Why an Ice Bath Will Change Your Mom Life
Forget about the health benefits, a cold plunge helps you handle daily parenting challenges and shocks you into happiness.
It works better than a glass of wine. Nothing makes parenting, and just life in general, easier to juggle than my cold plunge habit: here, a 6-minute ice bath experience at Remedy Place in NYC.
One of my favorite habits when living in Finland this fall was regularly plunging into the sea or a lake, as they increasingly got colder and colder. This was not part of a new wellness trend for me—even though I, for one, love trying out all things wellness—it was something that Finns, and other Scandinavians, have done since the Viking era, or the stone age, or since the 19th century when cold bath houses began appearing in the Nordics.
Now American celebrities from Kim Kardashian, Lizzo and Lady Gaga, sports stars like LeBron James and even Oprah are all doing it—in ice bath tubs worth $5,000-$10,000.
In Finland, no such investment is necessary. All I needed to do was descend from a deck into the Baltic sea or one of the countless lakes, for free. And, it was easy to find company—because (almost) everyone, my brother, my mom & dad friends, old and new acquaintances, were all doing it.
Mom mood boost
When I got back to the United States in late December, after five months in Finland, I noticed my mood increasingly dipping lower and lower. I also felt more tired by the day. Whether it was the increased demands of mom life in America, the lack of my Scandinavian resources and benefits, culture shock, seasonal affective disorder, or just sleep deprivation with my toddler not getting over the jetlag, I’m not sure—but as nothing else worked, I happily forked over $60 to just dip my body in a 39-degree ice bath tub, for 6 minutes.
Why? Because I knew there was no way it could not work. With kids, if mom is sullen, it effects everyone. And, I also had work to do, like figure out how to import Scandinavian-style balance and happiness into the US and beyond!
In minutes, as my body slowly warmed up, my mood dramatically shifted, and stayed that way, for days. I literally couldn’t believe I had managed to stay in the freezing tub for six minutes, and I was high on endorphins—which you get after your body has experienced enough stress or pain, like in natural child birth, or say, an extremely vigorous SoulCycle class. I was suddenly ready for anything.
I rediscovered my sisu.
What is SISU & how does cold plunge cultivate it?
There has been countless articles about the ice bath and its benefits, but I do think most miss the biggest benefit—or the reason people, well Scandinavians, started doing it in the first place.
The reason the Vikings (look, I have no evidence, but I’m pretty sure) and current-day Scandinavians put themselves through such an extreme-seeming wellness practice, is to consciously or subconsciously cultivate their sisu.
Sisu is one of these completely untranslatable Finnish words, yet it’s a core characteristic of every Finn’s identity. If you have ever heard about sisu, it was likely described as grit, tenacity, or bravery, but these words somewhat miss the point.
On Wikipedia I found a fantastic way of explaining sisu, based on a study presented at the 3rd World Conference of Positive Psychology in 2013.
“It is a psychological potential that enables the individual to tap into strength beyond their pre-conceived resources.”
“Sisu is described as a psychological key competence which enables extraordinary action to overcome a mentally or physically challenging situation.”
Everyday sisu
We often think that something extraordinarily difficult needs to happen, or that something extraordinarily ambitious needs to be achieved, for us to really need resilience or grit or determination—essentially sisu.
But Finns acknowledge that everyday life is actually pretty hard, likely more hard than easy, and always full of ups and even more downs, wins and even more challenges and successes and even more setbacks, and it is often in these everyday tough situations, that we most need to tap into our sisu.
For example, sisu allows you to not freak out, or feel embarrassed, when your child throws a tantrum in a grocery store because they can’t open or eat all the lollipops on the candy isle, allowing you to finish your weekly grocery shopping without stressing out too much, or keep your cool or not sink into deep regret when your dining table chairs are suddenly covered in non-removable red food coloring from a science project that you gave the kids to work on, so you could just clean the kitchen, in peace.
Cultivating sisu enables you to not just get through or overcome these tougher everyday moments, when things expectedly go sideways like they tend to do with younger kids, but also allow you to surf through life with more balance and maintain a level of somewhat sustained happiness.
How I cultivated sisu in my kids—with the ice bath
Sisu is so important to Finns, in fact, and so easy to cultivate via ice baths, that I encouraged my older boys, 7.5 and 9, to take up the practice with me, while we were in Scandinavia: in the Finnish Baltic sea and countryside lakes, and in a fjord in Norway.
They loved it, along with learning to enjoy “loylyt”, the extra hot stream that fills the sauna for a few minutes after you throw enough water on the stove.
Even my youngest son, 2, developed his own version of a cold plunge inside a warm sauna: he likes to throw cold water on himself from the cold-water bucket, then laugh out loud, then warm up, and then repeat.
Why every (stressed-out) mom could use an ice bath
So in Finland, it’s not so much celebrities or sports stars or people we know by their first names that do ice baths. It’s (almost) everyone.
In Finland, it’s not so much whether you feel like doing it or not, you just do it. And in Finland, it’s not so much about if there’s proof on how and whether it works, because once you do it, you know it works—basically, you can’t not feel any different, once you get up from the near-freezing water. It will feel good somehow, and in a different way, each time. The harder it was for you to do it, the more invincible you feel afterwards.
The concept of the ice bath is really quite simple. It cultivates sisu, and developing sisu (being able to just do it) results in an endorphin rush, which makes you feel happier. There are very few other ways to get such quick, dependable feel-good results—especially for busy parents.
How to try the ice bath experience
If you are enticed to test this out, I’d recommend to skip the cold-shower idea I keep hearing about as an easy, free alternative (it does sound way more torturous for me than cold plunging!), and try these options instead:
Fill a bath tube with the coldest water you get from the tap, ideally colder than 60 degrees or 15 Celcius. Throw in ice, if you need to. Use a timer, and dip into it for 30-60 seconds.
If you feel like you can’t do it as much as I do, especially with the more extreme cold plunges in near-freezing water, I love doing a ten-minute Wim Hoff breathing exercise before the plunge, which I also continue in the water, to override my “get out of here as fast as you can!” reflex.
To get a guided ice bath and a filled tub, find a wellness center or spa near you with an “ice bath experience”. Watch my experience here:
Find someone with lakeside access and start by walking into chest-high water for 30-60 seconds. You can also swim, but perhaps try it only after you are more comfortable with the experience.
I was recently introduced to another wellness-minded mom Jara Negrin, also an entrepreneur with three kids, and on a whim, after she told me she lives lakeside, I suggested during our first coffee date that we try a cold plunge together. To my surprise, she said yes, and we had a fantastic and fun ice swim hang-out next, majorly elevating both of our moods.
We put on an upbeat song, and walked into the lake with a warm hat on and neoprene booties on the feet. We then stood up in chest-high water—the lake’s surface was frozen at the shore that morning, so we estimated it was likely 37-39 degrees for minute, doing the wim hoff breathing technique throughout. Next time, we will attempt 1.5-2 minutes.
Cultivating the happiness lifestyle
“Finland may have the initial monopoly on sisu as a cultural construct, but it is a universal capacity and the potential for it exists within all individuals,” says another quote in the Wikipedia page about sisu. I’m convinced that the ice bath is a short cut to developing sisu. When you prepare for mentally handling the wild ride that’s parenting, and life, and consistently remind yourself of what you can do, happiness—and balance—is that much easier to achieve.
x Annabella
If you have ever tried an ice bath, what was it like?! Did it help with dealing with, well, just life? And, if you have another trick you use to help you feel mentally more invincible, I’d love to know!
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Just did 1 minute 10 seconds, my longest plunge yet! Amazing how clear & warm I feel afterward!
Love the cold water stuff, but I would be mindful that in the Wim Hof Method he makes an exclusive point not to practice his breathing techniques when you are in the water as there is a real risk for loss of consciousness. Happy plunging and enjoy the benefits :)