Maybe I'm a trouble breath walk in the same category as it, but it's instant. It's not like I'm waiting for a payoff, you know, four months later after a training plan. Right, right. Yeah, it's pretty immediate. That's what's nice about it. It's so unique with Ice Barrel. You get in, it's uncomfortable at first. You get used to it and then the pain starts becoming enjoyable. And then you get out and you feel amazing just consistently. So it's true every time it doesn't lie. Have you any idea where the idea of getting into cold water came from? What's the origin something? Yeah, I mean, we have a couple different blog posts about the origins of cold therapy at the website, which is www.iceberyl.com. And we go all the way back close to four to five thousand years ago, where these physicians were doing different amputations and they were trying to figure out how to prep the patient. And cold therapy was like one of the easiest, most accessible things. So it kind of comes out of a grim start, but then even through ancient Japan, you had monks sitting under the waterfalls in the winter time meditating and just draining their bodies and minds and they would soak these blankets freezing cold water out in freezing temperatures and wrap themselves in there until they heat up their body, heats up the blankets, it's wild stuff. Because I've had a guy breed with oil, he's one of the Wim Hof, Wim Hof. I always show him van in there for some reason because he's like, Rude van Istoroia soccer player. He's a Wim Hof disciple. And he was talking to me about Russian parents leaving babies out in the car with a more robust immune system. Yeah, it's funny. My wife, Nara, and a constant dialogue about should the kids wear a jacket outside. And I'm always like, no, let them go. They'll make them tough and strong. And she's like, no, put a jacket on him. So yeah, I completely agree with that idea. It seems like we're in a culture at the moment where people are starting to experience the slow creeping consequences of their negative lifestyles. Like I'm talking about stuff like overstressed, overworked, overstimulated. And then a big one in the US, which is creeping over here is over Medicaid. Yeah, no doubt. When you found the noise spiral, did you have any sort of inclination that maybe this is a strategy to replace the pill or was this, you know, was your goal as grandiose stuff? Yeah, you know, there were a lot of strategies going into it when I started my journey in cold exposure. I was coming out of like a really high stress career. in the aviation world and I was kind of going super gung ho with that whole mindset of like, you know, work hard, sleep less, do what you have to do to get ahead. And I just found myself just getting really burnt out, continually getting sick. My stress levels, my cortisol levels were so high that I had to hit the reset button somewhere. You know, it was affecting my parenting, my relationship with my wife and I just had to hit that reset button. So when I started in cold therapy somebody encouraged me to take a cold shower and try some basic breathing exercises which I was honestly pretty hesitant to in the beginning. I'm like that's not gonna solve my problems you know but I the first time I did this basic like box breathing you know four seconds in hold for four seconds out for four seconds hold for four seconds and then I took a cold shower and something switched in me that time. I slept really good that night and I did it again and again and again. I was doing it for like six, seven months and I'm like okay I'm pretty experienced with this cold shower. I need to migrate into the bathtub. So I started using just a family bathtub but you know I hated laying down, I hated wasting the water, I hated how dirty it would get if I tried to save it for like two to three days you know and the kids would get in and play and it was just a challenge, you know. But as I was like progressing through this like basic elementary journey of getting into cold therapy, like my mood started to improve and my heart rate started to change. I started to respond versus react in stressful situations. I quit getting like head colds and bronchitis, which I was very accustomed to throughout my months of high intensity work and then, you know, ease off.
But yeah, I just noticed my overall wellbeing start changing. And then I couldn't give it up. I was just continuing because I didn't want anything to change. But I think to answer your original question, I started seeing how my life was way too stressful and comfortable at the same time, which I don't think a lot of us think about. But our life, everything is so convenient and so comfortable. But yet, we're so stressed out. We're so discontent as a society. And it started pushing me towards more of like this minimalist, primitive lifestyle. Not in an extreme way, but more in like a balanced way. Like hot water is a fairly new invention, you know? It hasn't been around for a long period of time. People weren't taking hot showers every single night, you know? Isn't the idea of being stressed out and yet at the same time comfortable? I don't know what to call that team. It's almost like a chokes to position there too. but we're more connected than ever, but we're more isolated and lonely than ever. Yeah, exactly. Like the swire? It's a weird shit going on. Like, I know. I remember as a kid, like, it looks like we're roughly the same age. And as a kid, I remember having like, I don't know, not a lot of TV stations, not like 500 TV stations, Netflix, Amazon, Prime, Disney, plus. We have all this choice, but yet we're so distracted. And we can't focus on it. We're like, I can't pick an Netflix show to watch. I spend like 20 minutes just flicking and then go fuck it. I'm all in the best. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think we can all relate to that. You know, I, this guy messaged me and he was like, if people would just drink more water, walk barefoot through their lawn a little more after often, get cold like once a week. He's like, I think we would all start like, kind of resetting that stress response in the body. And then it was like, those are like basic things, you know? I've always said what like what God what nature asks of you it might not be easy but it's very simple, you know? If we can just like breathe through our nose and close our mouth, if we could turn the water from hot to cold and if we could just take a few minutes to soak in the vitamin D, I think like a lot of our well-being would change. You know and you've done this nicely because I feel like the stuff that works in the bio-hoc atmosphere, you know, I've all the Kuku, Jove lights and stuff. Actually, I love the Jove light, but there's loads of other shit that you put up your nose that I've spent money on that I don't love so much. Yeah. Like the main things for me are like get really hot, get really cold, get into the sunlight, grounding, water, exercise, gratitude. Yeah. And yeah, none of them cost any money, but what you've done brilliantly is you figured out how to monetize something that is free for a lot of people. Yeah, you know, like my experience with cold therapy is it wasn't super accessible. Like, yes, you can do the cold shower, but you do over time grow out of that. And when I'm not in the ice barrel, I'm in a cold shower if I'm traveling or something like that. But I don't know, I can get into like, you know, even 49 degree water and like I don't start shivering. I just, I maintain composure because you do build up a tolerance to it. So it's nice to have like, I don't know, it's nice to have a place where you can go, you you can meditate, you can sit, and it's designated for cold therapy practice versus your family shower or bathtub. But even the bathtub wasn't accessible because I'd have to constantly drain the water. The ice would melt so quick. And the kids would wanna come and play in it. So it was rather distracting. So then I moved it outside and I've tried every single type of receptacle possible. I've tried the stock tanks. I've tried the inflatables. And it was just a challenge to get something that was comfortable, that was dedicated for it. So I wanted to make something simple, something easy, and also something without technology. Something that wasn't going to be a distraction and a stimulation, it was something that was gonna be calming and peaceful where you could take a second, in your day and breathe.
Well, we talked about this off-air just before we got started. I, majority defining you guys was trying to wrap my brain and go, okay, I don't have a battle by living in an apartment. I have a call, shareable. I feel like a drug addict, like the cold showers, your entry level medication. Yeah. I do live right beside the sea. I'm looking, but in the summer, it's not really cold enough. So in the winter, it's awesome. But in the summer, and it's also a hassle of like, even though I'm right beside the sea, it's still like 10 minutes to get on change and get there. And so I was fishing around for an old Guinness barrel, like for beer, and I stumbled across you guys. And it's like, this smart motherfucker, like this is genius. So I got a way to get yours and check it out. Yeah, you know, we started off with a custom wooden barrel, which I love that feel of the white oak and it's just sort of organic and natural, but wood over time, you know, it just has a lot of issues and it's hard to maintain, it's heavy. And it wasn't that entry level, you know, point. I mean, white oak is very expensive. So we migrated away from the oak barrel feel, and we created something that was more sustainable, ethically made, 100% recycled, which I love, that we're pulling old material plastic from all these different places, and we're putting it together in a sustainable, cold therapy training unit. But you've just nailed the design as well, with the little steps into it, and the tap to drain it, because like full of water, like I imagine that's quite heavy. Yeah, you know, empty, it's only 55 pounds, but once you fill it, you know, the max fill on that is 105 gallons, but once you get in it, you know, you're only really filling it with around 80 gallons, but that's still like 700 pounds. Yeah. And drainage is another huge thing, you know, you can connect a standard garden hose. So if you live in an apartment, you're not flooding your neighbor's balcony below you. You know, you can throw it into your shower pan or, you know, off the edge with a hose and drain it simply. That's an awesome design. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about what happens if somebody hasn't experienced call therapy because my journey is much similar to yours. I was a professional cyclist, a full-time cyclist for years and then I came back and I was an entrepreneur and I built four or five different businesses and I was just starting to put on weight, I'm starting to get unhappy and I was at a point where I realized I wasn't just about to quit cycling because I wasn't competitive anymore. I was actually about to quit kind of that life vision I had myself. I was drifted to like, you a dude in his sororities and I was like I'm starting to put on ways I kind of don't like diversion myself on becoming. I never pictured that. So I went down that road looking for solutions to this problem and biohacking and call therapy was one has just become a staple for me. But for anyone that's listening that hasn't heard of this before, do you want to talk us through like what is the physical response somebody gets from actually getting into cold water? Like white We'll call it water. Yeah, absolutely. I would like to back up a little bit. Like I've always kind of lived a really fast paced life. My wife and I have, we have three kids. They're all under the age of five. So a five, a two and then two month old. And so my life does not look like easy. I'm not like waking up at five a.m. every day and meditating and, you know, drinking a kale smoothie. You know, I'm waking up every day and there's kids climbing on me and making breakfast. It's family life. And so starting out in this, starting in the cold shower and then moving to the ice barrel, it's something that I can utilize every day. That's simple. If the kids are around, it still works. And you get those responses. So it's not like you have to be an elite athlete or just a high performance professional that doesn't have distractions in life. This is something that you can utilize with everyday people, just like me. But when you first start in cold therapy, like, one of the first things you're going to notice is like your brain function and your move is going to improve.
Cold therapy activates a hormonal response and it helps anybody that's suffering from you know, different types of anxiety, depression, different diseases like fibromyalgia and arthritis, things like that. So immediately you're going to notice like an improvement in your brain and your mood. The other thing, if you're struggling with any forms of anxiety or depression, cold therapy can help alleviate those symptoms, which is awesome. That was something like anxiety and depression I struggled with in my life. But since 2017, when I started in this, it's been very minimal to nothing, which has been amazing. And then you're going to notice other things, like inflammation reduction. And if you're recovering from an injury or muscle soreness, cold therapy reduces pain in the body by desensitizing the nerves and reducing swelling. So. I remember we noticed all sorts of things. I remember in this awesome story, I can't remember who, maybe it was Tim Ferris who told it about a NASA material scientist called Ray Cronox. Yeah, yeah. He was trying to learn how to lose weight. So as any math student, he tried to break it back to its raw numbers. So he said, okay, it's calories in, calories out. But then anecdotally he looked around that he's seen professional athletes like Michael Phelps, Consume in 10, 15,000 calories a day. But they weren't training to born anywhere near 10,000 calories a day. So he figured out, there's gotta be a torrid element here. Can't you just be calories in, calories out? And then Term or Dynamic Load, was that torrid element? The body's ability to regulate heat. And that was the first time I got torrid on to cold as a powerful fat-bornening tool. And I know so many of our audience struggling with those last few pounds. Yeah, absolutely. When I first started in cold therapy, I was working out extensively, and I was right around, I was right around like 15 to 16% body fat. But when I started, it was such an extreme response on my body, and I think it was because like my cortisol levels, they were so high. Like my stress load was so much. And so when I like dropped all of that and just focused in on cold therapy, like my body's response was drastic. I dropped all the way down to close to like 5% body fat over. Yeah, it was insane. And then I was able to maintain right around eight, six to 8% body fat for the next couple of years, which was amazing. But what it's doing is it's increasing the brown fat, which is the good energy storing fat and it's your body, right? in the metabolism kicks in, you start burning the white fat, the fat we don't want. But it takes time for most people, for my experience in this, what I've seen. It's a great tool to utilize, but it does take time, especially depending on the frequency of how many high spas, cold showers you're taking a week. So you talked about your drop from sort of 15% down to going to age per cent or a maintenance figure. Like what was your protocol every day? How often were you doing it every day, twice a day? Yeah, so when I was doing cold showers, it was every single day. And then when I went to actual ice baths, taking them in ice barrel, I was still doing that every single day. It was outdoor. I was living in Colorado. So during the winter, the water was literally 33 degrees or it was frozen over on top. Take a hammer, break it up and climb in. And I was dedicated. I would stay in a minimum of three minutes and a maximum of like 11 minutes, which again, if you're just starting into this practice, I recommend you just do what your body's comfortable. So if that's 30 seconds, get in, get out, and then try to do a little bit more time. Yeah, but my protocol was I would get up either in the morning and take an ice bath, but with kids that was always a little more challenging. So I would always, I changed my mindset around it that I'm going to start ending my day and rest. I'm going to start ending the day better than I maybe started it. So then that next morning I'd have that energy and that motivation to keep going. So I would take ice baths primarily in the evenings, which I mean, I sleep so good after an ice bath like most people, but I would get in the ice barrel then I would get out and I would do some breath exercises.
And then I would just take time, I would just lay flat on the floor and just to become present, just to slow my breath down and just become aware. And you mentioned the use of so far love from head colds and reoccurring illness. Ice bath, I've seen some of the temperature benefits have improved immunity anecdotally, it helped you a lot. Is there papers to stuff to back that up as well? Yeah, so if you go to our website, at icebrow.com slash science, we have a whole science page and medical researchers on our team that are constantly mining for different medical journals and research. So go there, you can read so much about cold therapy. But yes, cold therapy can help improve the immune system for me, anadotically and absolutely did. I mean, I was struggling with bronchitis every two to three months. I would get hit with bronchitis for like seven to four two days. And it was absolutely miserable. And I would be my, I would take so much ibuprofen and it was just so frustrating. I could not figure out, you know, how to get over this bronchitis. And I'd go see specialists and doctors all the time. And when I started in cold therapy, like it just dissipated for like a year. And then it came back and then I just had to like, you know, it came back one through twice in the last, I don't know, five, six years, it was wild. Yeah, so it absolutely helped Miami in system. What do you make of Wim Hof? Is he good for business? Is he bad for business? He's biggest name. He's most of the biggest name. He looks like an eccentric madman I've never tried to tell. Yeah, yeah. You know, anybody that is a evangelist of cold therapy is a friend of ours at the end of the day. I love the voice he's given cold therapy. I love the awareness that he's brought to it. Yeah, I think it's great. I think he's helping a lot of people, which is awesome. You gotta get that money into my noise, Peral. I know, I know. You gotta open up internationally at some point. Do you have a order of boileoscopy and corporate into your day? Yeah, you know, some things that I'm a big proponent on just breathing through your nose. So I have sleep strips that when I'm when I can, I put a sleep strip on a tape over my over my mouth. So when I'm breathing at night, it's just through my nose. James, next up stuff. Yeah, yeah, I love the book. And then, you know, some other things that I like to do when when it comes to fitness, I like functional fitness, mobility body weight. Like, I don't know if you know who Edo Portell is out of Israel. Hi, Gross. Yeah, he has some amazing functional fitness flows that I love. Same with John Lindsey over with Movement Journey. Edo was an EDO portal. I-D-O portal. I-D-O portal, check him out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love water fasting. Um, and then something just to start and end the day, you know, just sitting with the kids watching the sunset or the sunrise. I think is just, uh, it's just a special time as a family to just everyone calm down together. And, um, my daughter calls it the golden hour. And so she's always excited to see the golden hour. So things like that are really great. I think it's an interesting time for our health because COVID's and COVID vaccines, COVID mandates, COVID passports, all these things are. very much top of the national media agenda, but implicit in that whole discussion is this idea that weekend somebody else is going to be responsible for our health. But whether you're pro vaccine or anti vaccine, that's only one aspect of your health. When we talk about stuff like this, it's very much the individual taking back control and saying, I'll figure out how to maximize my health, maximize my happiness. And that's where so many of these strategies are helpful in that quest to just take responsibility and ownership of your health back. Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of times in, you know, our society, we're trying to fix everything from the outside in, but the unique thing with like cold therapy is the response in the body is from the inside out. And when we can slow down, we can become aware of our emotions, we can become aware of who we are, and we can start healing from the inside out, the changes long lasting.