Wellness

People like cold plunges because they spike norepinephrine, which leads to a feeling of alertness and has other benefits like increasing fat loss

But my intuition tells me that activating your fear/stress mechanisms so abruptly would also age you faster

Human body temperature rarely step changes in nature, consistently

I've been down this research rabbithole cause my intuition was the same

Turns out the key difference is acute vs chronic

Acute stressors are adaptive 

Chronic stressors age you

Fun havoooooooor | Co-creator of the universe | FuckANiche.com | prev @forefront

Well said - when does it become chronic wrt cold plunge frequency?

How does one know that they’ve recovered enough to do it again?

Chronic is less about frequency and more about duration in that state

It's still an acute stressor even when you do it every single day (as long as you're recovering before each session) if the duration is limited - between 5 - 20 mins depending on temp

But it's chronic if the duration goes into hours or you're not recovering between sessions. Because recovery is *the* thing that makes it adaptive.