How throwing yourself into an ice bath may be a good thing this flu season
The internet is no stranger to trends—particularly those related to health. Recently, my Instagram has been flooded with videos of people entering cold plunges after warm baths. Trying a sauna and cold plunge cycle myself this winter break (most recently, even jumping into the snow after getting out of the sauna) sparked my curiosity for this trend. Did it help my health? Or was it all just a state of mind?
The Cleveland Clinic defines hydrotherapy as “any method that uses water to treat a variety of symptoms throughout your body.” There are many different treatments that fall under this general umbrella term, including water aerobics, warm baths, saunas, and cold water immersion. The possibilities are endless, as are the touted benefits. Different spas claim the upsides to hydrotherapy include reductions in joint swelling, improved immunity, and reductions in muscle damage. I myself can confirm that after a sauna/cold plunge cycle, I felt more restored than I had in a while. Afterwards, I wondered if it was a placebo effect. After all, before we entered the sauna, my sister told me all about how helpful the cycle was. Did my brain just trick me into thinking I was relaxed? It didn’t help that I was doing this in a beautiful, northern Ontario, snow-covered forest where I got to watch squirrels leaping around in the trees.
When I got back to the big city, I found that there is some evidence to back up the way I felt. A review paper published in 2014 delved into the many bodily systems that hydrotherapy has been reported to help. Cold immersion has been shown to increase the responses of various immune cells including leukocytes. This effect could be claimed to improve immune system function. Interestingly enough, warm water was even shown to benefit immune-system function against bacterial cold-water disease. The benefits of cold immersion, however, change depending on the temperature of your plunge. Colder temperatures affect metabolic rate and cortisol levels (the infamous stress hormone), while higher temperatures tend to result in small reductions in heart rate and blood pressure. It’s not just water immersion that confers health benefits; types of hydrotherapy such as saunas help too! A review by the Mayo Clinic shows that, alongside other lifestyle factors, saunas may protect against cardiovascular issues. They engage a number of mechanisms through which overall health benefits may occur, including decreased blood pressure, reduction in pulmonary congestion, and stimulation of the autonomic nervous system. So, based on the science, it seems that hydrotherapy was in fact the reason for me feeling so relaxed (and it wasn’t just me watching the squirrels in the distance).
Unfortunately, as much as I wished that hydrotherapy could cure all my ills, my perusal of this topic swiftly showed that this is not the case. There are, as with any activity in life, numerous risks that you may run into during your hydrotherapy. These include slips, droplet infections, drowning, and heat exhaustion. The same 2014 paper also discussed studies that showed how some patients with pre-existing heart problems may face transient arrhythmias when participating in cold hydrotherapy. Also, not all hydrotherapy techniques are created equally. While saunas and cold plunges have been shown to confer health benefits, a technique in hydrotherapy called colonics has been shown to potentially cause more damage than good. In discussion with colorectal surgeon Anuradha Bhama, MD, the Cleveland Clinic explains that colon cleansing, the act of flushing out your colon with large amounts of water, is extremely different from a colonoscopy, which is a medical procedure done under the guidance of doctors. Dr. Bhama explains that colon cleansing is particularly dangerous for those who have undergone colon surgery in the past. Even in other individuals, it may affect colon function and water absorption. For these reasons, if you want to try hydrotherapy, it’s important to do it in a safe way. If you do, you can avoid these risks and instead take advantage of the many benefits it may provide!
It would be amiss to discuss hydrotherapy without addressing the fact that humans have been using this method to help treat illness for millennia. Ranging from hammams to banyas, the use of water and heat have marked human culture across time. In our modern day, we often see hydrotherapy spas touting the Scandinavian or Nordic way. Hydrotherapy, particularly saunas, do have deep roots in Nordic history. As early as 7000 BCE, they were used for not only cleansing, but also relaxing and connecting with others. While in North America, this is typically what we think of when someone mentions ‘hydrotherapy,’ countless other cultures have been using it in some form throughout their history. Onsen, Japanese hot springs, have a written record of use since 733 CE. Around 400 to 500 years ago, the ‘one week, one round’ saying for onsens came to be. After staying one week at a hot spring resort, individuals found themselves feeling recovered and found their health improved. Beyond onsens and saunas, other public bathhouses were also common throughout human history, dating as far back as 2500 BCE in the Indus Valley. Since this time, public bathhouses have been a way to connect with others and seek a variety of health benefits.
So, has this article inspired you to take the plunge—literally? Of course, I feel obligated to remind you that, like any other activity in life, hydrotherapy is not without risks. However, when done safely and correctly, it can confer myriad benefits. There are also a number of places you can take part in hydrotherapy in Ontario. UofT even offers steam rooms, which is an easy way to try it out without committing to an overpriced stay at a spa. Before you attend, however, it’s important to take note of guidelines for staying in steam rooms and participating in hydrotherapy. If you end up taking part in hydrotherapy, I hope you find yourself feeling better both mentally and physically. Stay safe and take that plunge.
