Contrast therapy works because it gives the body a clear signal. Heat opens. Cold sharpens. The movement between them trains circulation, attention, and the nervous system’s ability to return to equilibrium.
Transcript grouped by minute marker. Each timestamp opens the source video at that moment.
Today on this episode of the brain surgeons take, we will be discussing the thermalist method, the first sciencebacked contrast therapy in the world with founder of the Soberg Institute, Dr. Susanna Soberg. Learn about this evidence-based regimen that utilizes cold, heat, and breath work to enhance health and resilience. It appears that creating controlled micro stress through these elements improves physical and mental well-being. much more on this podcast episode. Welcome back everyone. Here's my take on Dr. Susanna Soberg. There was no one better to guide us on a revolutionary approach to health, resilience, and mental clarity. The thermalist method, the first sciencebacked contrast therapy method in the world, is something Dr. Soberg developed and will discuss with us today. Dr. Soberg is a PhD researcher, best-selling author, and international speaker whose groundbreaking work has redefined our understanding of cold and heat exposure. She has spent years studying the human body's physiologic responses to temperature stress, not just in the lab, but in real life applications we can all use. Her method, known globally as the thermalist method, blends deliberate cold exposure with heat, like sauna use, and most importantly integrates natural recovery,
importantly integrates natural recovery, the often overlooked third element. It's not just about jumping into ice baths or sweating it out in the sauna. It's about timing, rhythm, and the science of stress adaptation. Whether you're an elite athlete, a biohacker, or just curious about optimizing your health naturally, Dr. Soberg's work offers a powerful evidence-based framework that is changing lives across the world. So, get ready to learn how contrast therapy can boost your metabolism, improve your mental resiliency, and bring your nervous system into balance. All backed by science and not just hype. Listen up as we discuss the Thermalis method, the first sciencebacked contrast therapy in the world. Check it out. Hey Susanna, how are you? Hi, I am good. Thank you for inviting me on your podcast. No, absolutely. I'm very excited to have you on. And I guess you're not only the ice queen, but you're also the fire queen. and your thermalist method uh looking at temperature extremes for wellness um is something that is scientifically proven and you were the founder of that entire thought process and I'm looking forward to hearing how you started the science behind the method and where we go from here. So welcome and really a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much. Let's dive in. Absolutely. Let's start with uh what
Absolutely. Let's start with uh what really inspired you to begin researching this contrast therapy and how did that lead to you developing the thermalist method? You know really what started this interest is the science and you are scientists too. So you know how your curiosity can really make the ballroom. I cannot take that serious. This is what are you talking about? This is just a regular coffee mug. There's nothing to see here. Can I do that again? Did you do that on purpose? No, that's is that's that's my coffee mug. Okay. Impossible to ignore. I would say good humor. So, I got into the research because I'm just I'm very curious and you know this as a professor that once you go down that road where you're just asking questions about the body and what is going on, you you it's like a train is just going. That's one thing. But what really actually started this curiosity for how we can stay healthy was because when I was 10 years old, my mom got type 2 diabetes. And a lot of people in her family has type 2 diabetes. So I got super scared because I was thinking, okay, so everyone in her family has type two diabetes. Mo many of them have died at this point. H and now she has it. So I got so scared and actually I took that curiosity about metabolism all since I was like a teenager and then I just
was like a teenager and then I just brought it into my adult life. So I have studied metabolism ever since I was in school. So when I reached uh the point where I was working in the hospital helping people patients and seeing that people could not really grasp how could it be that some people are healthy and some do come to the hospital to get operations and uh yeah some of them lose their leg because they have blood clots and they might be overweight they might not be there are so many factors involved. So I eventually got back to university because I wanted to study what is keeping us healthy. What is it that exactly makes us stay healthy and what is making us sick? And the thing about making us sick was already studied a lot. But I wanted to figure out what else but exercise is helping us. what is exactly the biological factors that are helping in exercise and how can we um determine if there are other things just like exercise that we can use in our everyday life. And fast forward forward to maybe 10 years ago when I then started this research in metabolism and uh cold and heat exposure, I found out that there was this magical tissue in the body that nobody really knows anything about called the brown fat. And I thought, wow, this is interesting. Nobody has really talked about it. So I was like, let's dive into that. So tell us a little bit about, you know, people have heard coal plunging and
people have heard coal plunging and sauna therapies, those have been around for a while, but how is the thermalist method different from just traditional coal plunging and traditional sauna use? Yeah. So you can say that the the thermalism method is built around my whole philosophy from and my experience, my science. So it's it's really sciencebacked method which you don't see out there. So it's different from what you see. Um and it's very important for me that you can say everything that I have learned and studied that it goes into something where we know well this is sciencebacked and it's proven and I've even tested it in the market. So we do also have some results based on also my experience from all the years studying this. It's not just a protocol. It's a whole way of thinking about health and thinking about stress and your life. And it's kind of like a rebellious way to say I refuse to let myself live under the conditions of this modern stressful technological world. So it's more than just you know this is the protocol. It's a philosophy that I'm giving to people. Um and I think the people who have already done it they say it's amazing. So that's the best comfort that I can get that it's not just you know publishing a paper but there's actually so much knowledge and I hope that there will be other scientists also putting out the whole knowledge package that they have because it's actually more than just a paper. It's just not a
more than just a paper. It's just not a protocol. It's a whole way of thinking about health. Let's get into the science and the research. What does the research say about the ideal duration and timing of cold and heat exposure? Yeah, so there are many different protocols for this and you can dive into one or the other, but the essential part of it I think is to find out how adapted you are first of all. Do your first dip. Find out if you can breathe through uh the cold shock response. So it's not necessary to stay in the cold water for that long. So a few minutes is actually enough to see any health benefits. So if you stay longer than that, it might be just a game of your mind, your competition self. It's not about health, I would say. So if you make your own measurements the first time, say, well, maybe I will stay for 30 seconds. Maybe you can breathe through that. Some people are more cold adapted and they can stay for those two minutes. For me, I would say my first few times was a screaming event. Um, and I think it took me like three times just to get through 20 seconds. So, it really varies from people to people. I was a cold already back then. So, it took me quite a while to get adapted to the code. And I don't think that I'm very different from anyone else. I'm just very comfortable and I don't want to be uncomfortable. So just like anybody else, I was just
just like anybody else, I was just living my life like the modern stressful world that we live in. And then I found out well actually there is another way to do this. And I found after getting adapted that I am definitely more stress free. I have it easier to calm myself down once I'm stressed or feel anxious or um so I kind of like learned my nervous system to use this painful cold to adapt to it and learn how to cope with that pain and that is exactly what we do. So when we go into the cold we are actually training our nervous system tolerate more pain or tolerate more stress. So we widen that window for stress. And I think this is very important in life. So it's not just about that one plunge. I know that if we you'll probably be seeing the haters out there wanting to say that oh co-plunching is not healthy for you. But it's actually not just about the acute effect which many also new reviews are coming out and just looking at some specific outcome which is not really making any difference because measuring short term on something very you can say important in life which is stress. You have to measure it on a long term and when you do that with cold exposure you do see that the stress levels go down. there there are measurements showing the cortisol levels, baseline levels, they go down when you do cold water exposure and you do that on a regular basis. So how much more do you actually need? Not
how much more do you actually need? Not a pill definitely. You just need to do the right modalities and that's that's why I went back to doing research to figure that out. Now, you really stress in your method the importance of natural uh recovery after cold exposure, and that's such a critical part of your entire method. Tell us what that means and why it's important to kind of recover naturally after that cold exposure. Yes. So one thing that I I learned along the way of uh yeah you can say studying people was also studying myself and figuring out how do one get adapted to the code uh and how is our brown fat activated and how can I use this extreme exposure to get the most out of it. Uh just like in exercise when you go to the gym, you really don't want to stop the gains if you can. You you know when you get home you you might have an after burn, right? You know that's exactly what you want. That's your metabolism still working. And if you don't jump right into the snack drawer, don't do that. um then you are feeding on uh your fat tissue and let your body starve a little bit after exercise. So the same goes with cold exposure and heat exposure. So once you get back you will be a little bit hungry. But what how you can really you can say increase that
can really you can say increase that calorie burning is by um letting your body heat up by itself. And that is if you do contrast therapy. Some people don't have a sauna and you can do this on different days that's okay. Um but if you are doing the contrast therapy ending on the cold meaning ending with the cold plunge and then dry off and go home that is it might be a little bit extreme for some but you can build this up. But if you do that, you would pretty quickly feel a difference in your um temperature tolerance or your temperature balance. Meaning that if you for example um a woman like me, I used to have cold hands all the time. I mean cold hands, cold feet, that was just Susanna all the time. But after I practiced just going home um after the winter swim, I I found out that my body had to increase the heat in the my body naturally and that means pushing the brown fat to accelerate uh calorie burning but also heat production and because we are adapted to the cold at this point and I I was at that point. So I also lose a lot of heat from my skin because the the you can say the vasid constriction and vasid dilation also got better. So I lose more heat. So I need to produce more heat. So my brown
I need to produce more heat. So my brown fat was really up and running at this point. So today or after a while of practicing ending on the cold to force my body to reheat naturally, I found out that my hands were getting warmer, my feets were getting warmer, and I don't need to wear a shirt all the time when going out. And the layers of clothing that I used to wear it, I have not done that since I became a winter swimmer myself. And that was kind of that was super liberating for me living in Denmark. It's a cold country. I can actually tolerate the cold and I don't feel it as com uncomfortable anymore. Um so I feel it was just a good way also to yeah just live. I mean I agree with you. I think when I started cold plunging and I let my body reheat, I felt like my basil metabolic rate just went through the roof. um in terms of like you said, your body has to work to rewarm itself as opposed to jumping into a hot shower and you burn calories through the rewarming. And so I think and that that increase in basil rate kind of goes on throughout the entire day which is great. You mentioned about cortisol and stress and cold plunging and how it helps you deal with stress and I 100% agree. tell us about how the cold exposure influences the parasympathetic nervous system and how that relates to stress. Yeah, I find this amazing. So, it's super difficult and
amazing. So, it's super difficult and one of the most difficult things for people today um is decreasing stress, chronic stress. So a little bit of acute stress sometimes going to the gym, drinking coffee or taking a cold lunch that is natural short amount of acute stress which is good for us. Um I just want to get that straight because stress is not just stress. There is good stress and bad stress but acute uh stress is good. Um but activating our parasympathetic part of our nervous system is one of the most difficult things um in this world because we don't have naturally a way to do it in our everyday life. We deliberately have to think about how to do it to bring it into our lives. Right? So activating our sympathetic part of our nervous system, our fight and flight system is something that we do all the time. But switching really to the the other side of our nervous system. So the relaxing part of it so we can digest uh better and we can rest better. That is something that is not really built into our everyday. So we need to figure out strategies to do that. That is also where I see that cold exposure can be a tool for that. So when you go into the cold you activate your parasympathetic part of your nervous system um because you are activating your diving reflex as well. you are especially if you splash some of water to your face, you will activate the vagus nerve. So there are different cues in the body that you can push or buttons
in the body that you can push or buttons you can push. So you will have that activation and that will make you more relaxed afterwards. So if you look to the science to see well do we actually have some proof that we activate the parasympathetic part of the nerve system. The proof is that we acutely can see after one ice bath or cold water bath then you will see heart rate being lower uh than the baseline or the baseline before the plunge. You will also see on the long term which we also found in my research that heart rate was lower in the group who did cold water immersion compared to the control group. You also saw and this is the best one I think that you saw that blood pressure was also lower in the winter swimmers compared to the control group and that is kind of like this I think one of the proofs that is the hardest one lowering your blood pressure is something that we want to see with for example exercise and that is also what we see but it's so difficult to do because you have to lower inflammation in the body you have to lower cholesterol levels you have to lower your uh increase your insulin sensitivity and get a better glucose balance and all those metabolic things. Those are they might not be measurable on the weight scale. You know what I mean? That's that's probably not the goal with it. The goal is to increase what I call the metabolic flexibility. How the body switch from using glucose
How the body switch from using glucose only to also h burning the fat in the body. And the better the body is at like switching quickly from one source to the other, the better it is. And learning the body to relax by activating the parasympathetic part of the nervous system is going to decrease stress and that's going to make your metabolic flexibility much better. Totally agree. I I hope it was not too complex. No. That makes total sense. I mean I guess if someone has zero science background it might be confusing but at the end of the day parasympathetic is your nervous system way of decreasing stress and cold exposure increases paras parasympathetic response so it decreases stress just to keep it super simple for our listeners but h how about the cognitive and emotional benefits this is something that I always find one of the most appealing parts of cold exposure for me but discuss how Cold exposure has not only cognitive but emotional benefits. You know, potentially anxiety, depression, all of these mental health disorders that are just running wild through our society. How can extreme temperature exposure help those? Those are good questions and I think exactly the mental health part of it is a nice I would say uh side effect of uh doing something physical. So if you want to get to your head and get in a better mood, uh let's keep it simple, then you need to do something physical. Uh it's
need to do something physical. Uh it's definitely the easiest way to do it. Actually, you cannot think yourself out of bad mood or uh think yourself out of stress. You have to do something active. And this is something the society today have to I think accept because it's still not accepted that getting better in your mental health is a physical thing. Go out do something physical and your mental health will follow because we are human beings and our body and mind are connected. So if you do something with your body your mind will follow. So for example, activating your nervous system and you can do that with cold or heat because those are the just the most potent ways to activate it and neurotransmitters in your brain will then increase those are noradrenaline and dopamine uh serotonin. So these neurotransmitters are there to help you survive this experience that you're going through. And what happens in the brain? Now you you asked me about emotions. So the theory around why your emotions change is because of that increase in neurotransmitters. You cannot really you cannot be in the same state of mind after a cold plunge from when you got into it. So you can only change because those neurotransmitters will change exactly the way you feel. Dopamine, nor adrenaline, serotonin
Dopamine, nor adrenaline, serotonin would change the way you your emotions then would would be afterwards. And this is tested, I think it's like two years ago, there was a study coming out where they scanned the brain uh before and after cold water immersion and found that the positive emotions were changed during uh the cold after the cold plunges. um the negative emotions were not but that might be because the negative emotions are like deeply felt or they I because they're still there the worries are still there but the positive thinking increases because those neurotransmitters have changed the way yeah your chemicals are in your brain so it might be that you still have your problems afterwards but the way you think about your problems might be with new eyes so to say um when you get out again you will definitely have a new way or another way of thinking thinking about life because you changed your brain chemicals and changing something physically in your body is there to help you change the way uh you you live. So it's an easy tool to do or to use to change your mind. you can say that. Yeah. Change your mind. Yeah. I mean, every time I get in the cold plunge, it's so horrific going in, but it's so amazing coming out. I always say every every day it's absolute torture, but um once you do it, you know that the hardest part of your day is done because it's really one of the hardest things you'll do in life is to voluntarily get into ice cold water, but the results are just tremendous. What about the evidence
tremendous. What about the evidence showing long-term immune benefits? I know that this data might not be so strong, but what kind of data is out there, and what do you believe are the immune benefits of cold water exposure? the immune benefits. Yeah, I think we need some more research really on the immune benefits of this. Um I think that we have some s what is that called surrogate outcomes that you can say well if for example you have uh reached a lower heart uh basal heart rate and blood pressure then that must be because you have decreased um uh the the pressure in your blood uh vessels for which the pump the heart has to pump harder or less hard to get the blood floating in your body. So if the pressure is not that hard or the the resistance that what I want to say if the resistance is lower because you have cleaned up inflammation then you could say lower blood pressure might be because there's less inflammation in the body and less resistant in your blood vessels. Otherwise why would the blood pressure go down the baseline? So this is what we have been looking at in research. If the blood pressure goes down, the inflammation markers um also goes down. You can see that in my research as well. We we see that uh white blood cells uh counts are lower.
white blood cells uh counts are lower. Um and when that is lower, it might be the result of less inflammation in the body. So, it's kind of like a negative feedback loop. So, it's been cleaned up the inflammation and you don't have to have that high activation of your immune system all the time because you cleaned up some of that um in inflammation in the body. So, I don't think that we have like the solid uh proof yet of everything that goes around the immune system. I think a solid study just for that that will be amazing. But we do have some surrogate measures that implicates that inflammation is definitely going down. So, and I mean I don't care what markers actually are going down. I care about that the outcome is there. If the blood pressure is low, that is one of the best outcomes that you can have for any intervention. Whether that is exercise, whether that is something else, if the blood pressure goes down, it's perfect. it's working because that means you are further away of getting modern lifestyle diseases such as heart diseases such as any mental uh diseases as well. So you want that to go down. Now I want to hear about your routine. I'll I'll first just tell you mine. I I do cold plunging. I don't have a sauna yet. Uh but cold plunging 39 degrees 5 minutes 4 days a week. Um it's rough. Uh I've been doing it now for two years but it's amazing. What what exactly is your
it's amazing. What what exactly is your routine? So here in Denmark, our temperatures varies a lot with season. So we are so lucky that we don't have to adjust anything. If I use nature, I'm just going to go with whatever the temperature says. So if it's freezing, let's say it's freezing, then I am not staying there for more than a couple of minutes top. And if it's like now, I think the temperature in the water is around 17 ° C, so it's quite warm, then I can stay there for quite a while. But if it gets below the 15 ° C, then I won't stay there for more than a couple of minutes because it's just not necessary. Uh, and how often do I go? Oh, it varies so much. If I go with I often go just with my husband. Um, and that might be once a week, but then sometimes we also go with some friends and our kids. So, it might be a couple more times, especially here in the summertime, we go more often, even though our temperatures are not that warm, but still warm enough so you can stay there for a few more minutes. What do you recommend for someone who's listening to this podcast who wants to start cold exposure? What what do you what temperature and how long do you recommend that they start with? So, I would always recommend that people start at 15 ° Celsius. You don't have to go colder than that. And try just to
go colder than that. And try just to breathe through the first 30 seconds. I mean, that's if they can't do that, I am I'm just super impressed. I I don't think that I've seen anyone being as bad as getting adapted as myself. So, I just have so much faith in all the other people in the world because if I can do it, they can do it. And if they don't want to do it, I I almost should have taped that. I think we have a recording of me like screaming so the whole Copenhagen could hear it. It was so insane. It almost sound criminal. It was not great. Um, but I want to say go slow and don't dunk your head and always go with a friend. Never go alone. Could not agree more. I I um I also want to echo the emphasis on breathing. Uh you got to take deep continuous breaths to kind of help you get through that initial shock. How cold is 15 ° C in terms of Fahrenheit? What I do you know what the conversion is? What is that? Well, we can calculate it later, but I was 76. Let's calculate it. Where's my Oh, I'm on my phone here. You have to calculate it. Lord, hold on one second. How cold in Fahrenheit is 15 ° C? 88. No, hold on. No, 70. So 70. Oh, I said 76. It was close. It's close. But yeah, so why do you
It's close. But yeah, so why do you think that I mean currently there is such a a focus on contrast therapy where I feel like it wasn't this way 10 years ago throughout the world? I know that you come from a Scandinavian country where this is part of your way of life for the last several hundred years. Why do you feel like this contrast therapy is really resonating globally? Um I think it's because of a need. This need started many years ago, but I think because of COVID, this really pushed it. Um, what was already really wrong before CO really got a push in the bad direction once that hit us all. Um, that was bad. The lockdowns, all the you can say all people who were feeling lonely got even more lonely. People who are not lonely, they got lonely. Uh so we can see from um uh the ratings on stress that people who uh were not stressed they are now stressed and they cannot get out of it and people are getting more severe depressions. So because of COVID we still have the after effects of that and it's going to last for many many years. So I think co had um a a really profound effect on finding new ways to take care of ourselves. people have realized that sick system that is going to help us is sick care system is not going to help us once we are unless we are actually getting sick and none of
we are actually getting sick and none of us wants to wait until we are sick so I think people are just realizing that and um co definitely pushed that our health care system is only taking care of the sick and I think it's good that we have that system, but we also need a a better system to help people understand how do we actually keep ourself healthy. But as the system also really makes it clear at this moment where they have been working like this for so many decades now that they are not willing to give up on the sick care system because that's also what makes money that makes our world go around and making people aware of how to stay healthy is definitely working against the system. So that is what I have faced and I'm up against but I'm not up against it but I feel that there are many ways that you should be able to uh have both systems running but it's not embraced. I couldn't agree more 100%. H how do you see the thermalist method evolving as your research progresses over the next several years? I mean I we are just getting started. So I think this is amazing. This has given me a way to be true to my passion about helping people stay healthy and going this way down the route of the thermalist that's just
route of the thermalist that's just going to help so many more people. We are going to get more data on all our journeys and we are going to see how much it's going to help people. So hardcore data on how these are performing that's going to be the next level and I know it's just going to help so many people and I cannot just cannot wait to tell you more about that. But that's that's it for now. Yeah. I mean obviously your passion for your work is just it's it's palpable and it's such a it's so clear and it resonates and I think that helps a lot of people buy into the thermalist method. If our listeners could only take away one lesson from your work, what would it be? One lesson from my work would be to see cold and heat exposure as something higher than just the modalities. There is a whole way of thinking about this into your life with the goal of keeping yourself healthy for a longer and better life and happier life. That's a beautiful way to say it. Listen, Susanna, I know you got to run. Uh, I want to say what a terrific interview. Just take-home points for our listeners. Uh, as someone who has been doing cold plunging now for a lot less than you, but only about 2 years, it is a terrific way to deal with the craziness of the world. Uh, we all live in a crazy society. Stress is coming to all of us from every single angle. And for me, what cold exposure does, you can discuss all the physiologic benefits
discuss all the physiologic benefits that are true, but for me, it's all right here. It's all mental. And it's about facing the challenge of voluntarily getting into cold water. And it's mind over matter. And it's exercising your mind. And I always say that if you can discipline yourself to get into ice cold water every single morning, you can discipline yourself to do anything you want in this world. because that is one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. So, uh those are the take-home points and thank you for spreading the science and educating people on the benefits of cold and heat exposure and obviously I wish you the best of luck and your group just major kudos for all the work you've done. Thank you so much. That beautiful set. I love that. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. And we have to get you one of these mugs. Oh, we have to get you one of these mugs because when you do podcasts, you have to get one of yourself. Maybe that's what you got to do. I have to do that. Definitely. It was such a funny idea. Love that. Thank you, Rob. It's a pleasure. Um, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend and again, thank you for your time and thanks for pushing this whole thermalist method. You're welcome. Have a nice weekend. Bye-bye. Take care. [Music]
Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.
Dr. Susanna Søberg: The Thermalist Method - the first science backed contrast therapy offers a useful lens on how modern recovery is changing: less performance theatre, more deliberate practice. The details vary, but the principle is steady. The body adapts when the signal is clear and the dose is respectful.
35 minute conversation 3 core levers: breath, temperature, attention 1 repeatable practice: return to equilibrium
Cold and heat are deliberate stressors. In the right dose, they ask the body to adapt without overwhelming it. That is the essence of hormesis: a measured challenge that leaves the system more capable.
Sauna (more on this here) softens the body. Blood vessels widen, heart rate rises, and the nervous system begins to release its grip. The experience can feel quiet, but the physiology is active.
Cold exposure narrows attention quickly. Breath becomes the anchor. The practice is not endurance for its own sake. It is the ability to remain organized while the body receives a strong signal.
A strong protocol is not a dare. It is a design. Temperature, duration, and sequence matter because the goal is adaptation, not depletion.
The pause is part of the performance. A measured stressor only serves you when recovery is built into the design.
Keep the first dose modest enough that your breath remains controlled.
Pair intensity with recovery. Heat, cold, and stillness all have a role.
Track how you feel afterward, not only what you endured during the session.
