Health Benefits, Minus the Hype

There’s a lot of wellness nonsense out there. The talk around hot and cold exposure is no different.

Here’s our attempt to separate science from noise.

SAUNA

The science is compelling, linking regular sauna use to better heart health, lower rates of dementia and high blood pressure, longer life, and even improved endurance. Claims about melting away fat? Less compelling.

  • Sitting in a really hot room isn't exactly relaxing for your cardiovascular system, which is kind of the point. Sauna increases heart rate, dilates blood vessels, and increases blood flow, creating some of the same cardiovascular responses you see during exercise.

    Regular sauna use has been linked to lower blood pressure and better cardiovascular health, while frequent sauna users have shown lower rates of fatal heart disease in long-term studies. That doesn't make 20 minutes on a bench a replacement for a run, but your heart isn't exactly sitting around doing nothing either.

  • One long-running Finnish study found that men who used a sauna more frequently had substantially lower rates of cardiovascular death and death from any cause over roughly two decades. The more frequently they went, the stronger the association.

  • Frequent sauna use has been associated with significantly lower rates of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

    In one long-term Finnish study, men who sauna bathed four to seven times per week had a 66% lower observed risk of dementia and 65% lower observed risk of Alzheimer's compared with once-a-week users. Those are big numbers; and they deserve a big asterisk. This was an observational study, so it can't prove sauna prevented dementia. It also studied 2,315 men and exactly zero women. Ladies, science apparently forgot about you again.

    Thankfully, another study remembered the other half of the population. Researchers followed nearly 14,000 Finnish men and women for up to 39 years and again found that more frequent sauna use was associated with a lower risk of dementia.

    The science isn't definitive, but when the same association shows up across large groups of people over decades, it's worth paying attention.

    This video does a great job of explaining why: Click here

  • Athletes have been deliberately making themselves hot for a long time. There may actually be something to it.

    Repeated heat exposure can teach the body to handle heat more efficiently, producing adaptations in things like heart rate, core temperature, sweating, and blood volume. Small studies using post-exercise sauna have also found improvements in markers of endurance performance.

COLD PLUNGE

The science is still catching up to the hype, but cold plunging has been shown to reduce muscle soreness, aid exercise recovery, and may have benefits for stress, sleep, and overall wellbeing.

  • There’s a reason athletes were sitting in ice baths long before cold plunge became a wellness trend. Cold-water immersion can reduce muscle soreness, improve perceived recovery, and may help restore performance after hard exercise.

    However, here’s the catch: feeling recovered and getting stronger aren’t necessarily the same thing. Plunging immediately after strength training may actually blunt some of the muscle growth you worked for.

    So if tomorrow’s performance matters, cold can be a useful tool. If bigger muscles are the goal, maybe give it some time after your workout before jumping in.

  • People tend to climb out of cold water feeling surprisingly good, and there may be more to it than the satisfaction of the experience being over.

    Early research points toward potential benefits for mood, stress, and even depressive symptoms. One theory is that the intense cold triggers a nervous-system response and a surge in chemicals like norepinephrine that play a role in alertness, stress, and mood. While the results are intriguing, the science has a bit farther to go before earning the right to call cold plunge an antidepressant.

    For now, enjoy the jolt but keep your therapist.

SOCIAL

Sauna and cold plunge get all the attention, but the science behind having people in your corner is even stronger. Strong relationships are linked to longer life, better health, and less stress. Your social life may be doing more for your health than your workout routine.

  • We spend an enormous amount of time and money trying to optimize our health while increasingly doing it alone.

    The irony is hard to miss. Social isolation is associated with higher rates of heart disease, dementia, and premature death. Meanwhile, friendship rarely makes anyone's list of health interventions.

    We're not suggesting you need 100 friends. You probably don't even want 100 friends (that’s too many birthdays to remember). But having a place where you regularly see familiar faces, have a conversation, and feel like you belong?

    The science says that matters. A lot.

  • This might be the least sexy longevity intervention on the internet: have friends.

    Across decades of research, people with stronger social relationships consistently live longer. One analysis of more than 2 million people found social isolation was associated with a 32% higher risk of death from any cause.

    Before buying another wearable or supplement, invest in your relationships.

    Source: Click Here

  • A lack of social connection is so bad for your health that the U.S. Surgeon General felt the need to issue an advisory about it.

    And for good reason. Strong relationships are linked to better stress regulation and mental health, while loneliness is associated with significantly higher rates of depression.

    Having people around doesn't make your problems disappear, but it appears to change how you can handle them.