Cold Therapy: The Secret Weapon to REPROGRAM Your Body & Mind | Dr. Susanna Søberg

Dr. Susanna Søberg is a leading expert in the world of cold and heat exposure therapy. With years of dedicated research, she has become a trailblazer in understanding the profound effects of deliberate temperature exposure on the human body and mind. Her groundbreaking findings and contributions to the field have positioned her as a visionary in the realm of metabolism, psychology, and holistic well-being. Dr. Søberg's expertise is not only shaping our understanding of cold and heat therapy but also empowering individuals to optimize their physical and mental health through these transformative practices. Learn more about Dr. Søberg's research and programs at soeberginstitute.comIn this episode you will learnHow Dr. Susanna Søberg's groundbreaking research is changing the way we view cold and heat therapy. The key findings in her research that can revolutionize your metabolism. The distinction between white fat and brown fat, and how cold therapy affects both. The profound psychological effects of cold therapy on your mood and mental well-being. The optimal frequency, duration, and benefits of cold plunges and saunas for your health. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1558For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Wim Hof – https://link.chtbl.com/1043-guestDr. David Sinclair – https://link.chtbl.com/1232-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  When I saw the Winter Swimmers, it didn't really match what I read. So there was something missing there. And only when I started doing this myself, I understood, aha, it's the connection between what is going on in your physiology and your brain. And that brain-body-brain connection, I felt that suddenly.

• 0:26Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:50Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Susannah Suber in the house. So good to see you. Welcome to the School of Greatness. Now, this is fascinating because you have a PhD in metabolism. You're essentially a cold and heat scientist. You study this about how people can optimize their metabolism to burn fat, to lose fat, the bad types of fat. And you've been studying this. Your research focuses on the effects of deliberate cold and heat exposure on metabolism and various aspects of human physiology. And in this interview, I want to really explore how exposing ourselves to extreme

• 1:32Lewis Howes?

  heat or extreme cold, whether it be saunas and ice, can have a profound impact on our overall health, can transform the way our body looks, how we feel, how we think, and how we attract more great things in our life. So that's what I want to explore today. And how long have you been doing your research on metabolism as a PhD?

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  And what is the greatest finding that you've discovered from all your years of research so far?

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Oh, that's a good question, definitely. So I've been doing this kind of research for, since 2016, where I initially got into the research field of something called the brown fat. And we're gonna elaborate on that just a little bit later, but the brown fat was, is part of our metabolism. And I wanted to figure out why, how can we activate this kind of healthy tissue in the body in ways to get ourselves healthier and also to lose fat? So that's the main thing. So it's a new discovery that this kind of healthy fat, if you activate that with cold, then you increase your metabolism and you can lose weight.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  And even if you have type 2 diabetes, it's a really good way to lowering your glucose levels in your blood. So with that in mind, I started this kind of research where I was looking into how can we as humans, without taking any pills with this, just how can we naturally activate this tissue we have in order for us to increase our metabolism?

• 3:05Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  And then cold and heat come, came into the picture. And I started in 2016, just trying to like figure out how do, how do people use cold and heat today? Can we activate the brown fat with cold air? And how about cold water? As in Denmark, we do a lot of cold water swimming. So that idea pretty quickly came up as a fun way to activate the brown fat. But nobody has done it yet. So that's exactly where I started.

• 3:39Lewis Howes?

  What's, what's been the biggest finding so far in researching metabolism for the last seven, eight years and doing these studies?

• 3:46Speaker 00

  The research that I did was in metabolism and brown fat activation. And we've, we found that if you activate your brown fat by doing deliberate cold exposure, so winter swimming in cold water, and you do that for multiple seasons, then you can increase your brown fat activation. You will also have a better glucose balance, meaning that you will have a more efficient way of getting rid of the sugar in your bloodstream, because it's just more efficient, and lower insulin levels, which is a good thing. To have low insulin levels. That means that all your cells in your body are very like prone to feel if there's sugar available. And if there's sugar available, we should have a fast metabolism to get the sugar out of the bloodstream

• 4:31Speaker 00

  and into your cells. So you don't get that high blood sugar levels.

• 4:35Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so you found that the cold. So you were first off researching about metabolism. Was it more on how to lose weight or how metabolism works?

• 4:44Speaker 00

  So more basic science, like what is this tissue? Can it activate the metabolism? And I wasn't doing my studies or cell studies. So I wanted to see if intervention in humans could actually make a difference on something like blood pressure, brown fat activation, glucose metabolism and insulin levels. So I had all these measures, which are like more the hardcore outcomes. But it was also a way to see, can we, can we use this in a like a lifestyle intervention?

• 5:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  Because that will help people get healthier.

• 5:22Lewis Howes?

  And were the interventions that you were researching only cold and heat therapy? Or were there other types of interventions you were studying for activating metabolism?

• 5:32Speaker 00

  That's a good question, yeah. I am so in, in research, you, you have to focus on some things.

• 5:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  Because it takes a lot of, of reading and learning on specific things. So when people do a PhD, they have to be very narrow in what they do in order for them to become really experts in what they do and, and understanding what they're doing. Because so much is happening in the body when you research just one cell or one mechanism, one pathway. And I was researching both the cold and the heat and even a way to use that as a lifestyle intervention. So I did a lot of field studies before. So researching how do winter swimmers go out winter swimming? How do they use the heat? And how does that affect our physiology and biochemistry? So it was kind of both things. So it was huge for me to study all that at the same time.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow. In terms of the. Types of fat the body has. Cause there's brown fat and there's white fat, is that correct? Is there a different type of fat that we have as humans?

• 6:33Speaker 00

  Those are two very distinct kind of tissues, that's true.

• 6:37Lewis Howes?

  And what's the difference between brown fat and white fat? And are there other types of fat? Or is that the main fat that we have in our body?

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that's the main fat that we have in the body. So people know about the white fat. And the white fat is the bad fat, the unhealthy kind of fat that we want to get rid of. It's on the belly, on the stomach and around our inner organs. And it's called visceral fat. And we wanna get rid of that because that's what increases our risk of type 2 diabetes, obesity, which is like increasing a lot at the moment. Because you can see in 2030, it's estimated that around almost 50% of the people in the US would be on the obese scale.

• 7:19Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 7:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that's, that's how it's estimated at this moment. So by 2030, and we are, we are getting there, right? It's soon.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  And so that's the visceral white fat that causes people to be obese.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:32Lewis Howes?

  What causes a human being to gain so much fat? What are the main factors?

• 7:38Speaker 00

  So that's if people stop moving. So if people are not exercising enough, not moving enough, if they eat unhealthy kinds of fat, which is processed food these days. And so unhealthy kinds of food and too much of it. So there is like, if you don't burn the calories that you take in, it will convert to white fat. And the body is per like, that's how we are built. We want to survive, okay? So that's the body is just built to survive. And because you used to starve, right? At moments, we had fasting periods back in the days where we don't have all the food available all the time, but we do today.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  So the food, the body is calling for food all the time. As soon as you just get, after a few hours, four hours, five hours, you get hungry. And the more you actually eat, the more the white cells are sending a signal to the brain that you need to eat. Because otherwise, you would tear off from the white fat. And you need that kind of storage. So the white fat is actually something we need. It's a storage to survive. But we don't need that big a storage, right?

• 8:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, so we try to like and figure out how can we lose weight but not with any more drugs because in my opinion, we have enough, we have enough pills in the world, even for obesity and for type two diabetes. We also need to think about how can we help people not get this obese. So, exercise is definitely number one thing that we need to do. But on top of that, it seems that if you use cold and heat therapy, then you can also boost your metabolism even more and top that up. And that's gonna also tear off some of the white fat because you also activate the brown fat. And back to your question was that what is the difference between these two tissues?

• 9:36Speaker 00

  So, to say it very short, the white fat is storing your fat in the body and the brown fat is using the fat in the body. So, the brown fat can eat off the white fat.

• 9:47Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So, we want more brown fat.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:51Lewis Howes?

  And we want the brown fat to be healthier, it sounds like, or more efficient.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:56Lewis Howes?

  So that it can burn the visceral white fat from our body. And I think I'm hearing you correctly that the internal fat that's in our organs or inside of us sounds to be more dangerous than the external fat that's on the outside. Is that correct?

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's.

• 10:13Lewis Howes?

  And we can't, we can't see that, right? It's internal.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  No, exactly.

• 10:16Lewis Howes?

  But it affects our organs, our hearts, you know, our digestive system, I'm assuming, all these different things to be efficient in our body or inefficient. So, we could have a little fat on the outside, but a lot of fat on the inside and still be not well. Is that right?

• 10:31Speaker 00

  That is, yeah, that is well. That is so true. And actually, we, if you start being inactive, that is the first place around your inner organs where the white fat will put itself. So, you cannot maybe see it at once that you're getting fatter, but you can maybe see that your fitness level is going down. Then you can see that you are maybe also getting more out of breath easier if you do a run or something like that. That is telling you that you are not as fit as you were before. And. Correlating with that is increase in white fat. And it starts around your inner organs, which is the most dangerous kind of fat storage, you can say. And then it also puts, as you said, on the outside.

• 11:15Lewis Howes?

  Excess, yeah, on the outside.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:17Lewis Howes?

  So when you were doing these interventions and studying cold therapy and heat therapy, what was it about cold therapy that you was a big aha for you? When you started to either apply it with case studies and with yourself practicing this, what was the research telling you about the power of cold therapy? And activating the brown fat, the metabolism, losing weight, all these different things?

• 11:43Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, it it taught me a lot. It taught me something on a scientific level, but also on a personal level. Because when I was researching this, reading everything I could around this, doing my own research in it, started also doing winter swimming myself. And that is where I learned how this is actually connected. Because I was reading, how is our physiology affected? How is the biochemistry affected? And I did understand that. And I did understand how is our neurotransmitters activated? And how's the brain? And how is the physiology and also the psychological effects of this?

• 12:25Speaker 00

  But when I saw the winter swimmers, I didn't, it didn't really match what I read. So there was something missing there. And only when I started doing this myself, I understood, aha, it's the connection between what is going on in your physiology and your brain. And that brain-body-brain connection, I felt that suddenly. And also this increase in gratitude, I think it is. Yeah. So when I felt that, I was like, now I understand the happiness afterwards. Why do people go into the water with another mood, but get out in completely another mood? I could not understand it really, but I did when I started doing this myself.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  I would say it was painful at the beginning, but once you get over that, you increase your pain threshold. That's what you do. Then you start to enjoy it and you can then feel the neurotransmitters. You cannot feel them increase, but you'll feel the effects of it afterwards. And then what you've thought about before is not as important or as bad as it was when you go up from the water. So I think that transition, I did not understand from the research, but I understood it when I did it myself.

• 13:40Lewis Howes?

  So doing it yourself, yeah. So you were reading the research.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:44Lewis Howes?

  And you didn't make the full connections until you started to apply it yourself and see the actual effects emotionally, mentally and physically.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:51Lewis Howes?

  Now, what has the science shown us and proven about the power of, you know, getting in the ice? How long should we get in the ice for? How many times a week should we get in for? And when can we start to see the impact and the results of this type of therapy?

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, so there was, there are actually not that much research saying exactly how many times should you do this per week? I'm sure more will come, but in my research, we did do like a protocol for this. We, we, we had them note down how much they went into the water and we tracked them with watches and had them do this kind of diary. So we knew exactly how many times they were in the water, how many seconds.

• 14:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  And we also recruited them based on how many times they went into the water. And that was actually based on me not being a winter swimmer myself. And because I didn't want to do something extreme because I more believe in, in the, you can say, hermetic effect of cold and heat therapy. Just like exercise, I studied why is exercise healthy? That's because you have this healthy kind of stress. So there's bad stress and healthy stress. And the healthy stress is the acute response. So I was thinking, if we can apply that to, to my research saying, okay, we want winter swimmers to only do this very briefly. So not studying those who winter swim for a very long time, but just very brief.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  Then we. Recruited people who had done winter swimming for two seasons to see how does their brown fat look compared to a matched control group? And when we then watched them swim for a season and and measured their brown fat on multiple times and we tested so many things, we took bioses and everything. But what we then discovered was that they did eleven minutes of cold water swimming per week in total, but divided on two to three days. And per day, they went into the water three times. So if you divide that out in in just minutes, that would be about one to two minutes each dip, which is not that long.

• 16:03Lewis Howes?

  It's not long.

• 16:04Speaker 00

  It's not long. I mean, everybody can, who is healthy and and don't have heart diseases or unregulated high blood pressure. I mean, they can build this up slowly over time. And it's feasible, I think.

• 16:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Even for me, who

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  I didn't want to to become a winter swimmer because I was afraid of the cold myself. So I was thinking, this is this is really good because it's actually feasible. And and we did actually see that there was a difference between these two groups. So eleven minutes per week for the cold.

• 16:34Lewis Howes?

  So eleven minutes per week for the cold. You had one group doing that, and what was the other group? They were just not in the ice at all?

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:41Lewis Howes?

  And what were the benefits? How long did it take for them to get benefits? And what were those benefits?

• 16:47Speaker 00

  So the control group were not allowed to do any kind of winter swimming.

• 16:53Lewis Howes?

  No ice baths, no

• 16:54Speaker 00

  No ice baths.

• 16:54Lewis Howes?

  Cold shower, yeah, none of that stuff.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  No, no cold showers or even go to the swim hole or and no no saunas and stuff like that. But it was no problem because they didn't do that anyways.

• 17:04Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right. They couldn't do heat or cold?

• 17:06Speaker 00

  No.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  They had to be neutral water?

• 17:08Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. So even going to the spa was like a thing. They were not allowed. That was an agreement.

• 17:14Lewis Howes?

  How long was this for? How many months or?

• 17:16Speaker 00

  So it's about, it was five, six months, around that time.

• 17:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:20Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, actually, it was it was probably longer, maybe seven months when I think about it. Yeah, so it's it was a winter swimming season.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay, I see what you're saying. So about six months, you got a control group, they weren't allowed to do hot or cold therapy. And then you had another control group that did roughly around eleven minutes a week of ice therapy.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:43Lewis Howes?

  Uh, multiple times a week, sometimes a minute, sometimes two minutes at a time.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:49Lewis Howes?

  And so after six months of these two different groups, what did you notice as the results?

• 17:56Speaker 00

  So we noticed that after these six months, they this this must have been their eh third winter swimming season. So this is built upon multiple seasons, of course, but I think it would have been the same for the second season. It goes pretty fast, and I can I can tell you why in a minute. It's so we saw that they had more activation of the brown fat. So we measured that with both um PET CT scannings, but we measured specifically also how much heat they um increase from the brown fat, because that's the end product from brown fat.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  The brown fat is actually our inner radiator, you can say. It's the this little furnace that increases our heat in the body, so we don't freeze to death. So the the main goal.

• 18:44Lewis Howes?

  And helps you burn the white fat, the visceral fat.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, so how it works, I'm just gonna tell you that. Um so the brown fat, when it's activated with cold, um eh as soon as you get cold on the skin, you have to regulate your temperature in your body, right? So you don't get too cold. So in order for us to keep the neutral thirty seven degrees eh body temperature, you need to regulate that. So there will be a signal to the brain where we have this temperature regulating center saying, well, it's getting a little bit too cold here. So we will increase noradrenaline, and noradrenaline is a neurotransmitter, but also a hormone that will activate on the surface of the brown fat cells. And that's gonna burn some calories because it takes fuel to activate those brown fat cells.

• 19:31Speaker 00

  Takes glucose in and fat into the cells where these small mitochondria will then use that as fuel to generate heat.

• 19:40Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  So we get warmer, actually, so.

• 19:42Lewis Howes?

  So that's when we get cold air, cold water.

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  Um, then our, there's an adrenaline switch in our brain that signals to our cells.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  In the brown fat.

• 19:56Lewis Howes?

  In the brown fat.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:57Lewis Howes?

  Get hotter.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  Get warmer.

• 19:58Lewis Howes?

  Get warmer because you're gonna die if you keep freezing, right? Essentially, you're gonna die.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:02Lewis Howes?

  So get warmer and activate yourself to be a heater in the brown fat.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:08Lewis Howes?

  Which will then keep your body warm, but, but use energy from the, the stored visceral white fat to, to generate heat.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  As fuel.

• 20:20Lewis Howes?

  As fuel.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:22Lewis Howes?

  So we want more of that to happen, it sounds like, to burn that fat essentially, right?

• 20:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:26Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so continue there, I just wanted to get clear on that.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  Yes, but it was very clear, that's good. So the brown fat activated um your, their thermogenesis, so increased heat. So their ability to increase heat was higher in the winter swimmers. They were just warmer in general, so on the surface of their skin, they were, they were just warmer. So that means they dump a lot of heat. So they have a high heat loss rate, you can say. And then you could ask, okay, if they are hotter, they're warmer, and they lose a lot of heat. They have to generate heat in order for them not to get cold, too cold. So we need our vital organs to stay the same temperature, right? So in order for you to keep that temperature, core temperature up, and you're dumping a lot of heat,

• 21:14Speaker 00

  then you will have to activate more of your metabolism, just in general. But what we then observed was that um we also had them sleep at the laboratory afterwards. And where we could see that even just at neutral temperatures, sitting in a bed, not doing physical activity or anything, just being there and not increasing their metabolism in other ways. They had just this basic um higher increase of heat coming from the brown fat.

• 21:43Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  Which could indicate that they also just basically had more activation of the brown fat. We would have to study that more to be more clear on what exactly is going on here. But I think it's very interesting that we saw that basically they had more activation of the brown fat when they were cold, but also when they were not cold.

• 22:02Lewis Howes?

  So all the time?

• 22:04Speaker 00

  So all the time.

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  It was activating, which is, which means that they were generating more energy, therefore burning more fat.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  Burning more fat, yeah, exactly.

• 22:13Lewis Howes?

  Consistently. So that means they have a more optimal metabolism, it sounds like, right?

• 22:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting. So even when they weren't in the cold, they were just hotter in general?

• 22:24Speaker 00

  They were hotter in general, and that's also because they, when you do cold exposure, but also because they do the sauna, they have a higher blood flow to the skin. And because of that vessel constriction and vessel dilation, they increase the blood flow to the skin, meaning that they have a higher heat loss rate. And for that also, so it's both the sauna, but also the cold that would generate that blood flow to the skin and make your blood vessels contract and dilate better.

• 22:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  Because we have this increase in dilation and contracting of the, of the blood vessels, then we can dump more heat, but we can also contract the vessels better. Meaning if you get adapted to the cold, which our winter swimmers were, they could also just shut out the cold even better. Meaning that over time, they get adapted to the cold water, and then they can sit in the water for these two, one to two minutes. And in that way, building up that, you can say, almost blocking out.

• 23:30Lewis Howes?

  Almost not feel cold at all.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, they, they do.

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  Or less cold.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  Less cold, less, less fast cold, you can say, because if you're not adapted, you almost just take it in.

• 23:39Lewis Howes?

  You're like freezing, you're shaking the first time, yeah.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  And your vessels are contracting, of course, but not as efficiently as an adapted winter swimmer, a cold plodger.

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Wow, this is fascinating. So if someone, what happens to the body?

• 23:55Lewis Howes?

  And to the brain, when someone jumps in an ice tub or cold freezing water for one to three minutes, what is happening physiologically to the brain and the body when they do that?

• 24:06Speaker 00

  Yes, there's so much going on. It's insane. Everything, all the cells in the body, everything is activated because this is a moment where the body thinks or acts as if you are gonna die because it's such a huge threat to the body. You could die within twenty minutes in cold water, fifteen minutes, a half an hour, depending on the temperature and how, of course, you are in the water. If you accidentally fall in, then that's, of course, dangerous, but we are talking about deliberate cold exposure here. So if you do this on deliberate purpose and you know how to get in and out and you should

• 24:48Speaker 00

  always do that, you always have an escape plan, then you should think about this as a healthy way of shocking the body. So you shock the body and that is activating all your cold receptors in the body when you submerge into the cold water and that's gonna send a signal to the brain. I talked about that just before. And that's gonna increase dopamine in the brain and all the cytokines, that's noradrenaline, which is activating the brown fat immediately because now you are activating your sympathetic nervous system and that is your fight or flight response. So everything is activated in the body. And the brain is,

• 25:31Speaker 00

  you would imagine that because you are jumping into cold water, you will have a higher blood flow to the brain. A lot of people say that, I've heard, but quite the opposite is actually happening. So when you go into cold water, you will have a decrease of blood flow to the brain.

• 25:47Lewis Howes?

  A restriction. Is that a good thing or is that a?

• 25:50Speaker 00

  But that's a risk, I would say. It's a risk that you don't get as much oxygen to the brain as you did when you're normally just walking around, meaning that you will have to be mindful around how you go in, how are you holding on to something, are you new to this, and never do it alone. Because you could get lightheaded, you could even faint, some people do, and especially if you do some kind of...

• 26:17Speaker 00

  Breath hold before you go in or hyperventilation. I would just not recommend that.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  Always try to do slow nasal breathing in the water. If you are new to this, you probably can't.

• 26:32Lewis Howes?

  It's very challenging your first time, yeah.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, try to slow down your sympathetic nervous system by activating your parasympathetic nervous system. But that is really hard in the beginning, but you can try. So, but one thing I would just say that people should avoid is doing hyperventilating breath work before and in the water, because that's definitely gonna activate your sympathetic nervous system even more, decreasing the blood flow to the brain and oxygen to the brain and increase you too. And you will have less oxygen delivered to all your cells in the body. And that's, that's a risk, right? So what you wanna do is slow nasal breathing, or you can even do in through the nose, and then out through the mouth.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  If, if you can do that and try to like keep calm and thinking about that there's, there's nothing wrong in just breathing through the mouth if you're panicking, that's, that's of course one thing you have to do. But then go out and make it a good experience and then you can go in again.

• 27:34Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  But what you do is activating the sympathetic nervous system. If you can breathe through the cold shock response, then you are definitely good. You can rehearse that and then you will activate more the parasympathetic nervous system. So what is going on here? Well, the first thing, you activate your fight and flight system, the sympathetic nervous system. All your stress hormones are going up, noradrenaline and dopamine. You have even oxytocin going off actually, which is also making you grateful and, and you have this love hormone in your brain. But you should just be mindful that the only thing that you can use to

• 28:17Speaker 00

  get control of your sympathetic nervous system is your breath.

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  But if you can do that and you can get breathe through the cold shock response, you will get calmer afterwards. And if you put water to the face, also on your face, then you will also activate your vagus nerve, which will help you a bit.

• 28:36Lewis Howes?

  So don't just go, you know, below the neck. Also put water in the face when you're doing it.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Well, you could, yeah.

• 28:42Lewis Howes?

  It's hard, though.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  It's hard, though. Well, one thing I think that people should maybe try to avoid is the head dunk, if anything.

• 28:49Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 28:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:50Lewis Howes?

  Avoid it?

• 28:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think so, yeah.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  Even if you're more advanced or you've been doing it for a while, you still think avoid it?

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Well, it's just because avoiding it will help you keep your heat up in the body. So it's to avoid hypothermia, and hypothermia is a risk. And it's a process. As soon as you go into the water, you are on the process of hypothermia.

• 29:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  You are.

• 29:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  So, and you don't want your core temperature to go down to thirty-five. But we do see research showing that if you submerge to the neck, then you have all this. You have your fat, you have your tissue, bones, everything is protecting you from a very rapid heat loss of the core. But that rate will still be high because the water is cold, right? But if you then dunk the head, then you will increase that heat loss rate up to thirty-six percent extra.

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  So you don't want to lose heat that fast because it could be dangerous potentially. And also because you could faint when you don't get that oxygen to the brain.

• 29:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 00

  So I'm just saying that the head dunk is not necessary. You will get all the benefits just by going into the water up to the neck, and it's more safe. And of course, you should do that with other people around you to keep it safe.

• 30:11Lewis Howes?

  Is there a certain temperature we should be at when we get in the ice or cold therapy?

• 30:16Speaker 00

  So cold water is, per definition, fifteen degrees Celsius and under.

• 30:22Lewis Howes?

  What is that Fahrenheit, Tina?

• 30:26Lewis Howes?

  I'll look it up later, but fifteen degrees, seventy?

• 30:29Speaker 00

  Six or something?

• 30:30Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't know.

• 30:32Lewis Howes?

  Because I usually, I usually go in around forty-four degrees Fahrenheit. What is it? Fifty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, yeah, fifty-nine, so under sixty.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, under sixty, yeah.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  Um, yeah, cuz I usually go around forty four degrees Fahrenheit.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:46Lewis Howes?

  I'm not sure what that is. That might probably under ten degrees Celsius.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  But that's under ten degrees, yeah, yeah.

• 30:51Lewis Howes?

  And it's cold.

• 30:52Speaker 00

  And it's cold. Well, the thing is that if you, if we look at how the metabolism is activated, because really that that shows that you have activated your sympathetic nervous system. And if you wanna get the benefits, you would just have to look at when is your sympathetic nervous system activated? And you can do that with higher degrees than than that.

• 31:16Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  So you don't have to go that cold all the time. Um, you could also go a little bit warmer than a little bit colder, just to keep increasing that exercise for your cells, where you increase that hermetic stress and you increase the the heat shock proteins in the cells, which repairs the cells and the enzymes and make that cell stronger.

• 31:36Lewis Howes?

  It repairs it.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  It repairs it. And if you don't overdo it, so if you overdo it, sit in a cold top for ten minutes or something like that, I would, I would suspect that that would be too much for the body if you do that over a longer time. We, we do need research which shows that how is the higher threshold for this? And both temperature wise, but also timing wise.

• 31:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure. So I've been doing cold therapy or ice baths for about twenty two years. I started when I was eighteen.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  That's a lot.

• 32:09Lewis Howes?

  Right? I started, no, it's been off and on for twenty two years, but I started when I was eighteen, all through college. I did it probably three times a week. After football practice, I would do it almost daily. And it was probably in the high fifty degrees. It was probably like fifty eight, fifty nine, somewhere around there. It was fifty five every now and then. And it was usually a waist below.

• 32:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:33Lewis Howes?

  It was a tub, like a, you know, cold plunge tub that we had for sports. It was kind of waist below. And I always felt the physical effects afterwards, where it was like I practiced and trained very hard. My legs were tired and they were sore.

• 32:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:48Lewis Howes?

  I'd get in there for five minutes, waist below. And I'd feel like recharged. I'd feel like, you know, my muscles were lighter, they were recovered.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  How long did you sit?

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  Maybe five or six minutes.

• 33:01Speaker 00

  Five, six minutes, yeah, okay.

• 33:02Lewis Howes?

  And it was always waist below, so it wasn't as cold as if it was up by the neck.

• 33:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:06Lewis Howes?

  So you could tolerate it more and it was just the legs. And I always felt better and I felt better the next day after I would get some sleep after that and recovered. I felt like, man, I can, I can hop around, I can use my legs better, they were more efficient. So I got the benefits from that, you know, over those years of college. Now, over the last 10 years, I started to get more into it just from understanding, okay, how do I optimize my life? How do I burn more fat by learning more about some of this? But when you did the controlled studies, the two different studies, those that did ice therapy and those that did not for those six months.

• 33:41Lewis Howes?

  Did you see more fat loss in those that did the ice therapy in this study? Did you see that they, that they got stronger muscles? Did they, you know, did their blood change? Did they, they feel younger? What were the other benefits to the controlled group that jumped in the, the ice throughout that time?

• 34:02Speaker 00

  That's really good question, so.

• 34:06Lewis Howes?

  Did it help them reverse their age, their biological, you know, clock? Or did it do any of these other things?

• 34:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, you can say that if you have a lower blood pressure, I think it's really good. Blood pressure is, sounds a bit boring, but it's actually a super interesting outcome and a very stable outcome when you look at how well your metabolism is, how well your cardiovascular is, cardiovascular system is functioning. So if you can lower your blood pressure by some intervention, then it's a, it's an intervention that you should appreciate at least. Because we did see that the winter swimmers had a lower blood pressure and heart rate, basic level, baseline level. So that means that they probably have lower inflammation and also a better metabolism, which we also did see from measuring the brown fat.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  But we also saw that they had a better glucose metabolism, so meaning that they were, when they.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  Drink this sugar drink, it's it's a glucose tolerance test.

• 35:08Lewis Howes?

  They processed it better, right? It was more efficient.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  It's more efficiently getting rid of the sugar from the bloodstream.

• 35:14Lewis Howes?

  It's not storing the fat, it's it's getting it out.

• 35:16Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. So we did that test and we did see that they had a faster glucose metabolism. They also had um lower insulin levels. So the insulin levels have to be as low eh as we can because that means that our cells are very um um sensitive to sugar. And that's good because then you don't have all that sugar floating around in your blood circulation.

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  And what else did we see? So they actually also built up, and this sounds a little bit con- contrary in in intuitive, I would I would say maybe that they built, they had, we we took some biopsies from their white fat to see how does it look? And it seems like they have this higher like policies, but also lipogenesis. Um they, sorry, they had higher lipogenesis, so um building up the white fat. So that could be because they increased their metabolism so much that the body is trying to keep the storage up.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  So the lipogenesis, meaning that the that um the white fat cells try to restore the fat cells that they are losing all the time.

• 36:28Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 36:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. And we did see the winter swimmer had a lower fat percentage. We, of course, because of the the na- the how the the nature of this study, eh we could not tell whether it was because they did one half an hour, one hour of more exercise per week, or if it was because they did, but it's not that much of a difference, I would say. But they also did the winter swimming and also the the sauna.

• 36:54Lewis Howes?

  The heat as well, yeah, yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  Exactly, so and that's gonna top off your your metabol- eh your exercise and metabolism even further. So it makes sense that they probably have a bit of a lower fat percentage. And at the same time, we did see in the white fat that they had a higher lipogenesis, so.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  What is lipogenesis?

• 37:14Speaker 00

  Lipogenesis is um um a way to measure, so how fast or how much does the body wants to increase the fat in the white cells to say that in a way.

• 37:24Lewis Howes?

  So so the those bodies that were doing the cold and heat.

• 37:31Lewis Howes?

  Their white fat cells were reproducing faster is what it sounds like.

• 37:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:37Lewis Howes?

  Because they were also burning so fast.

• 37:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:39Lewis Howes?

  So they're like, okay, we need to stick around here to protect you if there's a.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  You know, a fast. And so they were building fat cells just as fast as they were burning them.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Um, maybe not.

• 37:52Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 37:52Speaker 00

  But it was trying to.

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. But it was burning them so fast.

• 37:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:57Lewis Howes?

  More than it was keeping you.

• 37:59Speaker 00

  Because we also need that depot to survive in times of fasting. And this body is just old, you know, it's an old DNA. Where we were going hunting and we didn't always have that much food that we have today. So the body is still the same. We try to keep the storage and and we were hunters and gatherers once, right? So it was like, I have a period of time where we didn't have anything. So we need that storage in order for us to have like a little bit of food some when we don't have any food. So we are still, we still have that. So we still try to build that. And I mean, as long as, you can say, as long as you are aware of your hunger

• 38:43Speaker 00

  during cold and heat exposure, you will get more hungry probably. Um, and you don't overeat, then you you are prone to lose weight, I would say. But why don't we see winter swimmers losing a lot of weight? I don't think we see that in Denmark. I don't think that winter swimmers are particularly thinner or skinnier than than others.

• 39:05Lewis Howes?

  You still have to, you still have to know how much you're consuming and eating. You could, you could swim in the ice tub.

• 39:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:12Lewis Howes?

  Five times a week, but be eating 5,000 calories a day and you're going to be obese.

• 39:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 39:17Lewis Howes?

  You're going to gain more weight if you're consuming more than you need. Now, I'm curious about.

• 39:25Lewis Howes?

  Mental health and ice therapy, or ice and heat therapy. I don't know if you studied the gratitude levels, the level of harmony and peace that people were experiencing. Or maybe you can't talk about the science of it, but did you notice any differences between the two control groups? Those that were doing cold and heat therapy versus those that were living their lives and not doing that? Was there a level of happiness that was increased? Or gratitude, or appreciation, or a level of calm and peace from those that were doing cold and ice? Or were you able to notice that at all?

• 40:02Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 40:03Speaker 00

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 40:05Lewis Howes?

  What did you find in terms of mental health around that?

• 40:08Speaker 00

  So, this is just the observations now. So, I did notice that our group of winter swimmers were definitely just also telling us that they are more happy now and they are more calm now than before.

• 40:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 40:26Speaker 00

  What we did after this study that we published in Cell Reports Medicine was a randomized controlled trial. It's not published yet. But what we saw here was we did an intervention where we had all the winters, all the subjects in the study wanting to winter swim. But half of them became the control group or half of them became the intervention group. So, none of them had actually tried this before. And this is where we really did see the difference. So, I could not see that in the other study I just mentioned because they were already winter swimmers when I met them. Yeah.

• 40:58Lewis Howes?

  This was a new group that never done it.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  This was just a new group, yeah.

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  And half of them got to do it, the other half didn't get to do it.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. So, what we did see here was that as soon as they started winter swimming, they changed the mood when they came into the lab and also when we were meeting up with them out on the daddy.

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  They were just happier human beings.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I think the most, you can say, the best story of this was this guy who was...

• 41:29Speaker 00

  He was kind of like a very firm one, like he and he was angry. I think he was a bit angry when he met in, he was angry, but he knew what he wanted. And he had his company, he had a lot of employees and he was, he was busy. But he wanted to be in this study and I was amazed, I was like, wow, you want to spend time in this when you're so busy. And but of course, he was, he was very good on pointy on time and that's a good subject. So I wanted him in the study. And also just to observe, how would that change his mood? He told me before we started the, the, the winter swimming part. He told me that he always yelled at people in his car. So had this rage.

• 42:10Lewis Howes?

  Road rage.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Road rage, yeah. And that's, that's not fun. I mean, it's not fun for him to be.

• 42:16Lewis Howes?

  He was an angry person.

• 42:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:18Lewis Howes?

  He was frustrated, irritated, yeah.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. So he, he was irritated. But then he told me, well, after he started winter swimming and we met in the, the lab again to lab test. I think it was a one month or two month into his winter swimming. And he came into the lab flying, I would say like da da into. And he was like, I cannot describe how much this has changed for me, my mood. And then he told me a story about now where he winter swims before he goes to work. Goes into his car and he just, what is this called? Like you just.

• 42:52Lewis Howes?

  He goes with the flow, he's relaxed, yeah.

• 42:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, goes with the flow, just says to, to the other car, come in in front of me.

• 42:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, come here, it's all good, yeah.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, so more easygoing, more, um, more balanced maybe. And, and then he told me that in the meetings, in the morning, he had his employees. Uh, always at this first meeting. But one of them came to him and said, we've been talking and something has changed with you. And we cannot tell what is going on, but something has changed.

• 43:21Lewis Howes?

  Did you fall in love somewhere?

• 43:23Speaker 00

  Exactly, what, what, what has changed? And he has not told them that he started this study.

• 43:28Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 43:28Speaker 00

  In this study. So he told me this story and he was like. I didn't know that I was projecting this kind of like more easygoing or balanced mood, or he didn't know. But he was definitely more relaxed when he came into the meeting.

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  So I remember this, particularly this subject made an impression on me.

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Wow. That's powerful. Now, is there a benefit over being submerged in cold water versus a shower, cold shower? Is there a difference in the impact and the positive effects of that?

• 44:06Speaker 00

  That's a really good question. And many, many people ask me that because it's, the one thing is that cold showers are available for most people, right? So it's a good place to start if you are more, maybe not, if you don't have access to the ocean and you need to buy a top and that's expensive maybe. So start off at the cold shower is a great thing because you activate your sympathetic nervous system. You activate your brown fat.

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  You are doing that. Okay.

• 44:31Speaker 00

  Definitely. You could do that just by going outside in a t-shirt.

• 44:35Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. As soon as you get, you change the temperature on your body, you will activate your co-receptors. And that's going to increase and turn off and balance out your temperature by activating the brown fat. And eventually also the muscles if you need to increase temperature further, right? So the cold showers will be a great way to start. But it will probably not activate your parasympathetic nervous system. On the contrary, probably because it's just making you very cold. And you don't get the activation from your diving response, which you do when you submerge into the top. You could help it with splashing water to the face by activating the vagus nerve.

• 45:19Speaker 00

  But eventually it would be two different ways of activating your, both your neurotransmitters and also your nervous system and, and your metabolism. You don't need to do cold showers for more than thirty seconds.

• 45:33Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 45:34Speaker 00

  No. It's, it's, you don't have to do that long.

• 45:37Lewis Howes?

  Am I right?

• 45:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:38Lewis Howes?

  And but what about? You know, the cold tubs or the cold rivers or the cold lakes or whatever. Is it better to be submerged in cold water? Or is a cold shower equally as good in your mind?

• 45:51Speaker 00

  Um, I think submerging the body. It has more benefits than than just the cold showers. And this has much to do with the physiology also. Because when you go, when you submerged into cold water, you will have the, when you say the exercise of the best, the blood vessels. Um, so you will have the constriction. And when you then go up, you will have the dilation afterwards. If you then only do the cold showers, you will only have activation of the sympathetic nervous.

• 46:22Lewis Howes?

  I see.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  Mainly, you will have that mainly. If you activate the sympathetic nervous system in the cold water, if you submerge. You could, if you can get over the cold shock, you will have the paras, the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. So if you don't have any heart problems, that will mean you will, you will increase your fight or flight response. But then also you will feel the rest afterwards in the parasympathetic activation.

• 46:50Lewis Howes?

  Got it, got it.

• 46:51Speaker 00

  But if you do have heart problems and you do have unregulated high blood pressure, uh, blood pressure. Um, it's not recommended that you submerge into a cold bath. I wouldn't recommend that. Because there is a conflict when you activate the sympathetic nervous system and also the parasympathetic nervous system at the same time. So the heart is like increasing, right? So sympathetic nervous system makes the heart rate go up. And the parasympathetic wants it to go down. At the same time, it's a bit of conflict for the heart. So, so that means that you will experience arrhythmias to the heart. So for people who are uncertain about their heart health or maybe don't know their blood pressure. I would definitely recommend that you just get your blood pressure measured.

• 47:36Speaker 00

  It's non-invasive. It's something you can, you can even buy these things and do it.

• 47:41Lewis Howes?

  Do yourself.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, and you can also just go to your doctor. If you're uncertain about, is this for me? Because you have something, then ask your doctor.

• 47:52Lewis Howes?

  What I'm hearing you say is.

• 47:55Lewis Howes?

  When someone is getting in the ice or the cold therapy consistently, weekly, over many months, something changes in their in their brain. And it affects their mood.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:06Lewis Howes?

  And their overall brain

• 48:10Lewis Howes?

  changes, their chemistry and their body changes and things start to shift. What would you say that change is in the brain and the body with consistent cold therapy?

• 48:21Speaker 00

  So I think, yeah, so we can talk about neurotransmitters because I think that something changes and that's the chemistry, the the brain chemistry, right? So if you submerge into cold water, you have an increase in dopamine. It could be up to five times higher or two, two and a half times higher to up to five. And but you also have the increase in noradrenaline. And noradrenaline is what I talked about before is also activating the brown fat, but it gives you all that energy. And the dopamine gives you that drive and that motivation to do this again even. So repeating something that you felt good about. And that's why we say in Denmark that winter swimming is addictive. Because eventually, when you have done this a couple of times,

• 49:05Speaker 00

  you would, the body and the brain will connect this to a very good experience. And you have this increase in oxytocin, which is a stress hormone, right? So you will have this increase in oxytocin, makes you feel this love towards yourself, the nature, each other. And that's gonna make you more grateful. And imagine now that you have increased all these neurotransmitters that makes you feel on different levels, more, feel better, right? That was just a stress hormones. So we also have serotonin, which is activating in, when you activate the parasympathetic part of your nervous system. So if you have all these, you can imagine how that changes your baseline way of thinking about

• 49:48Speaker 00

  yourself, your problems, the world when you go out. The way that you think about that before you went in. Has to change when you grow up because you have changed your chemistry in the brain. So you will view the world in another way. You have to because you just changed all this.

• 50:08Lewis Howes?

  This is fascinating, yeah. So all these chemicals are turned on when you submerge yourself for a minute. Couple of minutes in the cold therapy, cold water. And if you do that consistently, you're just automatically going to be a happier, more positive person. Your body forces you to love yourself and love others more is what I'm hearing you say.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, it sounds a little bit magical, but it's like.

• 50:32Lewis Howes?

  It's forcing self-love and love for others.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, it could be that, I mean, even though it sounds a little bit magical when we talk about it like this, but this is just, this is just chemistry.

• 50:42Lewis Howes?

  It's a science.

• 50:43Speaker 00

  Just science, science. This is what happens. So when this increases in the brain, it has to change the baseline. And imagine when you do this multiple times per week, this would change the way that you see yourself, the gratitude to, to the world, your, yourself, others, your family, and how you project that, your way of seeing things, you project some energy, right? And that energy will be received by others. They will cast that back at you and in that way you, you will be able to change the way you work around in your world and with others. So it could really change a lot if you could just change the way you see the world.

• 51:26Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 51:27Speaker 00

  See yourself or your problems.

• 51:28Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like cold therapy allows you to heal your body, but also allows you to heal your mind?

• 51:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, this is not my, the way it's healing the, the mind is not part of my own research. But this is what I talked about in the beginning, the connection between these two, the, the body and the brain is really not that, it's not divided. So I figured out that if I was studying this metabolism, I needed to understand the rest. And I needed to understand how the brain is connected also to the brown fat because it is, it's just, it's activated by your central nervous system. So it's actually the. You can say something in between, right? So even though I studied metabolism, I also studied the brain because I had to understand how is the body affected in this cold water?

• 52:20Speaker 00

  And the brain is affected and how you feel afterwards will be affected because of the chemistry that happens. Yeah, just the body thinking you're about to die.

• 52:31Lewis Howes?

  This is amazing. So you're you're forcing gratitude in the body chemically. You can't even control it. You're just going to feel better. You're going to have more love, more, you know, patience, more gratitude, the more consistent you can do this. I love this. And I definitely felt those effects myself. I'm curious about heat therapy. And, you know, we talked a little bit about ice therapy. But I'm curious about heat therapy. I've got a sauna. I've finally got my first home this year.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  Oh, you do?

• 53:00Lewis Howes?

  And so I never, you know, I had to go to the gym to use the sauna.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:03Lewis Howes?

  So now I have a space that I can, I have my own. And I have a Swedish style sauna, not an infrared sauna. So first I want to ask, is there a difference between types of saunas? And then what are the main benefits that you've seen from studies on heat therapy as well?

• 53:23Speaker 00

  Great questions because, I mean, the way the heat is, the way we receive the heat is going to determine what outcomes that will be.

• 53:31Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 53:32Speaker 00

  Of course, yeah. So if you do the traditional Finnish sauna, then there will be some other outcomes than compared to, oh, what we know of today, from the infrared saunas. So infrared saunas should also be divided into if it's near infrared, middle or far infrared saunas.

• 53:53Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 53:53Speaker 00

  So getting advanced. Yeah. So you can say that the near infrared saunas, they penetrate the heat, the body, the skin deeper, but is not getting your skin hot.

• 54:11Speaker 00

  So that means that you you won't feel the heat, but it it is working deeper in your tissue, right? So you have the middle, that's something in between, but the far infrared, that makes your skin um heat up. It's only around forty degrees Celsius. I don't know in Fahrenheit.

• 54:30Lewis Howes?

  Sure, no worries.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  Someone will figure it out.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  We'll figure it out, yeah, yeah.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  Um, so it will make your skin eh feel warm, but not too warm. So it's a mild kind of a sauna. But what the good thing is about that is it is going to affect your your um your blood vessels. So meaning it will dilate your blood vessels and you will have that better blood flow to the skin. And there is research showing that it increases the collagen and elastin.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  Yep, elasticity in the skin, the collagen.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  Collagen, exactly. Um, and eh it will make the skin appear younger. So these these studies have shown this, and also it works good on eczema. So there are studies on.

• 55:18Lewis Howes?

  Eczema?

• 55:19Speaker 00

  Eczema.

• 55:19Lewis Howes?

  Eczema, yeah.

• 55:20Speaker 00

  Eczema.

• 55:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:21Speaker 00

  It's just like so bad.

• 55:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:23Speaker 00

  I struggle too.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so I get it.

• 55:26Speaker 00

  So these studies on young boys so shows that they have um reduced symptoms or less um eczema. No, I didn't.

• 55:35Lewis Howes?

  That was great, eczema, yeah, yeah.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, good. Um, and and redness. So that means that it actually is good for wound healing. So there are studies showing that these infrared saunas are great too. I would say that if you are not very keen on the very hot sauna, which is the Finnis style, then I think that infrared sauna is great, also because it's milder to your cardiovascular system.

• 56:03Lewis Howes?

  Plus intense for the heart rate.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  It's intense, yes, exactly. So if you if you don't want that very intense heat and sitting there sweating in your and sitting in your sweat even, then I think that infrared sauna is great. You just sit there a little bit longer, but you will also have some of the benefits on your cardiovascular system. You also have the benefits on your skin eh or or and and you also have the increase of um. And what I wanted to say, nitric oxide, that was one of them. So it makes your blood vessels more elastic because the endothelial cells will increase. So you will have a better contraction and dilation of your blood cells, which will help your cardiovascular system as well.

• 56:49Speaker 00

  So you will have some of the benefits as well on the.

• 56:52Lewis Howes?

  Infrared stuff, okay.

• 56:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  But what's the Finnish or Swedish style, I guess, saunas? What are the benefits of that?

• 56:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:58Lewis Howes?

  When you feel the steam, the heat.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  You feel it.

• 57:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I usually put mine up to like two hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

• 57:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:06Lewis Howes?

  Uh, one ninety-eight to two hundred, which it gets hot right away. You feel, whoa, it's like an oven, you know?

• 57:13Speaker 00

  Do you pour water?

• 57:14Lewis Howes?

  And then I pour water on the rocks and then it's like, oh, it feels like another twenty degrees every time. And I try to go in there for about twenty to thirty minutes at a time. And um, what are the, what are the, so what are the differences of the benefits of doing that?

• 57:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:31Lewis Howes?

  Style of sauna?

• 57:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it's a good rate, it's a good, it's a good timing, I would say. So if we, there is more research on the Finnish style compared to the infrared, I would say. And on the infrared, it's more on the skin thing and what I just talked about before. But on the Finnish style, which is, um, which is hot rocks and pouring water over the stones and steaming and stuff like that. It's more hard on your cardiovascular system, but definitely there is more research on that showing some really good outcomes. And here I refer to some Finnish sauna studies where this cohort study where they have followed two to three thousand sauna bathers in Finland, starting from nineteen eighty-two, I think it was.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  So they followed them for many years and in two thousand and fifteen, they published this amazing study where they looked at all these people who have done saunas, how many, how many times did they go into the sauna? So they divided them into, into groups of how much sauna, so how many times per week and how many minutes per time? And what they saw was that. And the control group did it one time per week. So I think that's amazing because a control group could be something totally different. And you mean, I mean, we couldn't almost not compare, right? But in this study, I think it's great that.

• 58:53Lewis Howes?

  They did some, yeah.

• 58:54Speaker 00

  They did some, so they were not completely other people's style. The same phenotype as we say, so.

• 59:00Lewis Howes?

  And they did this for like twenty year study or something, right?

• 59:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, this is twenty five years, so twenty eight now, I think it is, yeah, so it's.

• 59:06Lewis Howes?

  It's a long study.

• 59:07Speaker 00

  Long study. So what they found in two thousand and fifteen was that if you do saunas two or three times per week, you will have a lower risk of cardiovascular diseases of twenty seven percent.

• 59:24Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 59:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, and if you do it seven times per week, which is like one time every day.

• 59:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:30Speaker 00

  It's a lot, but if you do that, it's up to like fifty six, forty six, I think it was. So it's a lot.

• 59:36Lewis Howes?

  Forty six percent decrease.

• 59:38Speaker 00

  Decrease of cardiovascular diseases.

• 59:40Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 59:41Speaker 00

  Compared to those who were doing it one time per week.

• 59:44Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 59:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, but you also have to keep it within a certain time window.

• 59:49Lewis Howes?

  What's the time window?

• 59:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I looked at that because it's like, is there like a higher threshold for when it's not good for you anymore? And it seems like at thirty minutes, if you stay in there for one session, thirty minutes, it plateaus out with the benefits. So meaning that we did see, we've seen an increase again in cardiovascular diseases. So it means.

• 1:00:08Lewis Howes?

  After that time.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, so hermetic stress back to that. So if you overdo the healthy kind of stress, it becomes bad stress.

• 1:00:17Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:00:18Speaker 00

  Because you overdo it and then the cells become exhausted and they age faster. So you want to give them that burst of like the healthy kind of stress, shock them a bit with the cold or with the heat. But don't overdo it because then it becomes more of the chronic one that we know about, right?

• 1:00:36Lewis Howes?

  Chronic stress, yeah, so no more than thirty minutes at a time.

• 1:00:39Speaker 00

  No more than thirty.

• 1:00:41Lewis Howes?

  What's the temperature range? And can you do thirty minutes back to back in the same day? Like if you go hot, cold, hot, you know, what is, what does that look like?

• 1:00:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I think the lowest time there was like ten minutes.

• 1:00:57Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  Which is a good timing because if we look, compare with my studies, we saw that if you do fifty seven minutes per week. So now I just jumped from the Finnish sauna studies to.

• 1:01:10Lewis Howes?

  Your study, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:11Speaker 00

  To my study.

• 1:01:11Lewis Howes?

  Fifty seven minutes total in the heat.

• 1:01:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, per week, divided on two to three days where you alternate between the cold plunges and the sauna. And if you divide those thirty, fifty seven minutes out on these two to three days and only two saunas per day, then that divides up to ten to fourteen minutes each session. Which if you then look at the sauna cohort study, the window there for where we see the most benefits is actually around ten to twenty minutes. So it's like if you can keep it, it seems that if you can keep it within this time window, you should be doing healthy kind of stress to your body. But overdoing it is not good if you stay longer than that.

• 1:01:58Lewis Howes?

  How much total time in one day should someone do in the, in the heat? Like if you wanted to do multiple rounds.

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:05Lewis Howes?

  How much, what's the maximum? If you got out after twenty, thirty minutes, could you go back in later or is it too much, I think?

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  It depends on how many times you wanna go. So thirty seven minutes per week, you can divide that out. So how does.

• 1:02:19Lewis Howes?

  Fifty seven minutes, right?

• 1:02:20Speaker 00

  Fifty seven minutes, yeah. So if you divide that out, you can do it as it fits you, of course, but maybe not over, go over the thirty minutes.

• 1:02:28Lewis Howes?

  I see what you're saying.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, so you, you can play with this a little bit. If you look at these studies and you compare this, but. Doing ten to fifteen minutes should be feasible and should be enough per session. So if you do that, you can do that two times on in one day and that adds up to thirty minutes or something.

• 1:02:48Lewis Howes?

  Now, what's the benefit of doing hot therapy and cold therapy at the same time? I mean, in the same day alternating, yeah.

• 1:02:57Speaker 00

  The benefits of that.

• 1:02:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, are there benefits? Is that not a good thing to do? Is it better to do cold and hot at the same day alternating?

• 1:03:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, so the alternating thing is what I studied in my study. So that's actually based on plunging, going into the cold water. Then you go into the sauna, cold water, sauna, cold and cold water. And then you end on the cold water. That's what I recommend.

• 1:03:22Lewis Howes?

  Should we always end on the cold?

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:03:24Lewis Howes?

  Why is that? What are the benefits of ending in the cold?

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  Well, if you end on the cold, then you activate your metabolism once again, right?

• 1:03:32Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, it's always more painful. You just wanna be warm and just be like, I'm done.

• 1:03:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I understand, I understand. And and I must say that the only reason why I did this myself and practiced this is because I didn't have access to a sauna. So I went to the open sea in rain and the snow and went for a winter swim. And in the beginning, I didn't have a sauna, so I couldn't really try this out myself. But what I realized was that I had to go up and walk home. And that was cold. But eventually, when I tried this a few times, I started to realize that I warmed up quick quicker. But also that I felt like I have done a workout. And then I started to figure out, well, this must be my metabolism still going on. And it it it seems that.

• 1:04:21Lewis Howes?

  Still burning.

• 1:04:22Speaker 00

  Burning, just burning. And it lasts for these forty-eight hours afterwards. So you have this afterburn, you can almost say, this after exercise. So if you end on the cold, you force your body to heat up naturally. And if it heats up naturally, you activate the brown fat for hours afterwards because you're the body is trying to like. Heat up the, the temp, crank up the temperature again. But it takes energy to do that. And doing so, it takes glucose and fat from your bloodstream. It has to. And the muscles are even helping to do that. So if you shiver a little bit, that's okay. And it's good because you burn off calories.

• 1:05:00Lewis Howes?

  So if, if someone watching or listening said, you know what? I want to be the best student I can be. I want to be, uh, you know, Susanna, tell me exactly what I should be doing for the next six months of my life. If I can fully optimize heat and cold therapy, if I've got access to this. You know, I can find the gym that's got the plunge and the sauna, or I've got one. What is the perfect protocol for heat and cold therapy to optimize my metabolism? To burn fat, to reduce my risk of disease, to live longer, to feel better? What is that perfect protocol? How many times a day or week should I be doing all this? How, what should I start with?

• 1:05:44Lewis Howes?

  How long and how should I finish?

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a really good question. And I would love to like say, this is the perfect protocol. But I don't think we can actually say that there is one. Maybe not at the moment, but we can say that we have some guidelines here.

• 1:06:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:06:00Speaker 00

  And, and I think it should be individualized.

• 1:06:03Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:06:03Speaker 00

  Depending on who you are, how is your nervous system? Do you have anxiety? Do you have any other diseases that affects you? Do you have depression? Do you have, there are so many things that I think also determines, should you do this? Uh, this much of this, uh, how should you even start this? But I think a guideline could be 11 minutes of cold per week. And 57 minutes of heat per week divided on two to three days. It could be a protocol that you could go for or aim for. And ending on the cold is maybe also advanced. So maybe wait with that or start with it if you feel that you can. So it really depends on who you are, I would say. But it's a guide, you could go for that.

• 1:06:45Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. And is there, if there was someone that was like, you know what? They're already in great shape. They want to push the, the boundaries per se, without going over the boundaries. What would you prescribe to them as something to try? Obviously, it's all individual and they need to test it. But can they go over 11 minutes of cold therapy a week and over the 57 minutes? Or would you say try not to go over that? Even if you have perfect health, you know, great biomarkers and all that stuff?

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love that you asked me this question because it's also about how can you both? How can you optimize your health? But also is there any extra benefits of doing so? But to be, we know that maybe we don't. We don't, we don't know if above 11 minutes is beneficial for you. Maybe it's actually where we see the benefits. Talking about the hermetic stress before. So we have like this window. We do see that for heat. So it's very possible we would also see that for cold. And the alternation between the cold and the heat. So if we want that perfect window, we would need more research, I would say. But we could aim for the 11 minutes per week. If you do 12, you will be fine.

• 1:07:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:59Speaker 00

  I'm pretty sure it's not like that. It's just a magic number 11.

• 1:08:03Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:08:04Speaker 00

  It's just in the paper. But you could go for around that number. But I would say it, there is no need to do more. Because if you also wanted to be healthy for you, we don't want to risk anything, then why do more?

• 1:08:21Lewis Howes?

  You don't need more.

• 1:08:21Speaker 00

  You don't need it. It's like not necessary to take the risk.

• 1:08:25Lewis Howes?

  So if you do this, you know, 11 minutes, 57 minutes, your metabolism is going to be optimizing itself. You're going to be burning these excess calories that you don't need. And it's going to, you know, have the afterburn effect as well when you do this. And if you compound it week after week, I'm assuming your body just becomes more efficient.

• 1:08:45Speaker 00

  Exactly, in your metabolism. And your nervous system will also open that window for both pain and for stress. So you won't feel pain and stress as efficient or as hard as you did before. Because you increase that pain threshold. So by doing so, you work on so many different levels of your nervous system. So your tolerance is just increasing. But that doesn't mean that you should push yourself too much.

• 1:09:12Lewis Howes?

  I see what you're saying.

• 1:09:12Speaker 00

  So there's some competition going into this as well. Because everybody, we are competitive. Human beings.

• 1:09:18Lewis Howes?

  Let's push it, let's go farther, yeah.

• 1:09:20Speaker 00

  Exactly, but but be mindful around doing so will push maybe your nervous system out where it shouldn't be. And also maybe increasing risk of eh things that we have to learn about.

• 1:09:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  So it's like competition should not be part of this.

• 1:09:37Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh, yeah, I like this. This is something you mentioned here that I think is really important because I think a lot of society in general has become too comfortable and doesn't focus on intentional levels of stress to create more emotional agility, right? There's a lot of emotional weakness, I think, that certain people have, who haven't conditioned themselves to tolerate pain. And like you mentioned here, when we deliberately stress the body and the mind or the brain with cold and heat therapy in a contained amount of time, we increase our pain threshold, which makes us less reactive in the world.

• 1:10:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:22Lewis Howes?

  More compassionate, more kind, more generous. And we aren't going to be in fight or flight consistently throughout the day. We're going to have more calm and peace when there's chaos around us. And it sounds like your test studies, the control group that implemented the cold and heat therapy over six months was they were able to tolerate pain more, is that correct?

• 1:10:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, and also increasing that pain threshold makes them more, you can say, oh, it makes them less prone to stress. So you will be less prone to mental stress and also feeling that physical stress, so any kind of pain, actually.

• 1:11:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  So.

• 1:11:10Lewis Howes?

  Because stress causes physical pain.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:11:13Lewis Howes?

  You hold on to the stress, your body, your heart, your chest feels heavy.

• 1:11:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:16Lewis Howes?

  You get headaches, all these different things. And that's why it's important to deliberately inflict pain on your body.

• 1:11:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it creates this motivation of doing things that are actually hard. Because you have already done it and you have overcome it and you have now realized it's not as painful anymore. So you maybe run two kilometers, but then you find out, well, I'm not that sore anymore. And then I can run three and four and five. And then suddenly, maybe you're running ten kilometers. I mean, you increase your pain threshold by open that window for whatever stressor you are taking in. So now I'm talking about some physical stress, but it could also be a mental stress. So we know from research that if you get adapted to physical stress, you open your window also for mental stress.

• 1:12:01Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Is there anything else around cold or heat therapy that we should know about? Around metabolism, hormone balance, optimizing our health? Is there anything else that you think we need to talk about or cover?

• 1:12:18Speaker 00

  I think we covered a lot.

• 1:12:23Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything we're missing?

• 1:12:24Speaker 00

  Is there anything we're missing? I think we've been around a lot of things. Even the breathing part, I think that breath work is one of the things that actually reconnects the body and mind. And it's a great tool. This is the way I got into like learning about the breath work and how breathing in a certain way or in a certain technique is connecting the body and mind. Because when I started to research and writing my ethical protocol, I needed to figure out how do I teach people how to go into the cold water?

• 1:12:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:12:58Speaker 00

  And some tools needed to be found in my practical way of thinking about this research. So I was thinking, okay, what is it that I need to do? And I was starting winter swimming myself because I had to learn what is going on. And one thing I realized before I went into studying this is my breathing, when I went into the water or even before, totally determined the outcome of this plunge. So if I didn't, if I wasn't mindful around it, then I would have not as good as an experience as if I was mindful around it. So I started to practice a bit with how to breathe before and after and in the water.

• 1:13:43Speaker 00

  And figured that if I do it slow and try to slow it down, I also do that when I exercise, actually. So after like a sprint or something, then I try to like do a like a slow inhale.

• 1:13:57Speaker 00

  And then

• 1:13:59Speaker 00

  so try to slow down the heart rate and then you actually catch your breath way quicker. And you also do that in the cold water.

• 1:14:06Lewis Howes?

  By doing slow breathing?

• 1:14:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:14:08Lewis Howes?

  What is the optimal way to breathe to put your brain and your body in harmony and balance? When you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed?

• 1:14:19Speaker 00

  The best way to breathe?

• 1:14:20Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Is there a breathing technique? Is there some type of?

• 1:14:24Speaker 00

  I think there are several, but I think nasal, nasal, slow nasal breathing and doing it just for a couple of minutes, actually, is enough. If we should do something like very short and practical. But slow nasal breathing.

• 1:14:39Lewis Howes?

  In and out of the nose?

• 1:14:41Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. And you can also do box breathing. I think that's very efficient. One I have used that a lot. And so doing this kind of like, practice this every day. Box breathing is actually very good, I think.

• 1:14:53Lewis Howes?

  Can you explain box breathing?

• 1:14:55Speaker 00

  Inhale through the nose for four seconds and then exhale and

• 1:15:01Speaker 00

  and then you exhale. A little bit longer, then do maybe six seconds and then you hold your breath. You hold for four and then you could start over. Yeah. So you can, you can play around with that a little bit, but it's a really good thing if you can do the exhale a little bit longer than the inhale, because that slows down the, the heart rate. So if you are anxious about something, if you are going to do a talk or you are going to a meeting or something and you are a little bit nervous, you can do this right before, just for a couple of minutes and your heart rate will go down. And you can think because then you have oxygen going to your brain and then you can, then you can answer, actually.

• 1:15:42Lewis Howes?

  If we're, if our heart rate is up and we are shallow breathing, what is happening to the brain?

• 1:15:47Speaker 00

  If you are shallow breathing through the mouth, for example, you are activating your sympathetic part of your nervous system. And you don't want to do that if you want to go in and, and, and do something or you need to use your brain. And going on a stage or going to a presentation or you, you want to go to a job interview, you want to be calm because that's going to increase the blood flow to the brain and that means also oxygen. And you need the oxygen to think. So doing shallow breathing is gonna activate the sympathetic part of your nervous system that decreases the blood flow to the brain. So you should try and calm down by doing the nasal breathing or box breathing before.

• 1:16:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, so get more oxygen to the brain. Keeps you focused and keeps you more alert also, but it keeps you focused and that's the main thing you wanna be.

• 1:16:36Lewis Howes?

  Yes. This is inspiring. I love this stuff. I've been, you know, studying and implementing a lot of these things myself over the years. And so it's helpful for me to understand more of what is helping me, how I can improve it or adjust my strategies and also just understanding how it impacts my body and my brain. So I'm so grateful for all this information. Where can we follow and support you the most right now, Susannah? We're here on Instagram, we're on Facebook and YouTube and all these places, but where can we support you the most today?

• 1:17:09Speaker 00

  Well, actually, I have, I'm just finishing up an education that I've been working on for, I think it's more than a year now. And this is aimed for instructors and SPAS. So if people wanna learn more on how all this works and how to implement this for themselves and to use for their customers or something like that. So I've made this education to teach the physiology and the biochemistry, but in layman terms. Meaning, because I think that people need to learn more about this in order for them also to teach this. And I think there's a lot of teaching going on. So, yeah, so I'm making this education. It'll be available by the end of the year.

• 1:17:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where can we go for that or get on the waitlist for that?

• 1:17:54Speaker 00

  That's on my website on soeburginstitute.com.

• 1:17:57Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:17:58Speaker 00

  And there you can go and sign up to get a notification for the education.

• 1:18:03Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:18:03Speaker 00

  And I'll send that out to you.

• 1:18:05Lewis Howes?

  Soeburginstitute.com, right?

• 1:18:07Speaker 00

  Soeburginstitute.com.

• 1:18:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay. So make sure to check that out. You're also, you post mostly on Instagram, right? Is that your main place?

• 1:18:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I'm everywhere.

• 1:18:15Lewis Howes?

  You're everywhere, yeah, exactly. We'll have this stuff linked up as well in the description, but soeburginstitute.com is the best place to go. S-O-E-B-E-R-G, correct? Institute.com. This has been inspiring. I'm excited for the work that you've done and the research you've done. It took, you know, six, seven years of research to be able to get this information for us. So thank you for. dedicating your whole, you know, PhD to helping humanity improve through this information. I can only imagine how patient you must be to get, you know, research and, and, you know, a scientific study complete in seven years of doing this.

• 1:18:58Lewis Howes?

  And all the different people that you have to coordinate and all the different data points. That's a lot of life. It's a lot of time of waiting of like hoping you get some good intel back. So I want to acknowledge you, Susanna, for making a decision and a commitment to doing that research for that long. For staying dedicated to this and the ups and downs, because I'm assuming there's a lot of challenges in it. You gotta, you gotta get the funding. You gotta deal with thousands of people you're, you know, doing the data with. But I acknowledge you for taking on this challenge and giving us these tools.

• 1:19:33Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 1:19:34Lewis Howes?

  Because otherwise, a lot of people could be doing ice or heat and they could be harming themselves. They could be doing it incorrectly and, and hurting their bodies and their, and their minds. So I really acknowledge you for doing that work. Seven years is a long time to, to dedicate your life to one thing. And, um, and I'm, and I'm grateful that you did this because so many people in the last five years have been getting more into ice and heat therapy. And now they have, you know, tools and science backing it even more now. I think they were feeling the benefits and seeing it, but now they know the benefits based on your research. I've seen Heuerman talk about you and your research.

• 1:20:16Lewis Howes?

  And so it's really cool to see the impact that you're starting to have in a big way. And I'm excited to see more of it coming in the future.

• 1:20:22Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 1:20:23Lewis Howes?

  You're welcome. You're welcome, Susanna. This is a, this is a question I ask everyone at the end. Um, it's a hypothetical question. It's called three truths.

• 1:20:31Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 1:20:31Lewis Howes?

  So imagine you get to live as long as you want to live in this world, but eventually it's your last day. You're as old as you want to be, but it's your last day on this earth. And you've accomplished everything you want to accomplish. Whatever direction you go, family, career, life, all of it, it happens for you. But for whatever reason, on this last day, we don't have access to any more of your content. So this conversation doesn't stay here in this world, it goes away. Your research goes away. All the conversations you've had that are, you know, recorded, we don't have access to anymore. Hypothetical scenario. But on this last day, if you got to leave behind three lessons with the world,

• 1:21:15Lewis Howes?

  three things that you knew to be true, that you would want to share with the world, what would be those three truths for you?

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

  Oh, my, that's a really good question. So I think that,

• 1:21:32Speaker 00

  oh, it's most life lessons, I would say, because it's not maybe that much about my science. Because, well, my science has showed me and what I want to show then give to the world is follow your passion. Because if you do what makes you happy, it's gonna work out somehow, in some way, and it can take seven years.

• 1:21:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:56Speaker 00

  Or more, I don't know. But if you follow your interest and your passion, something good will come out of it. You just stick with it. It's not even, doesn't have to be greener on the other side, just because it goes faster or better or whatever for others. And I would say also,

• 1:22:13Speaker 00

  if you want to be successful and you want to, yeah, you want to be successful, I think one of the things is try not to look for validation too much. Try to validate with yourself. Is this what I want to do? Am I focused on something here? Is, am some kind of external things trying to lure me out of the way? Or am I going off track here? Am I following my path that I think is interesting? I don't need to ask everybody for their validation to get what I, what values, what would be valuable to me in my life, right?

• 1:22:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:54Speaker 00

  So validation is, is, can be a little bit of a dangerous thing, I think. It's validating with yourself is better. You cannot, you cannot expect other people to completely understand you. That's the one thing, right? It's, it's, if you expect that, then you have to wait for a very long time.

• 1:23:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:23:10Speaker 00

  And you won't do anything because you're scared that people would. Would judge you or would understand you or so. Yeah, I think I've had a lot of people not understanding me. But I did understand myself, what I wanted to do. And not only with my research, but maybe a lot of things. So it's like, but I've been happy with my choices and just following those paths. So stay with true to yourself.

• 1:23:36Lewis Howes?

  Okay, what's the third thing?

• 1:23:38Speaker 00

  Oh, the first thing, what would that be? I would say your family. Be with your family. Even though that you think there are so many things you need to do. I think that family is just so important. My boys are growing up and they are thirteen and eleven and thirteen right now. So I'm just thinking they're moving away very soon and I have them right now. So I also want to spend time with them. But luckily they love to do what I love to do.

• 1:24:06Lewis Howes?

  That's nice.

• 1:24:07Speaker 00

  So I just bring them. So finding things that you can connect with and do together is is actually giving a lot of love and a lot of value in your in your life if you can find that.

• 1:24:18Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. I appreciate that, Suzanne. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:24:24Speaker 00

  My definition of greatness? Oh, God, greatness is when you do something with passion, your love, and you also have an ability to do that every day. And you can just follow that path. I mean, if it brings you joy or money or it brings you success in some way, good. But as long as you can just do it and you can strive with that and be happy with it, that's greatness.

• 1:24:48Lewis Howes?

  Suzanne, thank you so much for being here. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 1:25:32Lewis Howes?

  And now it's time to go out there and do something great.