things were heading in the right direction. Then what happened was I had a relapse, a setback, um and in hindsight I think it was due to some um a high amount of emotional stress coupled with a mold exposure and that I wasn't aware of at the time, and um I had a really, really big setback. And then one of the things I noticed was that when I was starting to use my sauna again, I was getting a lot of post-exertional malaise after sauna. And that could potentially be just due to increase in oxidative stress from the cardiovascular strain, which was too much for my body at the time, or possibly because of the mold exposure, just to increase in toxicity as uh we store toxins in our fat cells, and then if we're releasing toxins into circulation, but the body isn't um the body is antioxidant depleted, or the liver's not working well, or it just becomes overwhelmed by the toxins, then

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becomes overwhelmed by the toxins, then we can feel quite ill even if we are sweating some of them out in the process. So, basically in a nutshell, the the positive effects of sauna that I had previously felt weren't sustained. And now sauna was a big trigger for post-exertional malaise for me. And so, one of my biggest regrets is that I threw the baby out with the bath water. I thought, this sauna is rubbish. I can no longer tolerate it. I'm just going to sell it. I'm just going to get rid of it. And at the time I was aiming to do about 30 or 40 minute sessions. I can't remember exactly. In my stupidity at the time, it never occurred to me that they could actually be some benefit of doing just 3 minutes, just 5 minutes, just doing whatever my body could tolerate and then gradually building up over time in a titrated way, like we would do with anything in the fatigue recovery journey where we'd implement the principle of titration, find the minimum dose that feels tolerable or should I say the maximum dose that feels tolerable and then just gradually in a systematic way begin to build up. Of course, did not think of that at the time, got rid of my sauna, lots of regrets, and life and my healing journey continued. And then at one point in time, I felt

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And then at one point in time, I felt like I was really I was a lot stronger, I was a lot more stable, I was a lot more resilient. I no longer had the sauna at home, started going back to the one that I needed to drive to, was able to tolerate that at the 30-minute dosage again, and went through about 6 months of doing sauna three times a week, sometimes four times a week for 30 minutes. That was part of my mold detox piece of my recovery journey. I would love to have my own sauna now, but it wasn't sustainable to continue to drive in the middle of the day because the sauna was only available at certain times of the day. So, I'd have to drive there, I'd have to do the sauna, they had no shower facilities, so I'd have to come home, shower. It would end up taking about an hour and a half out of my work day, which now with the business being at the place it is, it's just not sustainable for me, but I think it's a really great thing for people to do on an ongoing basis if they have the means and if they have the capacity. But the reason I share this very long-winded story about my experience with sauna is to highlight that it's not necessarily about us being able to do loads and loads of sauna or necessarily even being able to sweat when we first get into the sauna. What it is about is building up our tolerance over time so that we can use it as an effective tool in our fatigue recovery journey if that's what we need to do. So if you'd like to learn more about

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So if you'd like to learn more about heat exposure protocols and how much you should be doing each week and what temperature and for how long there's a lot of resources on the Huberman podcast if you haven't already found that. I will share some links in the show notes and but there are also some blogs on the Huberman website when where they go through specific protocols that you can use for cardiovascular health, for growth hormone, those types of things. But it's all very well having a science-backed protocol which was developed for healthy people but how do we then take that information and apply it to ourselves? And this is where I would say that we we need to use the principle of titration. So if I was for example just to read through some of these protocols um on the Huberman website it says 80 to 100 ° C, 5 to 20 minutes per session, two to three times a week, seven times as often as seven times a week. So 5 minutes is maybe achievable for some people um but 20 minutes may not be achievable for other people. Sauna for general health, 1 hour per week, two to three sessions, 80 to 100 ° C. So, 1 hour would probably be a stretch for most people with fatigue. And then for growth hormone,

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And then for growth hormone, there's a lot more detail on the website, but it says 30 minutes in the sauna, then cool off outside the sauna for 5 minutes, 30 minutes in the sauna again, then cool off for 5 minutes, and then maybe repeat even up to four 30-minute sessions in one day. So, again, that would be a lot for people with fatigue. So, how do we take that information and then make it implementable or useful at least for for us or for people who are struggling with post-exertional malaise and fatigue and other symptoms of chronic illness. Well, because these hormetic stresses, and I will get on to cold stress in a moment, but because these hormetic stresses are stresses, the first thing we want to make sure is that we're stable. I've spoken about stability on the podcast many times before. I've got a blog on stability, which I'll link with this episode, but really what we want to do is we want to have a sense of stable physiology, stable blood sugar, stable enough nervous system, stable activity routine, stable pacing, stable circadian rhythm, overall just a sort of sense of stability as a whole. Like we're not going through boom and bust, we're not having big crashes, day in and day out we're mostly the same, maybe, you know, a little bit of a fluctuation here and

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a little bit of a fluctuation here and there, but generally we're stable. From a place of stability, that is the best place to start. And once you have achieved stability, then we want to implement the principle of titration. And I don't know you, I have never met you. I don't know your unique case. I don't know your capacity. When I'm working with clients, I can have a better sense of what to advise. But it might just be a case of you start with 3 minutes to 5 minutes on a low-ish heat. And then you will go in. And then you just notice, how do I feel? Do I feel better? Do I feel worse? Do I feel the same? Sometimes you might feel like a little bit worse, but then when we repeat the same a few days later, it's okay the second time around. So, be aware of that. And then it's just a case of building up. And okay, 3 to 5 minutes was okay. How much would 5 to 7 be? How would 7 to 10 be? And just that gradually over several weeks you're building up your heat tolerance. And some people will be able to go much faster. They'll just have the confidence to really go for it. They just overall instinctively have a sense that they can build up faster. Some people who are maybe more anxious or not so sure, they may need to go more slowly. And so there is no specific formula that I can give you apart from start from a place of stability. Start

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start from a place of stability. Start with a low dose that feels non-threatening, almost like nothing. Build up at a pace that is slow enough, but not too slow and not too fast. So, like a Goldilocks pace. Maybe increasing in increments every two or three saunas. And then also don't be afraid to back down if other things come into the mix. Like I explained with my story is I had I was tolerating 30 to 40 minutes of sauna three times a week. Things changed for me and I had to go all the way back to square one. So, don't be afraid to go backwards or to strip back if other things are happening, you're feeling more stressed, you're doing other protocols, other things are taking your time, energy, and attention, which means you just have less capacity within your system as a whole. So, basically what I'm saying here is be aware of your total energy bucket. It might be a lot to be adding in sauna and building that up and also increasing your exercise and also going back to work and also dealing with family stress and emotional issues. So, be aware of all the loads on the system and maybe if there's more loads coming in, you just have to hold some things stable or regress them for a period of time. We really have to humble ourselves and be flexible as we navigate the fatigue recovery journey. Some other things which can potentially

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Some other things which can potentially be helpful for sauna specifically is um I usually recommend to clients to take glutathione before or after they sauna. You can use binders during your sauna so that any toxins which are getting liberated into the gut potentially be bound and so just to understand the mechanism there, if the toxins are in the bloodstream or the fat cells, they're going to go, they're potentially going to be sweated out on the skin, but they can also be liberated into the bloodstream. The liver is going to process them, it's going to package them up in bile, and then that bile is then sent into the gut by the gallbladder where they can bind to binders, the toxins can bind to binders, so it sort of unsticks the toxin from the bile and then you'll carry it out in your feces. So, glutathione before or after, binders, electrolytes, salty foods if needed around sauna so that you are making sure that you're replacing the minerals lost in sweat losses. Make sure you rest after a sauna because it's like exercise for a fatigued body. So when I explained my protocol of you know driving, sauna-ing, driving, then getting home and showering, that was really really tiring to do. I knew that I felt better for doing it all, but I would also probably need to factor in

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would also probably need to factor in about a half hour to an hour just lie down afterwards to let myself recover from that whole palaver. So make sure you're pacing, make sure you're factoring in rest around your sauna time. And then another little hack is if you are showering after your sauna to get some nice exfoliating gloves so you can exfoliate the skin which means that any toxins still on the skin can get exfoliated off. And I also used to use a charcoal soap. So again charcoal being a binder to just bind up any toxins that were being liberated from the skin. So get those exfoliating gloves, get it all nice and lathered in charcoal soap and then give my body like a really good scrub down after a sauna. And I don't know if this necessarily makes any difference or not, but the other thing I used to do was when I was resting after my shower, I would do a little bit of oil pulling with coconut oil and I would use a charcoal mouthwash tablet. So basically I would just just mush the charcoal mouthwash tablet into the coconut coconut oil and then swirl it around my mouth for 10 or 15 minutes. Mostly because I used to get a lot of gum and jaw pain after the sauna. And I just felt that doing that if there were any sort of toxins being liberated into the mouth, that that was uh potentially a good thing to do. Had no evidence whatsoever if it

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Had no evidence whatsoever if it actually made a difference, but I felt better for doing it. So, that's just a additional little Anna hack. So, that should be everything I've that I need to cover on sauna. As I said already is I will link through to some of these protocols in the show notes. But, I think the main takeaways are that we want to start any kind of protocol from a place of stability. We want to use the principles of titration, understanding that we can modulate duration, how long we spend in the heat, intensity, how hot the heat is, and frequency, how many times a week are we doing it, how many days rest are we having between our sessions. And we don't want to change all of them at once. So, if you're building up how long you stay in, keep the intensity and the frequency the same. If you're keeping if you're turning up the heat, you might need to keep the duration the same, or maybe even shorten it a little bit. And maybe once you've got to a stage where you're happy with the intensity and you're happy with the duration, then you can work up on building up the frequency. But, remember that you always want to take into consideration what else is going on in your life and that total energy bucket. So, that is heat stress. A lot of the principles of heat stress also apply to cold stress.

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also apply to cold stress. So, when we're talking about cold stress, we're talking about cold exposure. Some of my clients will just do cold showers. Um so, they turn the tap on as cold as it will go for maybe 90 seconds after they've had their normal shower in the morning. If you're like me, I will sometimes plunge into the ocean here on the southwest coast in the middle of winter. And what some people will do ice baths, so they have an um a ice bath at home that they add ice into and they might plunge into that for 2 or 3 minutes a few times a week. Why would we want to put ourselves through this torture? Well, we know already now that cold is a hormetic stressor. So, when we apply cold in a small amount, we can create a positive adaptation in the body and it can improve our cortisol response and our stress resilience. However, if we go too far, if we expose ourselves to too much cold, that can really stress out adrenal glands that are often under strain in people with chronic fatigue generally. So, the dosage is going to be important. Now again, I'll share some links where if you want to look more into the science around cold exposure, but generally speaking, the recommendation is to do 11 minutes of cold exposure a week. And that temperature is anything that is

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And that temperature is anything that is uncomfortably cold but safe. So, safety is is always going to be a concern, especially if we're plunging into the oceans of water where there's the possibility of currents or the possibility of drowning or you know, possibility of um getting some cold shock and losing consciousness. So, we do want to make sure that um we're safe and I'll talk a little bit about safety in the moment. But ultimately, anything that's uncomfortably cold but safe, 11 minutes a week is the ideal amount. Now, whether or not that's going to be ideal for you just starting this journey is debatable. With some of my clients, I'm asking them, "Just turn the shower on for 10 seconds." And then if that's okay, they can go to 20 seconds, they can go to 30 seconds. And if you're aiming for that 11 minutes a week, it's the equivalent of 90 seconds per day. So, if you were to shower every day and at the end of your shower, you turn on the cold tap for 90 seconds, you've hit your 11 minutes per week. And a lot of people find this really makes them feel great. We use it a lot with clients in the morning who perhaps have low morning cortisol. We're actually trying to use the cold exposure to increase cortisol in the morning because we should have a natural surge of cortisol in the morning. So, the morning time is the best time to do this.

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best time to do this. And so, it can be great for setting up your cortisol awakening response. It can be great for supporting your circadian rhythm, which can then help with sleep. So, on previous episodes where I've talked about circadian rhythm and I've talked about sleep, I've said what you do in the morning is actually really important for what happens later in the day with regards to sleep. So, doing this cold plunge or cold shower or cold ice bath first thing in the morning can really get those adrenal glands going for the day. Personally, what I notice when I do cold water exposure is that my heart rate will go really low afterwards, after I'm out, and my HRV will go really high. So, it can be really great for getting into the parasympathetic nervous system. It can also help with inflammation. When I was going back to the gym after when I was in the place in my journey where I could now start exercising, I would often go to the gym and then afterwards I would go for a cold swim just to help with some of the inflammation and post-exertional malaise. So, there's many reasons to do cold. Um, but we do want to follow those principles of stability first. There have been times as I've gone through my journey where I've been going through more stressful periods of time. And then it's been February and I've

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And then it's been February and I've been doing my little routine of swimming in the cold sea and then just realizing sometimes I've stayed in for too long. I haven't got warm enough properly afterwards and then it's kind of really knocked my system. So, being aware that we need to adjust the dosage sometimes depending on what's going on with life. If you are dipping into a cold body of water, mostly that's where we really want to think about safety. So, things we want to be aware of is that if you just jump into a cold ocean or a cold lake or a cold swimming pool potentially, there's always the risk of getting a little bit of cold shock which means you can actually pass out and then you are susceptible to drown. So, we want to make sure that um, if you're entering a cold body of water, you do it slowly. You ideally have a buddy with you who's helping to monitor the situation. And the rule of thumb is for every degree Celsius of the water, the maximum you stay in is 1 minute per degree. So, what that means is if the water is 6 °, stay in no more than 6 minutes. I will personally say when I'm getting into the ocean here in the winter, I probably even stay in for less than that, maybe even half. So, remember after you get out of cold water, there's something known as the after drop. So, your core body

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after drop. So, your core body temperature continues to drop for about 15 minutes after you get out of the cold. So, if you're very, very cold when you get out, you're going to get even colder once you're back on land. So, getting out when you feel uncomfortable, but not overly cold, is about the right time. And then, you know, just other practical tips. A lot of people here I see them wearing little boots to protect their feet or gloves to protect their hands. I sometimes take a flask of warm water down to the beach, and then I'll pour that on my feet after I get out of the sea. But then, you know, everything comes on, all the layers, the big chunky coat, gloves, hat, nice hot drink to get warm afterwards. Or if you can, move a little bit, do a bit of walking, do a bit of movement if that's within your capacity after some cold exposure, that can be a really nice thing to do. But this is probably going to be appropriate for people very much at the end stages of their journey. If you're somebody who's just starting out, 10 seconds cold shower might just be where where it's at right now for you. So, sometimes people ask, "Should I do heat stress or cold stress?" And this very much comes down to the case. If there's somebody where there's a lot of um where where there's feels like there's a lot of toxic overload going on, if weight is a concern, if if they

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on, if weight is a concern, if if they seem to be okay physically in terms of their cardiovascular system to tolerate the heat, I would say that person maybe starts with heat stress. And cold stress is for maybe those people who don't necessarily need to prioritize sweating based on their case. They maybe struggle with the cortisol awakening response. They might be overstimulated from a cardiovascular perspective by the heat stress. So, cold stress might be a safer thing for them to implement especially if they're very susceptible to post-exertional malaise. I might direct those people down the cold stress route. But ideally, the long-term goal is to be able to do both. And that could be the next factor in terms of modulation is once you can tolerate a little bit of heat and you can tolerate a little bit of cold, then another way you can start to increase the intensity and duration is to do some heat exposure followed by some cold exposure, And that's something that I do from time to time here on the South West Coast. We've got a beach side sauna which is amazing. So, it's a traditional Finnish wood fire sauna, so you can get all hot and toasty in that. And then go plunge into the cold ocean and you know, go backwards and forwards maybe two or three times across an hour. But it is quite intense. Um it is I'd say that's the equivalent of an hour's exercise session. And

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exercise session. And depending on where I am in my cycle and just how strong I'm feeling in my health as a whole, even doing that hour-long hot cold can sometimes be a little bit too much for me. So, something to consider but also to really factor in in the context of your energy bucket. So, the final thing I guess which I haven't touched on is the difference between an infrared sauna, a more traditional wood fire sauna, and some people will also use sauna blankets. So, if toxic load is an issue, I would always say to people like if you can use an infrared sauna. But if an infrared sauna is not accessible, anything that makes you sweat is better than not doing sauna. So, some people say it's infrared sauna baths, there's the um traditional sauna baths, and I'd say for these kind of more health-related purposes of detox, infrared sauna would be more preferable. You can stay for longer in an infrared sauna. So, when I do the sauna on the beach, it's like 10, maybe 15 minutes at a time, and then I get too hot. But, in infrared sauna, I could comfortably comfortably sit for 30 or 40 minutes before I get too hot. So, that is the difference. If you've only got access to a traditional sauna, you could go in for 10 minutes, wait about, you don't necessarily have to do cold afterwards,

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necessarily have to do cold afterwards, but you could come out, rest, go back in again, and then you can extend the time and extend the sweating in that way, as well. But, whatever you have access to is better than nothing. And sometimes if people don't have access to a sauna cabin, I recommend they buy a sauna blanket. And there's lots of these available online, which is like a uh sort of like a sleeping bag that you get into where you're exposed to the infrared heat, and and that encourages sweating. I've personally just never really fancied these just cuz of the having to clean up after yourself afterwards. Obviously, the the sauna blanket would need like a good wipe down, and you probably want to line it with some towels, and that's just never appealed to me. But, some of my clients have got these sauna blankets, they absolutely love them, they find them hugely beneficial. And I think if it was somebody who really really did need to focus on detox, I would encourage them in that direction if it was the only option that they had available. Sometimes I also just recommend to clients what I call the poor man's sauna, which is just to have a hot bath, as hot as what your body can tolerate, maybe for about 10 to 15 minutes. You can put in some Epsom salts um into your bath. Then after you get out of the bath, maybe lie down on a yoga mat lined with some towels. So, a towel on the bottom, a towel on the top, and then put a blanket over your body so that you could lie there and essentially create your

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lie there and essentially create your own sauna blanket. Obviously not an infrared one, but just keep the heat trapped in so that you can get a little bit more sweaty. And that's a really affordable way for people who can't necessarily afford to buy extra equipment, who do want to and need to sweat more to get a little bit more access to the detox benefits of heat exposure. So, I think that was everything that I wanted to cover today. As I said, like I'm not an expert in all the different protocols and all the science of these hormetic stresses, but I will include some links so you can read a bit more about them. But, I think the most important questions we need to be asking ourselves is how would this benefit me? Is it worth all the energy and effort to to try and to work out what my tolerance is? And then understanding that the science-based protocols have been done on healthy individuals who are looking at health and performance, not necessarily individuals who are trying to recover from a chronic illness. And therefore, we need to humble ourselves, not throw the baby out with the bathwater like I did, and just really work on building our tolerance very gently and very slowly over a period of time so that we can maybe work towards tolerating the more kind of in air quotes ideal protocols suggested for healthy people, but the most important

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healthy people, but the most important thing is that these things feel supportive in our journey. We feel like we're getting the benefits from doing them, and they're not just another tick box exercise on a long list of healing activities we feel like we should be doing. So, I hope that has been useful and insightful today. Maybe you are ready to do some heat stress, do some cold stress, or maybe you've just realized you need to stabilize a little bit more before you even think about pursuing these modalities. And wherever you have arrived today, I hope it is the perfect place for you to be, and I will see you in the next episode.