ICE, ICE, BABY
Alison Izzo takes the plunge
My sister happily describes herself as a desert rose. It’s a cute moniker that rings true, so I’ve happily co-opted it. See, we grew up in the Mallee, in a town that is said to get more hours of sunshine per year than anywhere else. Forty-plus degree summers were the norm, and the sandy earth of the school playground was always warm – even in winter. It figures then that I don’t do well in the cold.
Which is why I’m questioning my life choices as I stand waiting to submerge myself in a bar fridge-sized chest filled with sub-zero water. But I’m not the first to choose cold water therapy, and I won’t be the last.
Dutch extreme athlete and motivational speaker Wim Hof put ice baths on the wellness map, but we can thank Gwyneth Paltrow for bringing cold water therapy into the cultural zeitgeist when she dedicated an episode of her 2020 Netflix docu-series The goop lab to the Wim Hof Method (WHM). Now, it’s positively mainstream. Your local physio probably has cold water therapy on the menu, PTs routinely recommend an icy ocean swim post-workout, and any infrared sauna provider worth their salt lamp will have an ice bath add-on. But why? Ice bathing, a form of cryotherapy, has been scientifically proven to help reduce inflammation, aid muscle recovery, reduce stress levels, aid sleep and boost dopamine levels.
I try to remind myself of these benefits, and how (let’s face it) smug I’ll feel afterwards as I get waved up to the plate by Saoirse McGrath, the founder of Sydney-based ice bath provider Somatic Ice. I step into the freezing water and all I feel is pain. I’m aware I’m being watched, and my face is doing nothing to hide my horror as the biting cold eats into my flesh and towards my bones. I squat down, encouraged by the crowd to submerge my shoulders, and I try to disassociate from my body.
“One minute down,” announces McGrath. I close my eyes and try to slow my breath – a technique key to the WHM. McGrath tells me afterwards that “simply increasing the length of your exhale can help your body respond to the stress and give you more physical, neurological and psychological control”. Then something odd happens: a strange sense of calm sets in. I stop fighting the cold and let it in. The background noise of my fellow ice-bathers dies down and I realise that shit, I’m actually doing this. “Two minutes!” McGrath grabs my hand encouragingly, and I’m relieved to see my fellow ice-bathers are also feeling the pain. I think about my friend Felicity Harley – one of the coolest cucumbers under pressure
I know. As a long-time health journalist and podcaster, she’s tried every wellness trend there is, and is (rightly) cynical about most of them. I recalled her explaining how her 10-year-old son encouraged her to discover the benefits of cold plunging firsthand, telling me, “Jimmy and I made a pact to jump in our [unheated] backyard pool every morning at 7am ... Not only was it a special thing Jimmy and I did together, but it kick-started my system each morning better than a shot of coffee.”
On the final countdown, I’m quick to clamber out of the icy water and fall into the big fluffy towel. Those icy three minutes (three!) felt like an eternity but I have to admit that for the rest of the day I can’t ignore a subtle undercurrent of energy, like I’ve had a triple shot espresso – but with none of the jitters. My day is jammed with meetings but I feel oddly calm, and more importantly catch myself seeing the lighter side of stressful situations.
Will I be installing a DIY ice chest on my back porch? Probably not. But I am considering finishing my showers with a blast of cold water. I think my desert-rose heart might feel better for it.
“THOSE ICY THREE MINUTES (THREE!) FELT LIKE AN ETERNITY BUT FOR THE REST OF THE DAY I CAN’T IGNORE AN UNDERCURRENT OF ENERGY”