Jen Pfleghaar, DO, FACEP
Hi, it is Dr. Jen. So I want to talk about something. Fine, which is cold therapy and your thyroid health. So is it good? Is it bad? And what are the studies show? So what is cold water immersion? So cold water immersion is actually cooling your body down with water. So most of the studies are based on cold water swimming, which is winter swimming in different areas, different countries. It is a practice where people go out in the cold water. So what it is, is usually from the neck down, you are submerged, but you can also get the same kind of benefits with taking a cold shower. You can also do cryotherapy, even though the studies are a little bit different and based on cold water, swimming with that. So there are a lot of different benefits, such as reducing inflammation, improving circulation, and improving muscle recovery and performance. And also cold exposure causes a prolonged release of dopamine. So dopamine is a chemical that is mainly found in your brain, that is going to help with motivation, feeling good, feeling happy right? And sometimes if we have thyroid autoimmune problems going on, we, our mood is kind of frustrated, right? And not motivated, but this is really helpful.
So I personally love how I feel when I do cold plunging. And basically, when you looked on to this, cold plunging, some people are concerned about is this going to cause increased cortisol. Is this going to affect the thyroid in a negative way? Well, they actually, two studies I found in women show that there was no ultra secretion of growth hormone, prolactin, thyrotropin, or thyroid hormones, and the free T4 and free T3 are not altered. So while this has a benefit on positive excretion of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and norepinephrine, it is not really going to affect your thyroid in a negative way. Another positive effect is that increases BAT or brown adipose tissue, and this is through shivering. Most of our brown adipose tissue is found in between our shoulder blades. So after you fully plunge in, you are shivering. After you will feel it in the back. And what does that mean? Increased thermogenesis, increased metabolism.
So they have found with the sweet spot is 11 minutes of cold water immersion or cold therapy a week. And that is going to it is going to increase your thermogenesis and increase the metabolism, which is great. And that is really positive when you are dealing with some thyroid issues. So cold water immersion definitely approved by Dr. Jen for patients with thyroid problems but talk with your doctor about a specific plan for you. Now, how do you get started now? The best way is probably just at the end of your shower, just turning it to cold. Okay, so getting used to that cold, you are going to feel that breath like suck in and what you want to do is slow your breathing down and use your 4-7-8 breaths slowly. And that is really going to help you get through that initial cold sensation because that is ramping up your sympathetic systems. You want to get in that parasympathetic state. So turning the water in the shower to cold is going to be the best way to kind of ease yourself into it. And then really you can just, you can go for it. I like to when I first started, I would start going 3 minutes at a time, set a timer, do my breath work, and then you just get used to it. And you actually really enjoy it but make sure that you are when you are practicing cold water therapy and cold water immersion, that you do have someone with you and watching you, especially if you are putting your whole face in. You want to make sure that there is someone there just for safety purposes. So I hope this mini talk was helpful. If you want some more information and an actual entire plan and workbook to get your therapy started off, then you want to download it is, I do have a cold water download available for all of you. Thank you so much for being here.
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