We're just finishing up spring break and we had a lot of fun. Spring Break looks a little bit different with both my daughter's traveling with club volleyball. Our expenses are a little bit higher when traveling out of state for both of them this season playing club volleyball. So we had to scale back our spring break a little bit, but that's okay. This is what we do when we love our children. And we love watching them do what they love, right? I absolutely love traveling with their teams and cheering alongside the other awesome parents and watching them play these games. It's just so much fun. I'm sure you've seen me post about it on Instagram. It's definitely the season of life that we're in right now and I'm doing my best to truly embrace it. Traditionally, for spring break, we might go to California or Disneyland or maybe even something crazy like Hawaii or Mexico. But not this spring break. We went to Spokane for another volleyball tournament. And then we stayed with our friends at their condo in Priest Lake, Idaho which is a couple hours or hour and a half or so from Spokane before coming home and spending a night in Seattle and doing a couple Mariners games. 

A few months ago, a friend was talking about how she was doing cold plunging, and she's seen so many wonderful health impacts from it. And so while we were at Priests Lake, my friend Callie, she's like, “We're gonna plunge!” I was like, “Okay, I guess we can plunge.” And so we did it while we were on vacation. We did it in Priest Lake.

I can tell you that we were walking up to the dock where we did the plunge and there was a lot of snow on the ground. Still, there was ice on the top of the lake. That's how cold this water was.It probably was just in the 40s is what I would guess the temperature of this water was. We were in there for about a minute. It's funny, my older daughter and her friend, she ended up dipping, like kind of going in more shallow and having her feet on the ground and then dipping their bodies in. But I knew that I probably would just stand up. So Callie and I and Eliza, my younger daughter, we went to the end of the dock where there was a little stair stair railing for us to get down into the deeper water. And I'm so proud of my girls for stepping out of their comfort zone and trying it. We were in there for about a minute and it was a very hard minute, I did not get my hair wet or dunk completely in. I mostly left my hands out.  I did put my face in the water just so I could get a little bit of it on there. 

So I did it because my friend told me we're going to plunge and I said okay, I'm up for anything. And then also because I had heard another friend saying that she'd had some crazy health benefits from it. But I didn't really know the health benefits. So I did a little research for today's episode so I could share those health benefits with you.

A cold plunge is when you submerge your body in cold water at 59 degrees Fahrenheit or less for a certain amount of time. You can do this through jumping into a lake or ocean like I did, or doing an ice bath or a cold shower. And I've recently seen these cold tubs that people have where the water actually recirculates and stays cold.

But how long should you plunge? Well if you are new to plunging, you should start with shorter bursts of time like I did, a minute, and you can build up over time. You want to make sure that your body can handle it. And honestly, you should look up cold plunging before you just try it because I know that it's not good for some health conditions. So make sure you do your research before you plop your body in a bath of freezing cold water. 

The latest research shows that 11 minutes a week is really the ideal amount of time to be submerged in really cold water. But of course you're not going to do those 11 minutes your first time plunging, that would not be a good idea.

Experts say that cold plunging can help in so many different ways:

•  Improving your skin 

• Decreasing inflammation and swelling

• Getting a huge rush of endorphins 

• Spiking your dopamine

• Improving your sleep and mood

• Reducing stress

• Helping with aches and pains. 

• Helps with injury recovery

• Can potentially increase testosterone

• Promote lymphatic drainage

• Regulate hormones 

• Accelerate your metabolism

My friend said that she's had a lot of success from cold plunging. She had Raynaud's syndrome. If you've never heard of Raynaud's, it's this condition where your hands if they get cold, they can turn white and they kind of lose circulation. It can be very painful. You can get it in your hands and your feet and she found that this cold plunging has solved her Raynaud's problem.

For me personally, I found that I was sleeping really really well after doing the cold plunge and maybe it was because I was on vacation but I felt really tired honestly. The night I cold plunged I slept really well and then the next morning we were on a long drive back from Idaho and I think I slept for like three hours, which is not normal for me. Maybe it was just vacation mode or just, you know, the car lulling me to sleep. But I can tell you that I felt like I really slept a lot better. 

As far as the other things, I don't think that I really could get the health benefits from my one plunge. But I have been kind of thinking about doing it more. 

You might be curious about what goes through your head when you're cold plunging like that. With the water being that cold, I felt it was painful, especially in the feet. 

It also was the longest minute I've probably ever had. I remember, they were looking at the timer and they said it's been 30 seconds which felt like it was five minutes. I had to do a counting method in my head to make sure that I could make it to the full minute. So it's not a fun experience, but I'm sure you get used to it. And if you see these sort of health benefits, I'm sure you would do it simply because of that. 

I'm curious, have you ever cold plunged? Please send me a DM on Instagram and let me know your experience. I want to hear all about it. And maybe if you have and you love it, you should encourage me to try it again.