Going from hot to cold — like a sauna with an ice bath — and back again from hot to cold can ease pain, eliminate illness, and help you lose weight. And it happens at a health club or beach near you. Kerry Porter took the plunge
I hate the cold. I’m the only middle-aged woman I know who hates swimming in the open sea, and if I could afford it, I’d definitely turn on the central heating in July. But I happily jumped into a bucket of water at a miserable five degrees Celsius. Who am I? Because I’d just spent 15 minutes in an infrared sauna next to a cold bath, under the guise of contrast therapy. After the swim, I jumped back into the sauna and started all over again.
I’m currently at Rebase, a sleek new wellness centre in central London, one of a growing number of biohacking venues offering contrast therapies. Contrast therapy involves rapidly alternating intense heat (around 40 degrees Fahrenheit for a hot tub and 80 degrees Fahrenheit for a sauna) and intense cold (4 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit). Because contrast therapy benefits everything from circulation to pain, metabolism to mood, it’s becoming increasingly popular with athletes, swimmers and longevity enthusiasts, and it’s only a matter of time before others follow suit.
Rebase, which opened in Marylebone in June, offers group contrast therapy sessions – in a room with neatly arranged baths and a sauna at the end – as well as two private suites with baths and either an infrared or traditional sauna (I chose the infrared).
Kerry in an infrared sauna (left) and the Rebase contrast therapy studio (these are tubs, not coffins!)
Kerry in an infrared sauna (left) and the Rebase contrast therapy studio (these are tubs, not coffins!)
I also had a contrast therapy session in a salt water sauna on Sandbanks beach in Dorset. It’s one of many seaside saunas popping up along the UK coastline, where you can alternate between hot saunas and ice cold waters under the guidance of practical British Army lieutenant colonel and sauna master Jane Witt.
Kerry in her sauna cap (which helps keep your head cool, allowing you to stay in the sauna longer) and sauna guru Jane Witt
Kerry in her sauna cap (which helps keep your head cool, allowing you to stay in the sauna longer) and sauna guru Jane Witt
You can now say goodbye to ice baths on the patio (that was last year!) and enjoy a dedicated contrast bath at home instead. I was lucky enough to try out the UK’s first all-in-one bath – the stylish Contraspa, bespoke from luxury pool specialists Spaflo. It has a yin-yang design, with hot water on one side and cold on the other. It’s stunningly beautiful – as you’d expect when you spend £40,000. You could install one in your country home (perhaps next to the paddle court) or wait for one to be installed at your local upmarket health club or spa.
As any passing Scandinavian will tell you, contrast therapy is nothing new. It’s long been an integral part of Nordic sauna culture, with people escaping the heat by rolling around in the snow or jumping into lakes. The therapy’s popularity in Central Europe is attributed to Sebastian Kneipp, a priest who researched and promoted various natural alternative cures for tuberculosis. He believed that contrast therapy (alternating between bathing in icy rivers and warm thermal waters) helped boost the immune system. Today, at The Ranch wellness centre in Italy, GTG’s Victoria Woodhall tried out a “Kneipp bath” – where you soak up to your thighs in cold water, then 10 times in hot water to improve circulation. This is an example of how health care providers are creating convenient and easy-to-use methods that combine heat and cold therapy, making this centuries-old treatment more accessible to people.
No – as with sauna or cold therapy, you need to seek medical advice if you have any underlying medical conditions. Both extremes put double the strain on the body (albeit a positive one). I recommend attending a class or mentoring session first.
Start with a warm compress – it’s a more comfortable way to relax and will help you cope with the cold. At Sandbanks, Jane kept me in the sauna for about 15 minutes until I started sweating, and then we went into the sea. Cold water contrast therapy sessions are always much shorter. I stayed in the water for about two minutes, then repeated for an hour.
I use the Contraspa treatment, which involves a five-minute soak in 98.5-degree water (up to the neck) and then a one-minute soak (max!) in 46-degree cold water, four times. It’s important to listen to your body and understand what it can handle. I took my time getting used to the cold water treatments, as I don’t usually do it. I haven’t taken a cold water class, but I think it will be a motivating factor, especially for those who, like me, are intolerant to cold water.
A good tip is to finish your workout in a cool environment – this will allow you to burn more fat since your body will have to work harder to return to normal temperature compared to finishing your workout in the heat.
If recommendations or classes don’t suit you, you can create your own contrast therapy paradise at home using an infrared sauna blanket (from £100) and a cold bath.
In short, yes. You can enjoy the benefits of both heat and cold therapy, and get additional benefits from combining them.
Alternating between hot and cold can improve circulation because it stimulates pulsating blood flow. “When you’re exposed to heat, your blood vessels dilate, allowing more blood to be pumped throughout your body,” says Alex Rebase-Nielson, founder of Rebase. “When you’re exposed to cold water, your blood vessels constrict, diverting blood away from your extremities and toward your vital organs and tissues. Repeating this process over and over again helps increase blood flow throughout your body.”
Alex has seen the power of contrast therapy to reduce inflammation by improving circulation. At age 25, he contracted a parasite while swimming in dirty water overseas and had to have his gallbladder and part of his liver removed. The scar tissue left behind from the surgery caused Alex a lot of pain, but after a few weeks of regular contrast therapy, the pain subsided.
The potential to reduce inflammation has far-reaching benefits. Jane Witt said contrast therapy could “reduce the risk of lifestyle-related physiological and neurological diseases caused by inflammation, such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and help treat inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.”
Alternating exposure to heat and cold activates our brown adipose tissue – the healthy brown fat. “Not only does this warm the body up after exposure to cold, but it also improves the body’s metabolism, continuing to burn fat for up to four hours afterwards,” says Jane.
Now it’s clear why biohackers are so fascinated by contrast therapy. “When you expose the body to extra microdoses of healthy stress through heat and cold stimulation, damaged cells are repaired, which slows down cellular aging and extends our lifespan,” said Jian.
I can confirm this: the euphoria is real! Each time, I feel my body fill with endorphins and ready to take on whatever the day may bring. For me, it was partly a sense of accomplishment: contrast therapy helped me overcome my fear of hypothermia. The element of heat makes the cold more bearable. Jane Witt told me that beach saunas extend the cold-water season for many elderly and ill swimmers. Because they can quickly restore their body temperature in the sauna, they can enjoy a dip in icy water even in the dead of winter. What a wonderful experience!
A contrast therapy session at Rebase costs £40, while a private room for 45 minutes (for three people) costs £150 – a good option if you don’t fancy crawling around in public in a swimsuit.
The Contraspa costs just under £40,000 and is aimed at people with a gym and a swimming pool at home. (It was only a matter of time before the product appeared on Beckham’s Instagram feed.)
A one-to-one sauna session with Jane Witt costs £175, while a 60-minute session in the public sauna costs £15.
Or, if you’re in London, try a ‘banya’ – a traditional Russian hot and cold therapy that includes sauna/steam baths and cold dousing/ice buckets. Bath House Banya in Belgravia offers a three-hour package (including one treatment) for £115, while treatments at Banya No 1 (in Chiswick and Hoxton) start from £30.
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