Cold and Heat Exposure
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Well, that can be true - I’ll get to that shortly - but in the limits of the statement, hot and cold exposure certainly qualify.
Cold plunges and saunas are a potent combination, but even if you don’t have access to these types of tools, you can derive plenty of benefit from less extreme exposures. As Dr. David Sinclair notes in his work on the subject, even a short walk outside in short sleeves during winter can produce a tangible impact.
The experts featured here will call this out, but I feel compelled to as well - you can do significant damage to yourself with hot and cold exposures if you take it too far, or too far, too fast, so please use sense. We want to get a little better each day, so as Dr. Andrew Huberman suggests, start with turning down the temperature in the shower rather than cutting a hole in the ice of a frozen lake; hopefully it goes without saying that drowning will significantly diminish our chances of achieving any sort of progress (at least in this life - who knows what lies beyond, but that’s for another day!)
As I continue to learn more on my journey, coming across individuals like Dr. Susanna Søberg makes everything so much more fun.
Dr. Søberg has emerged as a cutting-edge researcher in the fields of cold and heat therapy, and not only has she geared that work towards the positive psychological benefits, she seems to be benefitting herself, as her delight for life shines through in her discussion with Dr. Mark Hyman on The Doctor’s Farmacy in an episode titled The Science Behind Cold and Heat Therapy and How to Do it For Maximum Benefit.
Much of Søberg’s research looks at full cold plunges, but don’t worry if you don’t have access; she and Dr. Hyman will cover all sorts of more accessible options, such as cold or hot baths, near the end of their discussion. You can also learn more about these modalities at Dr. Søberg’s website, or in her book, Winter Swimming: The Nordic Way Towards a Happier and Healthier Life.
Dr. Susanna Søberg
Dr. David Sinclair, author of the book Lifespan and the host of the Lifespan podcast, is the principal investigator at The Sinclair Lab at Harvard, where he studies longevity.
One factor that Sinclair has examined is the effect of “stressors” such as exercise, heat, and cold on longevity, which he discusses in Episode 3 of the Lifespan podcast.
Steve’s Note: Sinclair has made some wild statements regarding potential extension of the human lifespan; we can talk the philosophy of that at some point, but setting that aside, what’s cool about much of this “longevity” work is that it emphasizes being as healthy as possible today, which is what has my interest.
To that end, I recommend balancing Sinclair’s perspective with that of someone like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who does an excellent job speaking to the importance of building muscle for longevity, which may be a more significant factor in humans than in some of the animals and other organisms that Sinclair studies.
