Are you cold enough?
JED WIGHTMAN PERFORMANCE/SPORTS NUTRITIONIST ADVANTAGE FITNESS LTD
Who likes being cold? I would bet pretty confidently, not very many of us do. Now I don’t mind being cold, but I certainly don’t like it or want to seek it out. Well, how about being super cold, and wet at the same time? Sounds magnificently terrible doesn’t it? And when I say cold, I mean the kind of cold that makes you feel like it’s dangerous. Your nervous system is freaking out, your senses screaming “Get out of here, I could die”. Yes, I know that’s pretty extreme, but as you’ll understand today for the purposes I’ll detail, it’s very beneficial.
So yes, I am one of those individuals who seek that out 6 days per week, and I recommend it to a certain number of my clientele. For those of you unfamiliar, I’m talking about extreme cold exposure. A purpose-based disciplined amount of time in an extremely cold environment produces a top-down benefit. From our neurochemistry, physiology, metabolism, and endocrine system, to our sleep quality. The benefits are so high a number, and there are so many studies relating to all beneficial aspects, that I could easily write 5000 words. So for this article, I will focus on just a few. But a few that are very important.
Cold Exposure
Extreme cold exposure means putting yourself into an extremely cold environment, without removing yourself for a consistent period of time. Now this can apply to your specific purpose for doing so. Ok friends, I say that because there’s a big spectrum of how long this kind of cold exposure can be applied. Today we will discuss the parameters of cold exposure relating to the performance of athletes and mind-body-soul connections. Enhancing your strength of discipline, and mindset, building muscle, and producing body composition development.
Maybe some of you out there have tried doing this, and maybe some of you do it. If so, I wonder if you’re doing it correctly. I wonder most importantly, are you cold enough? So let’s get right into it.
Since the beginning of time, human beings have been submerged in the cold, in one form and in one way or another. Tens of thousands of years struggling through ice ages our ancestors got through. Yes hygiene hundreds of thousands of years ago, even thousands of years ago probably wasn’t a high priority. But through all of that, what certainly was, the acquisition of food. Being cold meant challenging something to the most basic necessities, and you overcome it to survive. So remember this, overcoming challenges at our most basic and primal level is an incredible mechanism to upper regulate our abilities in chosen forms of discipline and dedication to building elite physiques.
Fast forward to today. We don’t need to brave the cold to survive, yet, if we do, if we choose to brave the cold, we have chosen to face a magnificent obstacle. One that has been in our genes since the beginning of our time on this earth. This translates today, into manifesting a level of discipline structure and purpose-based formative action, in a way that no other thing that we can do compares. Yes because it’s actually that hard and detestable.
Don’t believe me? Tomorrow morning, when you finish your fasted cardio, go get into an ice-cold shower. Yeah, that’s right when you’re all hot and sweaty and exhausted after cardio, go wash in the coldest water that your shower can produce. Simply see how you feel afterward for the rest of the day. Track and see if it makes you feel more accomplished, more resolved in your discipline, an increased self-esteem / inner pride, and a sense of calm from facing this challenge. I bet it’s more than even a good workout and having followed your nutrition solidly. Alas, friends, these things are not individual, all these go together, see where I’m going with this? But it starts from facing this monumental, terrifying, uncomfortable, and so easily avoided challenge. But that’s the point! You must choose to do it.
This gets me to my next point about dopamine reset. All around us are these little “like buttons” saturating our frontal cortex with dopamine. In our hands, we hold a dopamine addiction. Whether it be our phones or processed food, we hold her hands before it goes into our mouth. Like it or not, believe it or not, most of us out there are fully addicted to these things. Don’t believe me? Try going 24 hours without looking at Social Media. Zero interaction on your phone. Imagine not giving in to cravings or pressures to eat or drink those things that to your mind and body, are no good. All of the tech, the food, the substances, and the materials that feed the frontal cortex addiction.
This is dopamine fasting, it’s the opposite of the overloaded dopamine food. It is so challenging and incredibly effective at resetting your dopamine sensitivity. You must understand that we are dopamine fatigued. We are overloaded. We are dopamine-resistant. We are fickle, and we are flighty with what we do and how we seek pleasure satisfaction, and reward. Eat it, click, click, swipe, swipe. Just think about it.
Circling back to our ancestors facing the cold to produce what result? Food, dude! The reward of survival pretty much says it all, we have that in our DNA. Doing this taps into that ancestral tenant.
We have an increase in heat shock proteins(this enhances your immune system, and has been shown to have a powerful anti-malignancy effect). There is an increase in brown fat development, which is full of metabolic up-regulating mitochondria. We can increase our androgens temporarily by up to four times our natural production rate. We build immunity, build muscle, burn fat, and decrease in?ammation. We connect deeply to an inner sense of satisfaction and organically generate sustainable good feelings. Yes, self-esteem is created through the application of disciplined, formative action. Yes, we are doing something hard, very difficult, starving ourselves of dopamine, and then re-administering dopamine organically from a self-propagated experience that comes from our ancestral beginnings. If you are familiar with my writing, you’ll understand why I have to mention our amount of self-love is directly proportional to our level of self-discipline. Friends, you will feel this if you do it.
Okay, so some of you out there are saying we need inflammation to build and heal muscles. Yes! It’s such an important part of the anabolic process. So that’s why in this application, you limit your cold exposure to six days a week and only minutes at a time. You also do not do this after weight training. Research shows that cold exposure after fasted cardio, a hit workout, produces the most beneficial metrics relating to fat burning, anabolic hormone increase, and the top-down effect on your psyche for the rest of the day. Oh, I almost forgot the enhancement to deep sleep. It’s also well-documented. Better deep sleep and waking up more refreshed. So, if you limit the exposure to six days a week, minutes per day taking one day off, you maximize the recovery benefits. You do not compromise the growth of your muscles.
Now, how cold right? I haven’t told you how many minutes per day, per week. Yes! That is correct. It varies depending on the individual. It depends on their goal, age, body composition, environment, and most importantly, the will, discipline, and true grit.
The main focus for you to do this tomorrow is to make sure it’s as cold as you can make it. I’m talking about 38 to 42°F, 2 to 5°C. If your shower doesn’t go that cold, fill your tub up with the coldest water your bathroom produces and then dump in a ton of ice. To be clear, anything warmer than that does not produce the benefits mentioned above on our physiology, endocrine system, and biochemistry. Another very important point is if you want to render this useless, warm up in the shower or bathroom after your cold exposure. Equally rendering it useless as you get out of the cold exposure into a hot or extremely warm environment. Yes, you can go cold exposure at a spa and then into the sauna, but you don’t stop with the sauna, you go back to cold exposure, and then you need to let your body reacclimatize to natural room temperature on its own. Yeah, it sucks! Quickly pad yourself off with a towel, but then air dry.
So remember friends, if it’s not cold enough you will only face a challenge, and for that, great. However, if you’re going to face that challenge, darn well better get all of the benefits on your mind, body, and spirit you can.
Friends I’ve been doing it now for over 45 weeks, after several of my high-speed operator clients reached out to me, asking me how valid this was, and if they should apply it. So, I conducted a 16-week trial on myself.
I felt the neurological effects immediately. After eight weeks, I did bloodwork and compared it to my most recent, previous. At the end of the 16 weeks, I compared all three. Well as you read above, all of the factors I detailed, were drastically amplified. There were many others, which I could go on about a great length. However, I will close here today. Leaving us with you to try for yourself.
To each of you of my readers, subscribers, and all of our amazing community out there in our Canadian Physique Alliance. I wish you the best, and I send you deep encouragement to attack this challenge head-on.
Just make sure YOU ARE COLD ENOUGH!
FORWARD FORWARD ALWAYS FORWARD!
