When to Use Sauna & Cold Plunges Cabral Concept 2442
00:00[Music] hey everybody welcome back to the show here today on our training Thursday episode of the week where we're going to be talking about how to properly use a cold plunge or cold based therapy as well as heat or sauna around your exercise and workouts for recovery for mood for the immune system for boosting overall energy in your mitochondria let's dive right into the show again all the show notes for today along with the three big takeaways we'll be at Steven cabral.com forward slash two four four two now all of my previous podcasts can be found at Steven cabral.com forward slash podcasts there are 2441 previous podcasts that can be searched with a little search box and can actually check out previous shows on Cold versus Heat which one is best for
01:00what individual I'm gonna not gonna go too big into that today but just always remember remember that when everyone's out there telling you that oh you have to be using cold based therapy you know you just want to say oh do I you know do I really have to be using this and the because the the truth is that maybe you should be is it right for your body what are you looking to get out of it just because all of the kids are doing it doesn't mean that you need to as well now if it benefits you and your bio individuality of where you're at right now in your life then yes it would be a great add-on the same for heat I highly can recommend it for many many many instances but again should it be used for everybody well maybe not all right so let's get into Today's Show let's actually share with you what a cold plunge can be great for what heat based therapy can be good for and which one should be used before your workout which one should never be used before your workout and vice versa for after your workout for best recovery all right so
02:00one of the best ways that people haven't already shared this information with you today or in the past is that think of cold therapy think of it this way now I know know you see a lot of people online and they get into their 34 degree cold plunge very stoic no emotion they take one breath in and they just slide right in as if it's nothing okay there are those people out there and they're amazing actors and I think that that's that's incredible for social media 55 degrees is cold 45 degrees is really cold 34 degrees some of these go down to freezing 32 degrees is really cold to get the benefits of cold therapy you can get the benefits of cold therapy if it feels cold to you right so I just want to share that with you 56 degrees has been used for many many years as cold based therapy that's still okay to use like you might get that out of like your shower or something like that you can use your shower it doesn't work as effectively I did a hole I'm going to
03:00link this podcast up as well again all the show note links so I don't keep naming the URL is Steven cabral.com forward slash two four four two I have another show on what's best cold shower or cryotherapy or cold plunge or your bathtub right cold therapy there okay so regardless this is how I want you to think about it cold therapy is stimulating to the body right when you get in like the whole point of me sharing that like when you get in you're like wow that's cold right but your goal is to actually control the autonomic nervous system as hard as it may be you don't want that big stress response your body though is stimulated by that freezing cold by that cold when you get in so what happens well you actually get a surge of norepinephrine of adrenaline potentially cortisol you begin to help immuno modulate it can actually be an immune booster as needed so there can be
04:00a lot of benefit there it can produce more dopamine which can be incredibly powerful for a lot of people feeling low mood right so it can give you that boost and endorphins almost like going for a Sprint or doing a workout so it can be really beneficial in terms of stimuli relating the body and mind it can also help to tighten the skin not a bad little benefit there as well reduce inflammatory based issues on the skin and potentially in the body as well and one of the things that it's potentially been shown to help with is actually hair loss as well so big benefits to doing cold based therapy we'll share with you when to do it and when not to do it all right now heat therapy has equally as many benefits but different think of this if cold stimulates heat relaxes this is going to be an important
05:00one because I my goal is always to teach and I want you to be able to answer your questions in the future or at least have a really good foundation when someone's talking about everybody should be doing this right well should they I don't know right does everybody need to be stimulated like body and Minds well if you're full of anxiety you already produce lots of dopamine you already produce lots of stress hormones should you be doing cold plunge I'll let you decide that for you because if you can't control that relaxation response maybe not but again I'll let you decide on that all right now what about for our heat well heat relaxes so it relaxes the muscles instead of stimulates them so it relaxes those muscles no shivering relax okay what it does is it alleviates overall tension and anxiety in the body now again you still have to work with the relaxation response but the heat is meant to be much more relaxing it can actually open up the ear nose I always say ear nose throat but ear nose throat maybe the ears but the nose it can
06:00decrease sinus congestion mucus I can start to bring it up as well as in the lungs too so it can be excellent for when people have some chest congestion nasal congestion I always do a sauna if I have any chest or nasal based congestion it helps to detoxify when you are in a sauna it helps open up your pores studies and research multiple studies conclude that your body can sweat out heavy metals especially in an infrared sauna it can actually sweat out mold phthalates Plastics and other things through your pores being one of your four excretory organs right kidneys uh liver lungs skin really really important there it can help with headaches and migraines so another reason that you might want the relaxation effect from heat and one more I'd like to share just as well is that it helps the immune system in a different way in that it induces more of the parasympathetic nervous system the re rest relax digest based State all
07:00right so now that I give you basically the main Crux of each one again just that's just obviously a little sample I have different shows in each one cold stimulating heat relaxing now if we're thinking about what should we do before our workout I'm thinking that you may already know the answer right we want to do the one that has these stimulating based effect before the workout and we don't want to do it just not just because this but think about this we're producing more norepinephrine producing more adrenaline that's going to help us with what the workout do we want to be stimulated when we're looking to recover after the workout the answer is no but one other thing I want to share with you is this the massive anti-inflammatory cold effect after the workout where I know a lot of athletes have done it for many many years is not necessarily as great directly after the workout because if there's any breakdown in muscle tissue of the body the body actually should
08:00have some inflammation in order to better start the repair cycle inflammation is a response of the repair cycle right something broke down tissue destruction during a Weight Workout Sprints Etc the body then goes to do what repair the broken down tissue inflammation occurs from the repair as well as the breakdown cold can actually decrease that inflammatory response and that's not necessarily a good thing so really important to keep that in mind but here's what I also want to share with you is that heat after the workout is almost like going for a stretch like a lot of people say oh there's no need to stretch after your workout um because you can get pliability and Mobility during the exercise that you do I don't necessarily disagree with that I don't disagree at all you can stretch after you work out not stretch after you work out but stretching after your workout also does something else that's that's often forgotten because you know in our Western based philosophy we like to use this reductionist approach which
09:00is like well there's no need to stretch if you do this this and this okay got it for the sake of stretching right for proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation of elongating the muscle spindles I get it right I've read the research and science on it but here's what is often overlooked in our Western reductionist approach is that stretching also calms the nervous system and by calming the nervous system we induce the parasympathetic nervous system autonomic nervous system response that relaxes the body which helps facilitate faster recovery and so sauna helps induce that as well that's why it's so remarkable I talked about my 30-minute biohacking routine and I'll often do my stretching while I'm using my binaural beads and my meditation during my sauna and again I can link up that show too I believe it was just last week episode yeah 24 35. so what I want to share with you is this your cold Plunge your cold bath your cryo your cold uh
10:00shower should be done the first half of the day not before bed I know it helps some people with sleep I'm not discounting that I think those people are more advanced they're able to really control their relaxation response fantastic again when you're an expert you get to actually break some rules but we're talking about general population that's one thing I always like to share with practitioners I know there's a lot of practitioners this in the show let's not always just think about where we're at we've been doing this for many years we may have a different knowledge base we want to share what would be best for the majority of people and then allow people to ascend up the ladder as they get more experience and then we can teach different levels to that too right so I think that's important as well all right so that cold contrast shower right hot cold hot cold then with cold in the morning if you want to do that you're welcome to if you want to you know what why don't I do that I'll do um a podcast on the best way to do contrast showers
11:00we'll do that maybe even next week and or I should say this if you're going to do your cold plunge whether it's before a workout or uh before a run you can actually do it before your workout all right that is a nice way to do it now there may be more limitations in flexibility and Mobility so you want to be understanding of that you may actually want to do a little bit more of a workout warm-up before your workout to make sure that you're not too stiff after all that cold right so maybe you do an hour before a half hour before towel off and again if you're just doing a three to five minute cold plunge that's plenty right like what's the goal is the goal to see how long you can do a gold plunge right is it ego based or is it for you and your body right if you weren't filming it how many minutes would you want to do for most people three to five minutes is enough to get the effect that they are looking for because remember it's the the consistency that counts not one cold
12:00plunge is what matters but actually the consistency over time all right now having said this after your workout is when you would then do the Heat a sauna after your workout is incredible I used to belong to a couple different gyms ones was the Sports Club LA in Boston and then it was turned over to an equinox and then I belonged to another Equinox and they had sauna in there it was dry sauna it was a hot hot sauna we're talking like that thing cranked and if you sat up on the top level you were up there like 180 degrees it was hot you didn't need more than 20 minutes in there like it was cranking so the nice thing is though I could get in my workout and my workouts are 30 minutes like I don't again I love to work out I love to work out maybe even more than I should right because again with the balance inflammation in our bodies but I would go in there and like half the time I was in the gym it wasn't totally half but like 50 time I was in the sauna right I was in there for a good 20 minutes and uh and they loved it it was a great way to right away begin to
13:00recover now I don't go to Equinox Gym don't even have access there after the pandemic I was like all right I'm good I'm gonna set up my own at-home workouts and all that jazz uh but I had my own sauna at home and I can get right into that and the benefits I can get now from a 30 minute I do a 30 minute I'm here without that 180 necessarily uh I can get tremendous benefit I can get the infrared light all those good things and it helps with recovery plus I do my workouts mid-afternoon so if I'm doing that afterwards the sauna actually helps me wind down and then be relaxed head home you know be in a great mood no stress and then I get a great night's sleep so a lot of people ask how am I getting the 90 minutes plus of deep sleep how am I getting two plus hours of REM sleep how am I falling asleep to a faster degree how's my body temperature dropping you know for the first within the first first hour of the night heart rate one of the one of the ways that I'm able to do that is yes not eating three four hours before bed um still use it by intermittent fasting which is extremely important right so I'm still doing my intermittent fast but
14:00I'm getting all of the benefits of using that sauna again you can use sun in the morning as well but the nice thing is I can do it after my workout so again let me give you a couple caveats uh cold real cold based therapy best before your workout and the first half of the day because it could be very stimulating maybe too stimulating for the mind and body as you're moving towards the later hours when you're looking to be winding down so norepinephrine and stress is supposed to be the first half of the day not the second right stress hormones cortisol norepinephrine first half of the day dopamine second half of the day common cortisol calming norepinephrine more Gaba more serotonin leading to melatonin how do we do that more sauna so you can do sauna in the morning and I'll do soda in the morning on the weekends I love it I really do doesn't affect that not gonna put you to sleep right it gives you more of a just a relaxing effect I love that in the weekend but when you were doing sauna any time of the day but certainly second half of the day could be tremendous for getting the body into a much more
15:00relaxed state so hopefully Today's show was helpful hopefully it gave you a good basis point for why you're doing what you're doing and if you have been doing cold plunge afterwards think about using it before I think your workouts will be better I think you'll be able to perform better your mind will be sharp you'll get that surge of norepinephrine and adrenaline and then you'll set the right amount for you and then after the workout that heat will help you to a far greater degree with recovery and then sleep that night all right thanks so much everyone for tuning in of course if the show was helpful I would love for you to share it with anyone you believe a good serve foreign