Jesse Coomer isn't selling cold water as a cure. He's making a more specific and interesting argument: that the cold functions as a kind of mirror. You step in, and whatever you've been avoiding in yourself is suddenly right there. No distractions. No escape routes. Just you and the temperature.
That psychological dimension is what separates this conversation from most cold exposure content. Coomer isn't leading with dopamine numbers or norepinephrine spikesâthough those mechanisms are real and well-documented. He's leading with honesty. The cold as a truth-telling device. That framing matters, because it points toward something the research often undersells: the mental adaptation may be as valuable as the physiological one.
The physiological case for cold exposure is solid. Regular practice increases catecholamine outputâepinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamineâall of which improve mood, focus, and motivation. The 2014 PNAS study Wim Hof participated in showed that trained practitioners could consciously suppress their inflammatory response to an endotoxin injection, producing dramatically fewer symptoms than controls. That's not anecdote. That's peer-reviewed evidence that deliberate cold practice can alter immune function in measurable ways.
Coomer's personal experienceâhis lifelong seasonal allergies resolving after beginning the practiceâfits squarely within what we'd expect from this research. Cold exposure modulates inflammatory cytokines. Allergies are, at their core, an inflammatory overreaction. If you're regularly training your autonomic nervous system to dampen that response, the downstream effects on allergy symptoms make mechanistic sense.
The disagreement in this space isn't really about whether cold exposure works. It's about dose and context. Huberman's data suggests three sessions per week produces immune benefits, but daily cold exposure can suppress those same systems if recovery is insufficient. The Wim Hof method leans toward daily practice combined with breathwork, which appears to buffer the cortisol load. Coomer's ten-minute sessions at 45 degrees Fahrenheit are on the longer and colder end of most protocolsâmeaningful for someone who's been training for five years, potentially counterproductive for someone just starting out.
Start shorter and warmer than you think you need to. Sixty seconds in cold waterâgenuinely cold, not "cooler than usual"âis enough to trigger the neurochemical cascade that makes this practice valuable. Three times per week. Focus on your breathing when you get in. The discomfort isn't the goal; the adaptation is. Coomer's advice to seek proper guidance is well-placed. The method matters. Going in without a framework is how people hyperventilate, panic, and decide cold exposure isn't for them.
Coomer's idea that the cold is "the most honest thing" points toward something the research doesn't fully capture yet. There's a psychological calibration that happens when you do something you genuinely don't want to doâand survive it, and feel better afterward. Your nervous system learns something. Your threat-response system recalibrates. The cold becomes evidence that discomfort is not danger. Over time, that recalibration shows up everywhere: in how you handle difficult conversations, in how you respond to stress, in your baseline sense of what you can manage. The cold is just the training ground. The resilience transfers.