Cold Plunge vs. Sauna What Actually Slows Aging

00:00 What helps you live longer, an ice bath or a sauna? The answers, they might surprise you. Uh, in this video, I'm going to talk about the importance of some of these powerful technologies uh in ice baths and in saunas that have, you know, been around for centuries. However, the research is unbelievable be behind both cold plunge and around saunas. So essentially there's what they call cold shock proteins as well as heat shock proteins that get stimulated from the stress of both sauna and cold plunge and they affect you differently. Uh they affect you in different ways radically around longevity around health around the reduction of inflammation around brain health and optimization etc. So here's some of the main points that I want to get across around both cold plunge and sauna benefits. Cold plunge has a lot of powerful benefits. Number one, you have a great enke release and

01:00 boost of norepinephrine that uh tells your body, oh my gosh, like you're you're about to die kind of thing. Uh and then it creates this inflammatory reduction. So this this inflammatory reduction, this cascade effect is very powerful for the body. It allows the body to um really reduce inflammation uh in a in a powerful way. It helps with joints. It helps with recovery. You don't want to do this after you exercise. Definitely don't want to do this after you exercise because then it nullifies the impact of the exercise because the goal of exercise is to drive inflammation. You cold plunge after you exercise. it drives back down inflammation and you're not getting the benefits of it of of exercise. So if you want a cold plunge, do it later in the day after you exercise or do it before you exercise in the morning, which is what I like to do. So the other thing that Stanford Longevity Center uh

02:00 uncovered was that cold plunging it stimulates your bat cells. Your bat cells are your brown atapose or atyposytes, right? your your brown fat centers and they're highly concentrated in the top of your neck and right in your occiput area. Um, which is why when people cold plunge, they should try to get their their neck as well uh and stimulate the upper part of their neck. I typically get it right under my chin, but I get the back of my neck as well. And that will stimulate the bat cells, which are the brown atapose tissue. Uh, and the reason why they're brown is because the high concentration of mitochondria. So, you're activating your mitochondria and it creates a lot of benefits. So, there's a number of other benefits from cold plunge um that I I haven't even gotten into, but there's a lot of really cool things that happen when you use sauna. So, cold shock

03:00 proteins go out when you're when you are uh in the cold plunge. Heat shock proteins go out and repair damaged cells. That's their goal is to repair damaged cells. Um there's been uh this really great research done at the University of Eastern Finland that showed that there's a 40% reduction in cardiovascular deaths uh with regular use of the saunas. And the saunas will actually increase your heart rate and will mimic the exercise within the body. You could go for a long jog or you could go into the sauna and you could get similar cardiovascular benefits as your heart rate increases because of the stress of the heat. So there there there are a number of other things that it does. It it helps uh clean the skin and detox the body because the body is really looking uh in the sauna to to get rid of impurities and to open up pores. So, it can help to

04:00 cleanse the body and and detox the body. It's been shown to remove toxins, even environmental toxins from the body, which is very powerful. Now, if you've got some mercury fillings in your mouth and you've been exposed to lead or or cadmium or uranium or something like that, you'll need proper chat and proper detoxification. Um, but saunas can certainly help. So, if you were to prioritize one or the other, right? Which one should you prioritize? Um, well, uh, some people would say if you're got heart disease and you're wanting heart disease prevention, uh, you want to do the sauna over the cold plunge, right? Um, if you're wanting to reduce inflammation and pain, then you should do cold plunge because it helps with recovery, right? And helps to reduce inflammation. Um, but they're both beneficial. They're both very powerful. Um, but there is one right now that that has more research

05:00 behind it and is more uh, you know, stronger behind longevity than the other. Now, how do I use these? I personally use the sauna three times a week at a minimum. And when I miss my saunas, I miss my sauna. Like, it really emotionally is challenging. But, you know, I get a book. I like to read. It's a place where I'm not on my phone. I like to disengage from the world and, you know, get my sweat on, get my detoxification on, get my heart rate up, you know, and for people that are wanting to relax, it's very relaxing. Um, so I I I I play some music. And the sauna that I use is an inner light sauna. So it's it's a fourperson sauna. It's got a bench on one side, a bench on the other side. And when my wife and I are in it together, you know, she's laying down on one bench, I'm laying down on another. And our goal is my goal

06:00 is to get it as hot as I can. And the ambient temperature of the sauna really changes the the temperature inside the sauna. So, in the winter, we have ours in our garage. In our in the winter, the garage will get a little cooler and then the sauna doesn't get as hot. in the summer, it's like I'm I'm only able to do like, you know, 30 minutes of sauna. So, the research in Finland was done in steam sauna. Uh wasn't done in infrared sauna. However, they're both very beneficial. Um so, cold plunge, your goal is to do it for 12 minutes a week roughly. So if you do it for three minutes three times a week that is the protocol that I would recommend that gets the best benefits with cold plunge. I have found for myself and a lot of people um analesia forms after the first minute and minute and a half. So what ends up happening is as you're in the

07:00 cold plunge you're like oh my gosh I got to get out. I got to get out. I get out. Got to get out. And then the natural painkillers of the body, analesia, you know, flows throughout the body and you end up not feeling so so bad. So from from like a minute to the 3 minute mark, typically it's a lot easier than the first minute. So if you can get past the first minute, then you're good. And that's why I always push to getting the 3 minutes. And a little hack for cold plungers is you can if you're at a fivestar resort, just ask them to fill your tub with with ice. And so you just put in cold water at the end of the night, jump in there, and I typically I'll put on a timer for 3 minutes and that is like a really, really powerful cold plunge. So I cold plunge everywhere I travel. I just have the hotels do it. Now fourstar hotels typically will charge you. They'll be like, "Oh, well there's a service charge to that." I'm like, "How much is it?" They typically charge me anywhere from $20 to $100 to

08:00 fill the tub. Now, you know, if it's a $100, I'll do that for say an event that I'm speaking at, a longevity event that I'm putting on or that I'm speaking at. But if it's not, then, you know, I I'll I'll I'll be like, is it really worth $100 to do this tonight? So again, when I'm when I'm doing events, I actually have the tub filled with ice every single night and say it's a a 4-day event, I'll probably cold plunge three of the four days. And it is awesome. It helps you get a better sleep if you do it at night because it drops your body temperature. That's what you need to do to get into deep delta wave sleep. Um, and there's a lot of other benefits. So my final thoughts is that both have benefits. Both are amazing. Both are very transformative. They're different, right? But sauna takes the gold when it comes to a lot of the research that has been done uh as well as various results that that people get from it and the

09:00 ease of use of a sauna versus a cold plunge. You're going to get a lot more people to go into the sauna than into a cold plan. So, if you've liked this, please share it with your friends, your family, your loved ones, uh people that could get benefit from getting this information. Please subscribe as well. um and click that bell button and that will notify you of new content that comes out um that will give you even more cutting edge information. Longevity is moving at the speed of light right now and so you want to stay on the cutting edge of the information that is out there and I'm committed to to to helping you stay on that cutting edge. And I was just on a call with Dimmitri uh who runs longevity-book.com and longevity investment bank and longevity card and all these cool longevity businesses. And he's done a lot of research in Silicon Valley on what the future of longevity looks like. And man, it is changing so fast. So

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