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Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
This episode is sponsored by BiOptimizers. I love all of their products and I have been mega-dosing their masszymes for a variety of reasons. But today I want to talk specifically about Magnesium Breakthrough because you might’ve heard me talk about or write about magnesium before. And once I started taking Magnesium Breakthrough, my sleep completely changed and I wake up feeling so energized. It also helps me wind down at night, although I am one of the weird ones that I prefer to take magnesium in the morning and find it really supports my sleep when I do. And here’s why this one’s different. Other forms of magnesium might only be giving you one or two types of magnesium. But Magnesium Breakthrough contains all seven forms designed to calm your mind and help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. And over 75% of the population is magnesium deficient. And this is important because magnesium is vital for hundreds of enzymatic reactions in the body. And what most people don’t know is that even if we’re taking a magnesium supplement, we can still be deficient because we’re not getting all of the forms. And Magnesium Breakthrough is the easiest way I found to get all seven forms in one supplement. So not only does it help me sleep better and calm my mind and body and stay relaxed during the day, it also helps me to have better digestion to recover quicker from exercise. And magnesium is well studied to also support bone density. Most magnesium supplements are ineffective because they only contain a couple forms. And Magnesium Breakthrough is unique in that it contains all seven forms. And I noticed a big difference from this one. For an exclusive offer just for Wellness Mama listeners, go to bioptimizers.com/wellnessmama. Your brain and body will thank you. And if you use the code wellnessmama during checkout, you will save 10%.
This podcast is brought to you by Jigsaw Health, who you might have heard me talk about before. But today I want to talk about their new collagen. And in my house, we go through a lot of collagen. I consume quite a bit for keeping my joints and tendons healthy as I get older and work out a whole lot. And also for the potential anti-aging benefits as I’m now aware of this as I get older. Theirs is really cool and unique because it uses three clinically tested bioactive collagen peptides that are clinically tested to promote the growth and healing of new cartilage. They’re clinically tested to support mobility in healthy individuals. They’re clinically tested to have a positive influence on cartilage tissue regeneration, bone density, and to stimulate healthy skin metabolism and promote firmer and smoother skin, which is one of the benefits I’m after. And they’re clinically tested to promote growth and health of fingernails, which I noticed very rapidly when I started increasing my collagen production. I love that theirs is unflavored and dissolves really easily. So it’s easy to put into almost any food or drink or even my morning coffee. And it has 17 grams of protein per serving. It’s of course grass fed, and it includes hyaluronic acid, which we’re seeing increasing studies talk about from an anti-aging perspective. I keep a canister of it in my kitchen and my kids will add to smoothies or to food. I add it to most drinks that I consume. And you can find out more or get your own by going to wellnessmama.com/go/jigsawcollagen.
Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com, and this episode is about the benefits of deliberate cold exposure, and in particular, how today’s guest healed multiple autoimmune conditions through deliberate cold exposure and is now incredibly passionate about helping others do the same. Adrienne Jezick is a health enthusiast and entrepreneur who transformed her life through cold exposure. She was diagnosed with three autoimmune conditions in 2012, including Hashimoto’s, and sought to improve her health naturally. Her journey led her to uncover the power of ice baths, which enabled her to reverse all traces of her autoimmune conditions and remove the need for all of her prescription medications. We talk about her experience with this today, as well as some easy at-home ways that you can start to get the benefits of cold exposure, even if you don’t have an ice bath at your house, as well as ways you can DIY them, the best options if you want to actually just purchase a pre-made one. We talk about the medical and health benefits of how cold exposure impacts the body and her incredible story of resolution of autoimmune disease. So let’s join Adrienne. Adrienne, welcome. Thanks so much for being here.
Adrienne: Thank you so much for having me, Katie.
Katie: I’m excited for our topic today because I will admit I myself have been resistant to cold in the past, cold exposure. And it’s one of those areas of health that I knew about and sort of avoided for a long time. And I think your expertise and especially your story really highlight the powerful potential of this. And I am excited to delve into that and also into maybe overcoming some of the resistance that people have to trying cold, to making it a habit. And I think for context, the perfect place to start, if you’re willing, is for you to kind of share your story and how you came to learn about and integrate deliberate cold exposure. And what, because from knowing you a little bit in person, this had profound results for you. So I would love for you to walk us through your story.
Adrienne: Well, I’d like to say I definitely didn’t come to it willingly. So in my early 30s, I was diagnosed with three separate autoimmune conditions, Hashimoto’s, thyroiditis, eosinophilic esophagitis, and urticaria. And through my journey with these autoimmune diseases, I continued to see different specialists and continued to get prescribed prescription medications. And at the height of my illness, I was taking more than 20 plus prescriptions, vitamins, pills, supplements daily. And then also two live antibody shots per month for my allergist.
And the problem is, is even with all of these medications, is I really wasn’t feeling better. Nothing was really giving me symptom relief. And, you know, as time went on, I just became more and more sick. I was so tired that I was losing, you know, social connection. I was losing my ability to just keep up with my kids. I was losing my ability to just show up in my life and in the world. So when I was introduced to cold exposure, it was sort of a last resort. I have never been one to like the cold. Even six years into this practice, I prefer heat. But if given one healing modality for the entire rest of my life, I would choose cold hands down.
So when I got into the cold, like I said, it was a last resort. I would have at that point in time tried anything. Now, I grew up in Florida. I lived in Hawaii. Summertime is my favorite time of year. And the cold was not my friend, especially with Hashimoto’s. Because with Hashimoto’s, your body struggles to regulate internally against external temperatures. So cold would feel like pain. Heat would feel like suffocation. And my body just couldn’t kind of respond to extreme external temperature. So I was convinced that the cold couldn’t be for me because I had a card-carrying disease that said my body couldn’t tolerate cold. And doctors will tell you, like, oh, that’s a struggle for you? Don’t do it. Just don’t do it.
But I was so at my wit’s end. And everything that I was learning was pointing to cold as a healing modality. And I thought, well, two minutes, I can do this. Like, I can give it a try at least. And my ex-husband, God bless him, Jason, just kind of set it up in our backyard one day and was like, I’m going to do this. He’s like, you don’t have to do this. But I’m going to do this. I’m going to invite our friends over. We’re going to have a whole experience. And so this was November 5th or 6th, 2017. Now, hear me being competitive like I am, I’m like, I’m going to do this. So I put one foot on either side of the tub. I put one hand on either side of the tub. I dropped myself into the freezing cold water violently, held my breath. Turns out that lasted about nine seconds before I left out and I freaked out. And I right away there were two things that happened that said like, this is I was definitely going to do this again. Like not that day. But I was definitely going to do this again.
And the first was that the chronic pain I had in my legs for nearly a decade was completely gone. And that’s insane. Like anyone who lives with chronic pain can tell you they do just about anything for a moment’s relief. And now this was not a drug-induced reduction of pain. This was just cold shock to the system, no pain in my legs. And the second thing that happened was this sense of empowerment. After being sick for years and going through, you know, elimination, food regimens, and getting rid of this and getting rid of that, being told I can’t do this and I can’t do that. All of a sudden, this was something I could do. And so I had this sense of empowerment, like, wow, of all the things I’m being told not to do, all the things I can’t do, this is something I just did. And that’s a hilarious video too. If you guys want to Google Adrienne’s first ice bath, it’s out there. It’s fantastic.
And I started doing it pretty regularly because those effects last for hours. And then sometimes for days. And then when you develop as a regular practice, you are retraining your body and brain how to properly show up, how to operate functionally. So in less than two years from that very first ice bath, by August of 2019, I went into my endocrinologist for my labs and got a completely clean bill of health. And she just said, oh, this is within range. We’re going to keep doing this. This looks normal. We’re going to keep, you know, we’re going to keep you on this regimen that you’re on because this is really good. Everything’s looking really good. And I’m like, well, guess what? I haven’t taken any prescription medication in four months. And she’s like, what are you doing? And so I told her, I was like, I’m doing deliberate cold exposure. And she’s like, that’s cool. That’s so fantastic. She like writes it down in her file. And she’s like, I hope I never have to see you again.
And at first I was like really excited. I’m like, yeah, I hope I never have to see you again too. And then I walk out of her office and I go through the waiting room and I see about a dozen other people, overweight, unhealthy, stuck in the system. And I realize she’s not going to tell anyone about this. She’s not going to tell anyone that I just did the impossible. I just cured the incurable. I’m not even legally supposed to say I cured it. I’m supposed to say I reversed it. But all I have to say is it’s been years now and I don’t take prescription medication. So what do you call that?
And I realized at that point in time, since she’s not going to tell anyone about it, I have to. And so I’ve taken it on as my own personal mission in life to share the healing benefits of the cold with anyone who will listen. So thank you for having me on today and giving me a platform to help achieve my highest and greatest mission.
Katie: Well, I just, I love your story. And I think, like I said, for women, especially, this is such an important topic to talk about because it’s one of those things like you seem like you had this experience. I did as well. Like I’ll do the red light, I’ll do the sauna, but I don’t want to do the cold. And then you had these profound benefits. And I resonate so much with parts of your story because I also used to have Hashimoto’s and like you, they tell you it’s only in remission. It can never be fully gone. And I’m like, well, I don’t take anything and everything is completely in range and normal and I feel great. So like you, I’m like, I consider myself no longer having Hashimoto’s and don’t use that word anymore. But I think there’s just so much hope in that story.
And like you, I also had that feeling of empowerment of when I finally faced the cold and made it part of my routine of how difficult it is, but then how empowered you feel after. And I think that’s one thing we miss sometimes in modern society is the opportunity to face the edges of our comfort zone, especially in a safe way that’s beneficial and to feel what it feels like to push through that or to feel that resistance and not want to do it and feel that doing it anyway. With my kids, we have the motto, you are made to do hard things and they challenge each other. They actually are better at ice baths than I am. But I love that you talked about the mindset side of that as well. And I would guess some people listening had no idea that cold exposure could have this much of a profound benefit. Can you share a little bit about the science or some of the mechanisms that we know about by how this is able to create such a powerful effect?
Adrienne: Yeah, well, for one, I think it’s really important to meet the cold with a calm mindset and with intention. I feel like whatever emotion I meet the cold with is going to be enhanced in the water. And I really make it a point to set an intention. I also created a sensory immersive mindful meditation for approaching the cold with that calm mindset. And then being able to respond to that fight or flight response that’s activated in an ice bath with that calm sensory immersive type of intentional mindset and meditation.
And what I’ve discovered is that in two minutes, you can completely reset your brain and your body. When you are submerged below 35 degrees, submerged all the way up to the neck with your hands and your feet in, there are so many different things that are happening in your body. For one, you’re getting an increase of norepinephrine and dopamine by over 500%. So you are smoothing over hardwired neural pathways that have been formed from a place of stress or trauma, and you’re replacing them with tens of thousands of new neural pathways formed from a place of meditative calm while producing copious amounts of norepinephrine and dopamine. So I believe the first reason that ice baths contribute so widely to our health is that the first thing they do is they change the way we think about what we’re going through. It helped me move from that victim mindset of like, there’s nothing I did to get this. There’s nothing I can do to prevent it. You know, there’s nothing. This is not my fault, and this is just my lot in life. Help me move from that victim mindset into this empowerment mindset that I am responsible.
The other thing I think that is happening is like, I think of autoimmune as like a dog without a job. If you don’t take your dog on walks and you don’t get it exercised, you don’t get it out of the house, it’s going to destroy your home. When I started taking ice baths, all of a sudden, I was giving the dog a job. I was creating this external experience for my internal body to build resilience. And when I had autoimmune, it was my body attacking itself. So it’s the smartest possible computer we have, and it’s all misfiring. And when I started introducing ice baths, I was giving it a job. All of a sudden, instead of attacking me internally, my body’s like, wait, what? She’s trying to kill us. We got to stay alive. And it’s going, it’s facing what’s external. It’s facing that external resilience that I’m introducing.
I’m also, because I’m producing all that norepinephrine and dopamine, those effects lasting for hours, sometimes days, I’m changing the way I respond to stress. So now, instead of being stressed out about what I can’t do, instead of being stressed out about chronic pain, I now have this tool that’s helping increase my resilience for any type of stressful experience. So I become more responsive rather than reactive. You’re also doing a lymphatic flush. So when you get into an ice bath, again, I believe in below 35 degrees. I think any amount of cold is a good amount of cold. Anytime you’re uncomfortable, you’re doing the work. But I believe if you’re looking for metabolic change, that below 35 degrees is optimal because you want to activate fight or flight. You want to put the body into that extreme state so that you can calmly move through it.
Now, people will say, well, I have adrenal fatigue or, you know, my cortisol levels are through the roof and I don’t want to exacerbate that. The cortisol, the spike in your cortisol happens before you step in. Not while you’re in. While you’re in, everything levels out. Everything starts to come online. But right before you get in, and this is even me six years in, I stand at that stand outside that ice bath. I question my entire existence and why I’m doing this. But that’s when you get the spike in adrenaline and cortisol. And so this is why I developed the Morozko method, which is that sensory immersive, mindful meditation that you can walk yourself through before stepping into the water. So you step into the water calm with mindful intention.
And then when you do sit fully down and that fight or flight response is activated, you respond to it in kind. So that’s only going to last about 30 to 45 seconds. And you calmly breathe through it, knowing that this is what cold feels like. Giving yourself a frame or a reference point for this physical sensation that most of us have never experienced. Most of us have never experienced this level of cold. And guess what? It’s just cold water. We treat it like this extreme thing. But the truth is, our bodies are designed to have this experience. It’s only very recent that the Industrial Revolution came along and we could climate control every single room in our lives, whether we’re in the car, whether we’re in the garage, in the office, wherever we go, we’re in climate controlled environments. But when we are constantly introducing ourselves to that level of comfort, we are not giving ourselves the ability to build the resistance to extreme temperature shift. And our bodies are made for that.
Katie: Such a good explanation. And I noticed that as well, because in the past, I would have classified myself as someone who I would say wasn’t good at meditation, or I always had trouble with what I thought meditation was supposed to be. And I felt like I could never quiet my mind. And one thing I noticed immediately in the cold was that it takes your focus and you have to center on your breath to be able to stay in. And so it was one of the few times I found it easy to quiet my mind and to just be present in my body, which I think that alone has such tremendous benefit. And I’ve been learning from you and from so many sources on things like the breathwork side and how that can make it so much more pleasant in the experience when you actually learn how to breathe correctly. But I started off, I would play “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga because it was five minutes long, and that’s how long I was trying to stay. And the funny part is now, if I hear that song, I will get goosebumps, even if I’m not in the cold, because it’s such a trained response now.
But I also think back to when I visited Finland years ago, and they have their babies in little strollers, and they leave them outside the coffee shop when the moms are inside having coffee, and they have this belief that if they’re exposed to the elements and exposed to the temperatures from a young age, it’s actually a healthy, adaptive response for them. And it makes their immune system stronger versus here, we often tell our kids to bundle up and have them avoid the cold because we don’t want them to feel uncomfortable. But it really helped me reframe how we think about temperature extremes. And I feel like people are more accepting of the sauna and we understand the benefits of getting hot. But those same things apply, like you talked about, to getting cold as well. And so I love that balance. Can you speak a little bit to, like, I’ve always thought of sort of almost separate categories of cold exposure on its own, sauna on its own. And then if we do contrast therapy, it’s almost like a whole different category because some of the benefits are different. Some are similar. Can you explain your kind of theory on that or how to integrate if you’re going to do sauna as well? What’s the best way to do that?
Adrienne: Well, one thing that I’ve learned is start on cold and on cold. And this is because we do a lot of things that warm the body. There are very few things we do that cool the body. And, you know, people say, oh, I do the cryo or, you know, I live in Wyoming in winters, it gets really cold. Cold air is different than cold water. Cold air is going to have an impact on the surface of your skin. Whereas cold water, I think of as like cold concentrate. That’s going to affect your internal system. That’s going to affect your core body temperature.
And so, first of all, start slow. Everyone’s like, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes, or if I feel great at two minutes, I’m going to feel like Superman at 10 minutes. And the truth is, this is a minimum effective dose practice. It’s not about how long you can stay in. It’s about how calm can you breathe through the amount of time that you are staying in. And when it comes to contrast therapies, it’s really important not to rely on the cold to cool you off post-heat or rely on the heat to warm you up post-cold. Cold exposure is going to provide a vasoconstrictive experience. So that’s going to be the shrinking of your vascular system. So especially in your hands and your feet, it’s going to like squeeze like a tube of toothpaste from your hands, your feet first, bringing all that blood rushing to your internal organs to keep the internal core body around your organs warm. While it’s doing that, you’re also going through an extreme detox process.
But this is also good for our vascular system in that you get like a full push-up experience. So if we only ever lift on a push-up, we’re never going to build a bicep. We need to lift and go down. We need to go both motions in order to properly build a bicep. So to keep our vascular system healthy, same thing. We need extreme heat and we need extreme cold. Now extreme cold is going to constrict. Extreme heat is going to expand. However, if you’re in a hot tub like a jacuzzi or a hot bath, you’re also going to experience some constriction. The constriction of cold is more effective than the constriction in heat. So you’re going to get a little bit more boost from that constriction of cold. So keep that in mind if you’re going from ice bath to hot tub versus ice bath to sauna.
Now, when we go back and forth, it’s great to have these things independent of themselves. But keep in mind, too, you are detoxifying. When you’re sweating in the sauna and when you’re going through the cold, you are detoxifying your body. So if you’re doing a practice like this and you’re new to it, make sure you have proper supplement support. Make sure you’re getting your magnesium, your zinc, your electrolytes. And we don’t need fancy electrolytes drinks to do this. You can do it through salt, lemon, honey, things that are very natural. I like to think of things that are just one ingredient foods, not these, like, I’m not a fan. If I can’t read the ingredients, I’m not putting it in my body. Period. Point blank. Except for French fries. Don’t judge.
And when you’re thinking of doing a practice like this, it’s totally fine to space it out. Maybe you start your day with the cold because that wakes you up and it gets you prepared for your day. And you end the day with heat because it’s really nice right before you go to bed. Also, if you’re suffering from something like insomnia, nothing wrong with doing an ice bath about two hours before bed. It’s going to give you that little bit of a spike. You’re going to level off. Your body will still be a little bit cold while you go to sleep. And that can be very optimal for sleeping.
So keeping in mind, too, especially if you’re new to any type of cold or heat practice, you could feel very tired, especially your first few times of taking an ice bath. You could just feel like you need the longest, hardest nap of your life. And so, you know, check in with yourself. Make sure you’re leaving space around these things to see what your body needs.
I also think that it’s important when you’re doing a contrast session, so you’re going back and forth hot to cold, give yourself about three-ish minutes in between each modality. Let your body do the work. When you get out of the cold, those cold shock proteins are active. You want them to be active. And when you get into the heat and you start to warm up, you’re going to switch into the heat shock proteins, but they’re each beneficial for different reasons. And so I love a good contrast practice. And I think it really depends on how much time do you have? Where does it fit into your life? Because each person’s practice can be totally different and you can kind of make it to where it fits your lifestyle. So I’m a big fan of a contrast practice. And I think there are many different ways that we can go about that to suit our lifestyle, our schedules, and what we’re physically capable of.
Katie: I love that. And I’ll include some links in the show notes for the electrolyte side that you mentioned, because I’ve noticed a difference just from adding salt to my water. And I had a podcast guest explain that, but it’s amazing how if we don’t have those electrolytes, how much better we feel when we get them. And I feel like you said, especially if you’re adding in cold practice or heat practice, you want to pay attention to that factor as well.
Also that point about being tired after is so important. I noticed that a lot when I started sauna and after cold as well. And it makes sense because of all those reactions you explained and how the body’s detoxing and the lymphatic system is moving. And those are great. I feel like that post-sauna cold just zen is such a wonderful feeling, but a good reminder to make time for that. So you don’t have to go rush back to life immediately after and fight through that tiredness.
What would you say is the minimum effective dose if somebody wanted to start getting the benefits of cold exposure and still maybe felt that, but I don’t like it. I don’t want to do it. What is the minimum effective dose for someone to start off to really just see those effects start for them.
Adrienne: Well, you know, I don’t like working out, but I do it because what it does for my body. You know, I still, like I said, six years into this practice, I don’t love the cold. The cold is not my first choice. I love to be hot. However, I’m going for that high impact in the shortest amount of time possible. So you can have effects with cold, like I said, at any temperature that makes you uncomfortable. Anytime you notice you’re cold and it’s uncomfortable for you, create a practice of breathing into your belly and accepting it, finding relaxation in that discomfort.
I also think it’s important to, to keep in mind if you can get it any which way. So you can start with just an ice cube on the interior of your wrist, and that’s going to have an impact. If you’re in an emotional state or an anxious state, you can put an ice cube on your wrist and that’s going to help calm you down in that state. There is a reason that we are told to, if we’re upset, go splash your face with some water. When we splash our face with water, we are activating the body’s mammalian dive response. You can read about this in the book by Wallace J. Nichols, Blue Mind. It’s a fantastic read. If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend it. But you’re activating the body’s dive response, which is also going to calm everything down.
Now you can take that up a notch and make it freezing cold water. So fill a large bowl of ice, add water, dunk your face three to five times for about five to seven seconds, five to 10 seconds. Dunk your hands three to five times. Dunk your feet three to five times. Do it in that order. So you’re not getting foot water on your face. Or, you know, whatever you’re into. But that’s also a practice that can be done in a hotel room or when you’re traveling or at home if you don’t have an ice bath.
Nature is another really great place to get your cold exposure. Now again, people say 55 degrees. People say, you know, I love to stay below 35 degrees. For me, if you’re coming to see me and it’s your very first ice bath, it’s going to be about 33 degrees. You’re going in all the way up to your neck. You’re going in for two minutes. And guess what? You’re going to be just fine. You’re going to feel fantastic on the other side, especially if you’re choosing that Morozko Method Mindful Meditation first to put you in the right mindset for the experience. But you can go into nature. Nature is fantastic for cold water. You’re also getting the benefits of grounding, the mineral content of whatever body of water you’re in.
I just recommend if you’re going in nature and you’re new to the practice, first of all, bring a friend. Make sure people know where you are. Make sure you don’t go in any deeper than the waist because you can always sit down in the water. But you don’t want to be floating out into the water and then everything in your body is slowing down and then it’d be difficult to use your motor skills to get out. So no deeper than waist and just kind of crouch down into the water. Have an exit strategy. If you are in nature and there’s snow on the banks and that water is moving, keep in mind it could be below 32 degrees. So rushing water in nature when it’s snowing outside can be like 27, 26 degrees. So be aware of that.
Having an exit strategy means that you have a way to change into warm, dry clothes. Hopefully not too many buttons or zippers because your fingers will struggle to move. And having an exit strategy of where are you going from that body of water to your next warm space. Not on a motorcycle. Again, using those motor skills or even a bicycle, using those motor skills. Having a car where you can heat it up. Not a 300-yard walk back to a farmhouse after you’ve taken an ice bath in the river when it’s snowing outside. So keeping things like that in mind.
You can also find a local facility. There are all kinds of facilities popping up everywhere with wellness. They’ve got hot, they’ve got cold practices. Katie’s opening one too that I can’t wait to visit, the Florida Panhandle. So thinking of different ways. And you can just get a big container, fill it with a bunch of ice in your backyard and invite your friends. If you’re doing it that way, understand you’re going to need 300 pounds of ice. I think it’s real cute when people are like, I got 60 pounds worth of ice and I put it in my bathtub. Cute. What’d that do for you? Probably not much. Even if you were a little uncomfortable. So if you are going to do the DIY at-home ice bath in your bathtub or in a container, make sure you’ve got about 250 to 300 pounds of ice. You want it to be like all ice. Then add water. Because you want to activate that fight or flight experience.
So if you’re new to this practice, there are all different levels that you can start at. I say go full force. Start at 33 degrees. Turn on one of my meditations from YouTube or Insight Timer or Spotify. I’ll walk you right through it. I think why wait? And if we’re going to do two minutes for a full body reset, why not go for that cold concentrate? Why not go for that coldest possible way that you can do it? Just change your mindset about how you’re going to approach it and understand it might be uncomfortable. But this is what cold feels like. And just like we train ourselves with anything else, we can train ourselves through the discomfort of cold.
Katie: So true. And for anybody who hasn’t tried the cold, just the face dunk, even with ice water, I would encourage you guys to try that today. Cause I have found in the morning, if I’m like dragging a little bit or the kids woke me up and I didn’t get enough sleep, a few face dunks in literally just a bowl of water in my kitchen gives me that dopamine rush, that like feeling of energy. I really feel like it also helps with overwhelm. So if I’m having a stressful day, I’ll sometimes do that. And it’s incredible how much different you feel. And to your point, if you’re dunking your face, your hands and your feet, you’re targeting those most glabrous regions, which we know can actually transfer that cool more effectively. And so you can kind of get some of those baby benefits, even if you don’t have the ability to do a cold plunge right away.
You mentioned the water colder than 32 degrees. And I’ve had that experience once actually, when I was in Finland and we went from a 210-degree sauna, and then they had a river that they had cut a hole in the ice and you went down steps and held onto a rope. And my goal was to stay for one minute and I did it. It was extremely tough to mentally stay in there that long. And your hands kind of freeze to the rope while you’re trying to hold on. But it was such a rush after, and it was my only experience with sub-freezing water, but absolutely incredible.
And you touched a little bit on ways people can do this at home, even if, you know, really fancy cold plunges out of the budget. I would love to go a little deeper on that and kind of maybe give your gold standard best recommendations that people can do at home. Are the DIY freezer options worth doing? Do they even get cold enough? Kind of where are the good starting entry points for this if budget is a factor for people.
Adrienne: Well, if you’re really, if you’re doing that starting entry budget thing, but you really want an ice bath, then yeah, gather a group of friends together, get yourself a Rubbermaid container and just make sure everybody brings like 40 pounds of ice together. And then you can get like, you know, between five and 10 based on your external to air temperature and the temperature of your water, you can get about a five to 10, three-to-five-minute ice baths. And so that’s really like a great way to do it.
You can do a cold shower. I hate cold showers. I would rather sit calmly and 33 degrees than be locally pelted with any temperature, like any cold temperature. But if you are doing a cold shower, make sure you’re rotating the body. And again, just approaching it with that calm mindset.
You can do the DIY chest freezer. We did a beautiful podcast with Adrian Grenier with his Earth Speak group, explaining how to set up a DIY ice bath using a chest freezer. Now those will make ice. Filtration can be a little, you know, tricky. So we’ve got the filtration instructions on there too. And you can feel a little uncomfortable. Keeping in mind, they are not designed to hold that type of weight in the water or you stepping in and out. So it’s not a long-term solution, but if you’ve only got about a thousand dollars or a little less, that could be a great solution for you to get into this practice and really see for yourself, is this going to be a daily practice or a near daily practice? I don’t actually believe in doing anything every day except for breathing. So I don’t take daily ice baths, but you know, you may find, you know, I do this often enough that it’s worth it to invest five to 10,000 on a product for myself to use at home, but make sure that you’re really into it first.
And you can, you can have, you know, once you graduate from that ice, you know, ice chest freezer experience, you can go into one of the products that are out there. The Morozko Forge ice bath, we were the first in the industry for the at-home users. So we created this beautiful space of 24/7 cold. This machine makes its own ice. You set it and forget it with the digital temperature controller. You fill it with water, you plug it in. It is ready to go at your desired temperature at any given time. You can have ice building settings or not based on your choice. It also has full micron filtration with ozone disinfection. So you’re not using any harsh chemicals to keep that water clean, which was also really important for me when I first got into this, because I was so sick, I did not want to be sitting in a vat of chlorine or algaecide or de-scummers. So it was really important for us to create a product that did not require any type of harsh chemicals. So I still believe that the Morozko Forge is the Rolls Royce, the Bentley, the Lamborghini of ice baths. I think it is just top notch. It’s also a little on the pricier side. So if that’s not your jam, there are other products out there that won’t get quite as cold, but they will do the trick and you can always add some ice to whatever those products are.
Katie: I love that you said you don’t even ice bath every day because this is something I say occasionally on here is the body’s meant to adapt and to have room to adapt. So I’m like you. I don’t do any practice every day. I don’t take supplements every day. I don’t even eat every day. I sometimes fast. I think our bodies, when given the chance, are incredibly adaptable and we have to give them the space to do that.
I also loved your tip about if budgets are concerned, do this with friends because I think the added benefit there is you’re getting the community aspect. To me, it’s easier if people are watching actually to get in and stay in because there’s that social element. But I also think, and I haven’t seen data to back this up, but I have a strong theory that we try to hyper-focus on all these things from the Blue Zones studies and like maybe it’s their diet, maybe it’s their walking, maybe it’s their whatever. And I’m like maybe it’s the fact that they do those things in community. That’s a very strong common factor in Blue Zones. And so when we can do things together, I think that we get an additional benefit that’s kind of an intangible. And for me, that was the reason for even trying to create an in-person wellness space is just that intangible of community and shared experience.
And you’ve already given us so many valuable tips, but I know that you, like you said, this is your passion and that you have even created more advanced resources for people to learn how to cold plunge most optimally, to get better at it, to integrate it into their lives as a routine. So can you talk about your courses and all the things you walk people through to help them implement this with as much pleasure and as least resistance as possible in the beginning?
Adrienne: Yeah. Well, when I got into this, there were no guided ice bath experiences. There was breathwork followed by an ice bath. And that breathwork is like hyperventilative, holotropic, hyperactive type of breathwork. And at this stage in my life, as sick as I was, I didn’t need that type of energy in my life. And so I created the Morozko method, like I said, as a sensory immersive, mindful meditation. This meditation, when practiced in cold, translates in life anywhere that you experience extreme stress. So this is a brief, you know, three to five-minute meditation that you do prior to stepping into the cold in order to meet the cold with calm. I do teach this in a workshop. I have an online experience. You can sign up at any time. The whole session is about eight hours but can be broken up and done at your own pace. I will teach you the trademarked Morozko Method, which is the sensory immersive, mindful meditation. I will teach you all about best practices with cold, mostly being this is an intuitive practice. So it is meant to reignite that communication between the brain and body for you to understand, do I need an ice bath today? Or am I just fighting taking an ice bath because I don’t want it and I know it would be really good for me. So best practices, contraindications, how to use the Morozko Method in order to guide someone or yourself through the fight or flight response in an ice bath, how to grow cold as a business. If this is something that you’re interested in, introducing to others, like you said, the community aspect is huge.
And so I have one-on-one clients, but I also do group sensory immersive events. And when I do a group sensory immersive event, even if you’re strangers, by the time you walk out, you feel bonded for life, just like any other medicine journey. You’re producing all this oxytocin and serotonin. You’re holding space for each other. And so I teach you how to facilitate that type of experience in this workshop. You’ll also be joining other Morozko Method certified guides from around the world doing incredible things with the cold, with health, with healing, with community. And I think that that is also the goal too, is just to connect people among this hard and challenging process that we can do hard things, but we don’t have to do them alone. We can do them together.
Katie: Absolutely. And I will make sure I link to everything you just talked about so people can find it in the show notes. I know that you are offering a special discount on the training. I’ll make sure that’s there as well. But I love this. You definitely have re-inspired me to go home today and get in the cold plunge and make this a more regular part of my routine and hopefully inspired a lot of people listening as well to do hard things and give it a try and see the benefits they might experience as well. I’m so grateful we got to meet at a conference last year and that we got to connect here and for all the work that you do. So, Adrienne, thank you so much for your time.
Adrienne: Thank you so much, Katie, for having me. And again, thank you for helping me just be on this platform to help spread my greatest mission in life, which is to bring these natural healing benefits to the masses.
Katie: And thank you, as always, for listening and sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, your attention with us. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.
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