Hot-cold therapy and the health benefits of taking an icy plunge

Jayne D'Arcy Sydney Morning Herald December 2, 2018

Dr Marc Cohen chilling out in the cold plunge pool at Peninsula Hot Springs.

Do you see them and weep for them? The seemingly crazy folk who, after a blissful bout of time in the lovely warmth of a hot spring bath, spa or sauna, take themselves to the cold, oh, so cold water, and immerse themselves in that? Shock horror!

Well, cry for them no more. If you knew why they did it, and, maybe more to the point, how they do it so easily, you may soon be a convert. It's getting easier to do, too, with Victoria's hot springs operators scrambling over themselves ensuring they've got what you need to have the full hot-cold therapy experience.

An artist's rendering of Warrnambool's Deep Blue Hotel's new pool complex, due to open early 2019.

Think ice baths and you might think they're just for footballers recovering after a game. Not anymore. Today the ice bath is for anyone brave enough to get into it. Add hot water or air, for a massive contrast, and you're set. It's not a new phenomenon: Roman bathing was based on the practice of moving through heated rooms then plunging into cold water at the end.

But hot-cold therapy is fairly new here. It was actually what inspired Peninsula Hot Springs owner Charles Davidson to launch the ever-growing complex in Rye more than a decade ago. He was at Kusatsu Onsen – a hot springs in the snow – in Japan in 1992. "In the middle of winter, lying out there, in a hot pool, looking up at the snow: that was my epiphany moment," he says. "And all I could think of was: why don't we have this in Australia?"

Dr Marc Cohen chilling out in the cold plunge pool at Peninsula Hot Springs.

We may not have the snow – though during the snow season, the Onsen Retreat + Spa at Dinner Plain comes pretty close – but we certainly have the cold, and Peninsula Hot Springs' new development is taking that further, with a Fire & Ice area including ice plunge pool, an ice cave and two saunas that can fit 30 people in each. It's ripe for loads of hot and cold action.

But what is it, exactly? Melbourne-based Dr Marc Cohen holds PhDs in Chinese and biomedical engineering, and is a registered GP with a couple of degrees in physiology and psychological medicine to boot. He's passionate about hot and cold bathing. In fact, he's on a campaign to "transform the world through bathing". "I do it every morning," he says. "In fact, it's a habit for me now, even if I don't feel like it, it's become part of my routine."

He's talking about essentially turning off the hot tap in the shower, turning on the cold, and, in a great "biohack", gradually, hokey-pokey-style, getting in. "You do the hot shower first, then you step out, turn on the cold, and gradually just do your feet, then your legs, then your hands, then your arms, then one side of your body, then the other side of your body, then your head at the very end," he explains. "And by doing that, it's not a shock. It doesn't have to be a shock to get the benefits."

So what are the benefits? A randomised 30-day study of 3000 people in Holland in 2015 had convincing results. "They got people to do a hot shower alone, or a hot shower followed by a 30-, 60- or 90-second cold shower," says Dr Cohen. "They found the people who had the cold after the hot had 29 per cent less sick days. Any drug that would do that would be a blockbuster!" he says.

Chilling out in a cold bath: Model Lucy McIntosh, of Chadwicks.CREDIT:SIMON SCHLUTER

But there are more reasons to get into hot-cold therapy than fewer sick days from work. It's a passive way to exercise parts that don't usually get a workout. "It's an exercise for your blood vessels," explains Dr Cohen. "It also nourishes your skin, your organs; you're sending blood through your skin and internal organs, that's a powerful thing. And we know that cold is one of the most powerful anti-inflammatories and analgesics: any first-aider will tell you that."

Dr Cohen also says that it helps you get on with life's challenges. "It has an effect on your self-confidence and self-efficacy," he says. "You get a better feeling of your own power to do things. Once you've decided to go into the cold water, you go in, and you're just dealing with your body, and the sensations, and it's like a forced mindfulness practice.

"You tell yourself you're strong enough and able enough to tolerate an uncomfortable situation. And when you exercise that muscle, you can do that for the rest of your life. So, when you have to have that uncomfortable conversation with someone, phone call, or have to do something you don't really want to do, you've practised doing that and you know that you can do it and you can feel like a badass!"

And the good news is that it gets easier. "When you've done it once, the next day you'll find you can tolerate it a bit more. Our bodies are designed to progressively tolerate cold," Dr Cohen says. And of course, the cold water coming out of your tap warms up as the weather warms up.

The warm weather also warms up the outdoor plunge pools at the Peninsula Hot Springs. They may not even register as cold to regular plungers. It's one of the reasons Davidson launched Fire & Ice.

"The ones that we've had are about 16 degrees; they're just ground water, but in our new Fire & Ice area, which is the sauna and ice cave, it goes down to four degrees Celsius. And for special events, like when we're doing Wim Hof training, or football clubs, we can get that four degrees Celsius pool happening. And at that temperature, it is more than a plunge. It's an awakening," says Davidson.

Dutch-born Wim Hof, aka "The Iceman", is a man of world-record-breaking extremes – things like climbing Mount Everest in shorts and running marathons without water. He's developed the Wim Hof Method (WHM), which involves breathing and meditation to get people in the zone for ice baths. Or climbing snowy mountain peaks in their shorts.

One of the WHM's Victorian-based instructors is Zane Curwen-Walker. The former personal trainer learnt the method in early 2017. "I was a personal trainer, and interested in optimising health, body and mind, and the connection with them," he explains. "The Wim Hof Method instantly resonated: I realised I could use it with clients. The biggest impact was the breathing technique, and getting people to improve their energy in workouts and throughout the day."

He certainly believes that plunging into ice baths has a longer-lasting effect too. "Just as we train our bodies: muscles, blood and cardiovascular system, through doing this you get a chance to train your perception: how you view challenges, how you view fears and threats. You can take it through your day during different circumstances. I don't know if it makes life easier, but it makes you more resilient," he says.

It's Curwen-Walker's dulcet tones that are guiding people into the cold plunge at Hepburn Bathhouse and Spa in Hepburn Springs. Organised "extreme bathing" is new to the spa, and they're making it relatively easy for newbies: you don waterproof headphones, and, following Curwen-Walker's instructions, gently immerse yourself – and stay – in the ice-laced plunge pool.

As Curwen-Walker talks, the time passes, and he calmly reminds you: "You've now been in for one-and-a-half minutes." He suggests you stay in the cold pool for two minutes, immersed to the tops of your shoulders, hands resting clenched on the tops of your thighs. But if you manage five, that's great.

"It's that two-minute mark when people see how capable they are," he says. "We prefer a maximum of five minutes, though. People find that they cruise through the last three." It's true. Before you know it, five is up and he's telling you it's time to come out. There are plenty of ways to warm up before and after at the Hepburn Bathhouse and Spa's Sanctuary Bathing area, with the 39-degree mineral water spas, hammam and steam room just a few metres away (entry from $89).

There are other ways to do hot-cold therapy in Victoria. St Kilda Sea Baths' South Pacific Health Club has a bay-view hydrotherapy salt-water spa. Soak for a bit, or hop into the sauna, then walk out of the building, traipse over the sand and hit the cold.

For $20 you can heat up in the steam room (a room with a view of the bay and city) at Brighton Baths Health Club, before exiting into Melbourne's weather and entering the bay inside the relative safety of an enclosed steel fence.

A sign at reception alerts swimmers to Port Phillip Bay's current water temperature (a balmy 16 degrees when I visited, but it ranges from seven to 12 degrees in winter). I meet a couple of regular dippers in the change room. There's a certain chipperness to them. They reckon their daily bay swims make them healthier – and yes, they rock up in winter, too (one in a wetsuit, one braves it in bathers).

It's meditator-king and co-founder of the 1 Giant Mind meditation app Jonni Pollard's favourite venue when he comes home to Melbourne. "The Brighton Baths are the best in Melbourne," he says. "They have a great steam room overlooking the bay, and then you jump in. I love doing this in winter."

These days Pollard is based in New York, where he visits AIRE Ancient Baths once a week. "They have a very elegant facility. I do four minutes of hot, and two minutes of cold with two times 30 seconds complete submersion. I'll alternate 10-12 times in a session," he says. He believes hot-cold bathing is a good antidote to city living. "It's a very practical way of taking the edge off the nervous system when the city starts to grind in you. Particularly in the winter," he says.

AIRE Ancient Baths are opening in London and Copenhagen this year, and Paris next (though Australia is not in its sights yet). Happily, though, Victoria is getting more hot springs, and with them, more opportunities to go the cold plunge.

There's talk of new hot springs being developed in Metung (the Gippsland lakes) and Phillip Island, but Deep Blue Hotel and Hot Springs in Warrnambool is the next springs complex off the block.

Wellness fans have long known that Warrnambool's Deep Blue Hotel has geothermal mineral springs pools in its basement (a bargain at $15 entry), but while that one public pool, smaller cold plunge and three private pools have continued to bubble away, 20 new pools of variable temperatures have been constructed as an "outdoor retreat" on the surrounding land. They'll be ready early 2019.

Peninsula Hot Springs' Davidson is delighted. "We wanted to bring bathing culture to Victoria, to start with," he says. "We want people to have great experiences. And good competition: we want people to build incredible places, to build a hot spring culture," he says. And cold, don't forget the cold.