Updated July 2024
Cold Therapy
Cold plunges and Cryotherapy are types of cold therapy that may help optimize sleep, boost energy, defy signs of aging and aid in athletic recovery. If you have a busy lifestyle that includes juggling multiple priorities with a consistent exercise routine and you're interested in improving your overall well-being, cold therapy could be an excellent addition to your weekly wellness routine.
What's a Cold Plunge?
A cold plunge is a cold water immersion that involves submerging your whole body or face in water with a temperature ranging from 38 degrees to 60 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 seconds to 15 minutes. Routinely exposing your body to cold water therapy could improve immunity, manage pain, and boost metabolism. However, cold plunges have limitations such as difficulty in maintaining consistent temperatures and a longer duration for potential benefits.
What is Cryotherapy?
Whole Body Cryotherapy is a science-backed therapy that exposes your entire body (including your head) to -166 degrees Fahrenheit inside a chamber for up to three minutes. This advanced technology offers a more controlled, efficient and superior method of cold therapy compared to traditional cold plunges.
How Does Cryotherapy Improve Your Health?
As your body is exposed to these freezing temperatures, it enacts a natural fight-or-flight response that constricts blood vessels to restrict blood away from the extremities. This redirection causes your body to move blood toward the core, protecting your organs. During this process, the body increases oxygen and certain protein levels that can decrease swelling. When you exit the Cryotherapy chamber and return to room temperature, this oxygen-rich blood circulates throughout your body, promoting faster recovery and enhanced overall wellness.
Why Cryotherapy is Superior to Cold Plunges
Cryotherapy offers several advantages over cold plunges:
- Efficiency: Cryotherapy sessions last only up to three minutes, making them much quicker than the 15 minutes often required for cold plunges.
- Temperature Control: Cryotherapy chambers maintain precise sub-zero temperatures, providing consistent and optimal therapeutic effects.
- Full-Body Exposure: Cryotherapy involves exposing the entire body, including the head, to cold temperatures, enhancing overall benefits.
- Greater Impact: Our proprietary Cryotherapy chambers operate at -166 degrees Fahrenheit which stimulates a stronger physiological response, leading to more significant benefits in a shorter amount of time.
Pain Management & Athletic Recovery
Restore's Chief Medical Officer shared, "Cryotherapy is commonly used as a therapeutic tool for musculoskeletal healing and management of chronic pain. Noradrenaline and beta-endorphins are endogenous pain suppressors, which likely explains why cold exposure can act as an analgesic.”
A study from Frontiers in Physiology found that, "Cryotherapy has demonstrated to be a preventive strategy against the deleterious effects of exercise-induced inflammation and soreness. Local and systemic cold therapies (cryotherapies) are widely used to relieve symptoms of various diseases including inflammation, pain, muscle spasms, and swelling, especially chronic inflammatory ones, injuries, and overuse symptoms."
Cognitive Health
"The known increases in noradrenaline, beta-endorphin, and dopamine due to a cold stimulus may have a positive effect on mental health and brain development," the Restore Chief Medical Officer said.
Consistency & Frequency
The Frontiers of Physiology also found that consistency and frequency led to the best therapeutic results based on deep investigative research over many years. In a controlled group of 15 healthy men, this research found that after 5-20 Cryotherapy sessions, inflammation decreased compared to baseline, but these positive effects dissipated after two weeks without therapy use.
Experience the Benefits of Cryotherapy
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