Fight Pain, Boost Dopamine, Relieve PTSD & How Ironmen Athletes Recover From Training, Biohacks to Amplify Cold Therapy

Nick Urban [00:00:07]:
Are you a high performer, obsessed with growth, and looking for an edge? Welcome to MINDBODY Peak Performance. Together, we’ll discover underground secrets to unlocking the full potential of your mind, body, and spirit. We’ll learn from some of the world’s leading minds, from ancient wisdom to cutting edge tools and everything in between. This is your host, Nick Urban. Enjoy the episode. It’s 2024, and by now, you’ve surely heard of the cold plunge, also called the ice bath. But will it actually improve your health or detract from it? And how do you use the cold plunge properly? In this episode, as you probably guessed, we explore the science and benefits and uses and drawbacks of cold plunging, also known as taking an ice bath. Who shouldn’t do it? How and why to combine it with breath work, tips and practices to get more out of your cold therapy sessions, biohacks, and supplementation to amplify your benefits even further, whether you should cold plunge after workouts or if that blunts the beneficial hormetic effects of your exercise session.

Nick Urban [00:01:26]:
What about cold plunging before your workout? Is so called pre cooling a good idea? We also discuss how to properly dose the cold. That comes down to frequency, duration, and water temperature. Joining us this week is Joshua Church. He’s the cofounder of Edge Theory Labs, where he developed the world’s first portable iceless ice bath with advanced features like filtration and hot tub mode. In 2023, he completed his 1st Ironman Triathlon, but perhaps most striking is his own personal story with overcoming health challenges and how cold therapy played a role. Links to everything we discuss will be in the show notes, which you can find for this episode at mindbodypeak.com/thenumber178. While you certainly don’t need a dedicated cold plunge system to enjoy the benefits of cold immersion. You can take a very cold shower if you’re in the right geographical region, or you can get ice out of your freezer or from your local convenience store and add that to your bathtub.

Nick Urban [00:02:38]:
One of the things I like about Edge Theory Labs is that their products are not priced on the upper end because so many of these devices are really only affordable by wellness clinics and spas and that kind of thing. So if you want to try out some of the Edge Theory Labs products or add that to your Black Friday wish list, you can go to edgethereylabs.com and use the code urban to save $150 on your purchase. But regardless, you’ll walk away from this episode with tangible, actionable tips you can use to improve your biology via deliberate cold exposure. Alright. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this conversation with Joshua Church. Joshua, welcome to the podcast.

Joshua Church [00:03:25]:
Hey. Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

Nick Urban [00:03:27]:
Today, we’re gonna be discussing cold therapy, which has become a trendy topic, and it seems that more and more gyms are offering cold plunges or ice baths, and they seem to always be busy, at least here in Austin. Before we dive into that, I’d love to warm up with your unusual nonnegotiables that you’ve done so far today for your health, your performance, and your bioharmony?

Joshua Church [00:03:52]:
Well, I’m not sure what’s gonna be unusual to you or to your audience. When I talk to most people, some of these things are quite unusual, but I would say that my, my my nonnegotiable that I started even today with is, firstly, is breath. Like, always, always waking up a breath and taking some deep breaths. Even even just, like, laying in bed, first thing I do when I wake up is just expand my belly breath, warm up my diaphragm by just taking some full deep breaths, and it’s wild how that just helps with wakefulness right away of just expanding and and increasing your oxygen uptake of just taking a couple deep breaths. And then and then I get out and go to the restroom, and then I go, drink some water and then, usually go down to my yoga mat. And I’ve got some pretty tight hips and and and lower legs. So waking up the hips, opening up the hips always is something I start with, lacrosse ball, foam roll, etcetera, just to kind of just to feel on my body a bit. So

Nick Urban [00:04:47]:
For the breath work, are you doing anything in particular, or are you just doing some long, slow, deep breaths, like 4 or 5, or how does it look?

Joshua Church [00:04:55]:
Yeah. So, certainly, always starting with just 3 to 5 deep breaths in through the nose, filling up the diaphragm, the belly, full breath into the chest, and just feeling the oxygen. Just fully inflate my lungs. So I like to think of when I’m first waking up, consciously, I always aim to go for 3 to 5, like, full lung in like, just really inhaling to the full lung capacity that I can and exhaling and then doing it again. And, usually, that’s enough to kinda like, woah, get your system going a bit. And then I will typically do some more superventilative style Wim Hof method breathing as well. Not every day, couple times a week maybe, where I’m sitting down or laying down. Typically sitting down and then doing more of the and through the mouth, out through the mouth, superventilative breathing, and that definitely helps with wakefulness.

Joshua Church [00:05:45]:
And then have you ever have you ever done or heard of the Wim Hof push ups?

Nick Urban [00:05:50]:
Yes. Yeah. So those?

Joshua Church [00:05:52]:
Yeah. So, basically, you and you always wanna make sure you’re seated. Anytime you’re doing any superventilative breathing practice is always very important. Never by water and never to hold your breath underwater to try to hold your breath for a long time and always on the floor, so that you’re safe. And if you do get dizzy or light headed or you do pass out, you’re safe on the floor. And so just 2 2 cautionary tales there. So, for the Wim Hof method push ups, it’s so wild. That’s so cool.

Joshua Church [00:06:18]:
I have a goal that I’m trying to do this summer, which is I wanna get to I’ll share the goal in a second. Let me share what we do first. So you’re gonna be sitting down and, in a seated position, and you’ll do a round of the Wim Hof method breath work. So you’ll do a round of the superventilative, And you’ll do that 30 to 50 breaths, somewhere in that range or whenever you feel like you feel that charge when you kinda start to feel, okay, I’m feeling some tingles. I’m feeling some light headedness. I’m feeling that charge. And then you’ll take a breath in. And then you’ll exhale.

Joshua Church [00:06:49]:
And on your exhale, you’ll rock forward. On the exhale, you’ll rock forward into a high plank, into a push up position, and you’ll start banging out push ups on the empty. So you exhale, rock forward. So there’s no air in your lungs, so you’re not breathing, and you start cranking out push ups. And it’s so wild. I love doing this whenever I’m leading retreats or doing workshops depending on the group. I’ll I’ll take them through this because you can do so many more push ups than you think. And, typically, people do more push ups than they normally could do otherwise without breathing, which is such a trick because it’s like, what if I told you that you could do if you think you can do 10 push ups, you can do 15 push ups without breathing.

Joshua Church [00:07:24]:
You’re like, what? So and I’ll rock forward and knock them out. So, I’ve worked my way up to doing, 70 in in that single motion. So 70 on that low breath. And when I just did 70, usually, it’s around 50. And yesterday, I just felt the charge, and I ripped an extra 20, and I hit 70. And then you you know, after and when you feel that recovery breath and you can roll back into child’s pose, take that breath, and and then you just feel how what that does to your system from the, you know, blood flow, from the oxygen. Just it’s it’s wild. It wakes you up.

Joshua Church [00:07:54]:
And and then I have the goal. I’m like, I wanna work see if I can work my way up to a 100. It’s how cool would it be to say, like, yeah. I can do a 100 push ups without breathing. I think

Nick Urban [00:08:02]:
this

Joshua Church [00:08:02]:
is a funny thing. So that’s the that’s the push up exercise.

Nick Urban [00:08:06]:
Yeah. I’ve been doing that for a while. I guess I haven’t done it recently, but I used to do that, and it’s pretty incredible. It defies your imagination that you could actually do more push ups when you’re not breathing, but I found the same thing. And even if I waited a minute into my breath hold, I’d exhaled, and then I started the push ups, I could still do a ton of push ups.

Joshua Church [00:08:25]:
It’s amazing.

Nick Urban [00:08:26]:
For your early morning breathing you do before you even get out of bed Mhmm. Are you following any particular cadence, like 4, 7, 8 breathing or just, like, whatever feels, whatever flows?

Joshua Church [00:08:36]:
Just deep breath, whatever flows. 479 breathing is great. There’s so many different box breathing is great. There’s so many different types of breathing techniques, breathing patterns. I love the physiological sigh as well, which I don’t know if you saw, but Huberman was just on one of the late night talk shows, and he guided the whole audience through physiological side. Did you see that? No. I haven’t. That’s pretty cool.

Nick Urban [00:08:56]:
I was

Joshua Church [00:08:56]:
like, oh, let’s go. We’re getting some mainstream attention over here. The physiological sigh is a great one. It’s really interesting that and it kinda leads into what we’re talking about earlier, but I have this unique approach where I went down the rabbit hole and dove into the deep end as it related to personal development, to biohacking, to just all these different stacks and all these different protocols. And I think I went a little too far and so, like, I overwhelmed myself, which I’m sure you can have some experience with as well. And then the pendulum kind of swung into the other direction. I found my way back into the middle here, but I really emphasize and I do this without any of my clients and any of the training I do as well is is is always leading from that place of intuition. If you if you have the toolkit, like, it’s important to learn all these things because then you have this toolkit, and then you can call on the tools when you need when you feel that you need them.

Joshua Church [00:09:43]:
You know? Okay. Cool. Like, I feel like I need to take a physiological siren. I’m a little worked up or, like, you know, let me play with some 4, 7, 8 breath work because I know how to do that or or box breath. And and then giving yourself the freedom in that moment to choose what works for you. And sometimes it can just be a simple simple deep breath. So, it changes all the time, but the function remains there. And that function being bringing breath into my body, bringing life into my body, waking my waking my cells up by doing some and bringing focus and presence and attention and intention to to my being first thing in the morning.

Nick Urban [00:10:14]:
And we also can now connect the breath to one of your specialties, and that is all things cold. Walk me through cold therapy and the cold plunge, ice bathing, all that whole world.

Joshua Church [00:10:28]:
So much to dive into the whole world. How do you wanna where do you wanna dive in? How do you wanna tackle this?

Nick Urban [00:10:33]:
How did you get involved in it?

Joshua Church [00:10:34]:
Yeah. Great question. I probably not too different than most people, had my first experience with cold immersion, from high school athletics, from playing football in high school. And we after when we would come, we would play Friday nights, and then Saturday, we would come for lift and film. And, and after lifting, we would do whatever treatment we needed from getting banged up, and we always had trash cans filled with ice outside of the training room. And so they were we were told, go get in the trash can. You know, you got 5 minutes in the trash can. And we were just told to go in there and we’re, like, huddled in the trash can.

Joshua Church [00:11:07]:
And, and it was pretty brutal. We were never taught how to breathe. We were never taught why we’re even doing this. It was just like, this is something you do because you felt better when you got out. Like Yeah. You felt, you know, you sometimes playing football. It’s like you wake up the next day and felt like you were in a car accident. Like, you’re all sore, beat up, and then you get out of the ice bath.

Joshua Church [00:11:23]:
You’re like, wow. Like, that actually feels really good. That helped a lot. So that was my first experience with it, but I I I really didn’t like it. I I really, really avoided it. And I’m from San Diego, so I’m a sun creature. I love the sun. I love the warmth.

Joshua Church [00:11:35]:
I did not like the cold. I even went to Ohio for college for a few years, and I was just, like, living in a cold weather place. It was just not for me. So I really avoided the cold. And, then I heard this crazy guy named Wim Hoff on a podcast many years ago, and his message really resonated with me. He was sharing this message and his story of how after his wife had committed suicide, he regained his sanity and his health and his strength and his happiness. We’re sharing this message that we can influence our physiology. Like, we have the ability to do this.

Joshua Church [00:12:07]:
And after high school football, I had some pretty gnarly injuries and some surgeries and pretty traumatic injuries that left me pretty close to dying in the hospital. One of them was a, a botched appendectomy surgery where the, an artery was nicked and, and I was bleeding internally. So I had to get blood transfusions. It was touch and go. I was hours away from having my leg amputated from a high school football injury that I recovered from. So my body was beat up, and I heard this message at a time when I really needed it, which was at a time when I felt like my body was failing me. I felt like I tried everything, and the doctors, the best they could do was say, here’s a high dose Ibuprofen, and we can prescribe you Percocet if you want to deal with the pain. And it was a time where I just felt like I didn’t know where else to turn.

Joshua Church [00:12:53]:
And I’m I’m 20 years old at this point, 21 years old. So it’s like, what am I like, this is the rest of my life living in chronic pain, my back, my knees, my leg, like, my whole body. And then that podcast, like, opened the door. Yoga also. I started getting into yoga. Yoga opened the door for me, and and I started to realize that I could have some more flexibility in my body and that perhaps maybe this wasn’t a terminal diagnosis of just living in pain. The door opened up like, well, maybe maybe I can shift, and I’m starting to see. Wow.

Joshua Church [00:13:21]:
I can now sit on my knees after having ACL surgery. I had terrible range of motion. Now doing sort of doing yoga, I can actually sit on my knees for a few minutes, and then I gotta go a few minutes longer, like, woah. Hold up. This body, like, I can heal. I can change this. And then Wim Hof came, and he was talking about the breath and the cold, and it just sounds so intriguing to me. One of my philosophies in life, Nick, is being able to follow the breadcrumbs and follow your curiosity.

Joshua Church [00:13:45]:
I followed my curiosity all the way to leading me to somehow running this, you know, $10,000,000 plus company with my cousin and providing ice baths to people. Like, I had no plans to do that. I just followed my curiosity one step of the way. And and after hearing that podcast, I, ended up on WIM’s website and I was looking to do a workshop or something. And I was like, I wanna do a workshop, there’s no workshop available, but there was a retreat in Iceland. And everything in my body just told me, yes, go do this retreat. So I packed my bag and I flew out to Iceland and experienced breath work and cold immersion in the raws, most natural state. And that trip changed my life, and I got really into it.

Joshua Church [00:14:21]:
And I started learning more about it and what it did to my whole state of being and what it did for my healing process was just next level. So I I needed to go deeper down down that path.

Nick Urban [00:14:30]:
I find it surprising that you guys didn’t do any yoga or anything like that in your, like, high school football journey.

Joshua Church [00:14:37]:
No. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Nick Urban [00:14:41]:
So tell me how your practice evolved from there because, obviously, you explored cold quite a bit further.

Joshua Church [00:14:46]:
Yeah. So, really, what what blew the door open for me was doing the the first breath work, journey that I went on in Iceland when I got there during the retreat. I’m I’m laying there, and I’m breathing and just following this is my first time doing any type of deep Wim Hof method style breath work. And I’m breathing and breathing. I start to feel some tingling, like, okay. Cool. This is interesting. What’s happening? These structures, like, keep breathing, keep breathing.

Joshua Church [00:15:12]:
And next thing I know, I feel this, like, tingle and tickle right at the site where I had my appendicitis surgery. I’m like, interesting. Okay. Breathe. Breathe. And then it kinda, like, tracked it up, up, up, up to my throat, kinda got caught here. And I’m just curious. I’m like breathing.

Joshua Church [00:15:28]:
And then all of a sudden, I just started crying my eyes out, like, absolute wave of emotion that was released Wow. From what I believe was that that that stored emotion in my body from that surgery that I just kind of brushed under the rug and moved on from. And then throughout the rest of that breathing practice, I was just sobbing, like, sobbing, sobbing as it I, like, I felt that tingle trace around my entire body. Every incision, every surgery, every injury that I had, it’s like it it all just just came overflowing out of me. And I remember waking up for coming out of that, like, holy crap. What was that? Like, how I I actually I’m not even kidding. I was convinced that the instructor, like, spiked our water with something. I I and it was a thought.

Joshua Church [00:16:18]:
I’m not even kidding. I’m like, did I just, like, get initiated into a cult over here? Like, if they just, like is this, like, is this some sort of psychedelic they just gave me? Because it was that level state that I was going to, and I was just like, how is it possible that I could lay down here and breathe for 90 minutes and have this experience? Like, that doesn’t my mind was like, how does that make sense?

Nick Urban [00:16:37]:
Wow. So was that a typical, like, a traditional Wim Hof style breathing, or was it more like holotropic or something

Joshua Church [00:16:43]:
like that? It was a unique style that was kind of a mix of both of those, which is what I’ve come to learn to to teach myself as well. It wasn’t full holotropic or or, like, you know, trauma release or full, like, rebirthing, but it was but it wasn’t full just, like, strict Wim Hof 30 Wim Hof method breathing is, like, very precise and strict, like, 30 breaths, 15 second hold, and and after retention and, recovery breath. And and so it’s very specific. So I was an instructor who trained very, very closely with Wim for the first several years of the business, and, and so he kind of evolved his own way of doing it. And so that that, like, blew the door open for me and then going pairing that with the cold of learning the thing that got me about the cold was learning how to breathe in the cold and how to be in the cold because it was something it represented fear. It represented the thing that’s dangerous. It represented the thing that’s, like, I can’t do that. I can’t go climb that mountain in my in my swimwear.

Joshua Church [00:17:37]:
I can’t go into that lake that’s frozen for 5 minutes. Are you kidding? Like, I can’t do that, but then doing it and all of a sudden being like, woah, I just did that. And my body was able to do that. Hey, body, maybe you’re not so weak after all. Maybe you are strong. Wow. You’re able to do that for me. And the thing that the cold taught me right away, one of my best lessons I’ve learned in life came from the cold.

Joshua Church [00:17:59]:
The cold taught me how to shift from brace to embrace. The cold taught me how to shift from bracing stress and bracing challenge like I normally did up to that point. Like, a lot of us are wired to do, like like, come on, grit through. I mean, the football player in me is like, alright. You got challenge. Come on. Like, rattle yourself up. Go through it.

Joshua Church [00:18:17]:
If you bring that approach to the cold, you will get smack silly, humbled very, very quickly. Just it it’s not gonna work. You’re gonna it’s gonna be so painful. You’re not gonna last. The only possible way that you can last 5 minutes in the cold, you can find presence or actually find calmness or stillness in that extreme stress is by shifting from that brace to embrace and downshifting, getting to that parasympathetic tone, that vagal toning and slower breath, inhales through the nose. And to see that firsthand with the cold, it just set this total ripple effect with everything else in my life. How I was showing up at work, how I was showing up in relationships and difficult conversations. It was like, oh, this is a whole different way of being and engaging with stress, engaging with stimulus, engaging with challenges.

Joshua Church [00:19:03]:
So re it started to offer another path or another way for me to be able to show up and do that. And and and that was like, I mean, I was to say my life changed during that that that that week is is a is a true statement because it was just the beginning and I was, like, I gotta I gotta understand more. I gotta learn more about this. Why is this happening? How is this happening? Like, how do I share this with other people? How do I consistently do this? And that set me down the rabbit hole.

Nick Urban [00:19:28]:
What was the actual protocol for the cold exposure on that retreat? Were you guys doing it, like, once per day or, like, 5 times per day? Were you doing it an hour? I’m guessing not that long, but

Joshua Church [00:19:39]:
Yeah. We were doing once a day of of cold water immersion and typically once a day of cold just cold exposure out in the element. So we would do, like, for example and and this is not too different than how I lead my retreats is, you know, you’ll do in the morning, we’ll do a a breathing session. We’ll do deep breath work journey and kind of open up space for some of that deeper inquiry work, and then we’ll have brunch, then we’ll shift gears and go out into adventure into the into the land or wherever it might be. So we’ll go do an exposure hike or a walk, like a presence or mindful walk exposed in the elements, or we’ll do a barefoot walk in the snow or something like that, and then we’ll do some form of cold immersion natural cold immersion. So we’ll do, into a a lake or a river or a waterfall, whatever it might be. And, typically, that’s gonna be in the, you know, 2 to 5 minute standpoint. I think once on one retreat that I was a participant on, we did 11 minutes because it was a deeper kind of more advanced group and the instructor wanted to really dive into it was in a very controlled environment, but they wanted to really dive into, like, what’s possible when you can you can get your mind out of the way.

Joshua Church [00:20:45]:
But it’s it typically in that range. So because it’s a lot on your body. It’s a lot on your body, especially in those cold temperatures and when you’re doing all this other deeper work and you’re having full active days. So it was really constructed around, you know, an adventure, some sort of, like, one big challenge a day like that.

Nick Urban [00:21:01]:
One thing I think about before I use cold is whether or not preparing the body physiologically is a good idea because it, like, it obviously makes the exposure easier, or if it makes more sense to not do that because then you’re teaching your body how to self regulate. For example, if I have a stress in my life, it’s very unlikely that I’m gonna have perfectly timed some breath work to do in advance of that. So it’s like, if I don’t practice and I I don’t warm up and I just get into the cold and then I focus on reregulating myself, it seems to me like that would translate better.

Joshua Church [00:21:43]:
That’s a really great insight. I haven’t thought about that, but I I would I would agree with you. I think that that’s a great way to evolve to practice. And naturally, I would say how I’ve evolved my practice as well, which is, like, I just get in the tub. I just get in the tub. I step in. I, like, I I catch my breath and I get to that point. I don’t time myself anymore rarely.

Joshua Church [00:22:02]:
I’ll just go based on those feeling based on the feeling and based on what I kind of notice those walls and based on what’s coming up, and I’ll just breathe through at least one wall, like, one kind of resistance point. And it usually ends up being probably 2 to 3 2 to somewhere between 2 minutes and 3 3 minutes. Sometimes it’s shorter, sometimes it’s longer, but I like to be able because every day is different. Some days I get in the same temperature, same time of day. Sometimes I get in and I can feel like myself, my shit, like, shiver right away. I can feel the real hesitation reluctance. And sometimes I get in, I’m like, heck, yeah. This feels good.

Joshua Church [00:22:32]:
I’m chilling. So it’s just it’s very interesting to notice those differences, but I I I liked your I I like your thought.

Nick Urban [00:22:38]:
When I think about it, like, by preparing yourself and doing, like, a bunch of rounds of breath work in advance, to me, that seems like another way of bracing yourself for the exposure rather than embracing. If you go in and then you start controlling your breath and your intention or anything, it seems to me like that’s more of actually embracing the cold.

Joshua Church [00:22:56]:
I would agree. I think that that might be more advanced approach to it because depending on what what temperature it is or or how what your experience is. Because, like, I know for a lot of beginners, even with all the breath work in the world I mean, think about it. Most humans, even with all the breath work in the world, all the prep in the world, they still won’t get into the ice bath. They still won’t get into cold immersion. So doing what you need to do and if there’s certain things, even if it’s just like taking one deep breath to center yourself and then go in, makes sense. The one thing that I do and and I always offer this as well to people, especially if they’re resistant is it’s a really powerful frame to offer, which is make it a choice. Getting in should be a choice, so make it a choice.

Joshua Church [00:23:37]:
And whenever we’re doing retreats or in the in nature, it’s, like, it’s it’s always good to be able to, like, get centered to the point where, like, alright, cool. I’m I’m gonna go now. This is a choice. I’m not just going because someone’s telling me to go. So there’s a fine line there, but, but making it a choice. And I always make sure, like, this is a choice. Like, I’m choosing to do this. Even though I might not want to do this, I’m still choosing to do this anyway.

Nick Urban [00:23:59]:
Yeah. I haven’t really thought about that, but I know that when I’ve done it with groups, I tend to be the one that will pressure other people into, like, okay. Just do 10 seconds. Just do whatever you can do, but, like, I’m also realizing that I’m pressuring and not making it clear that it’s the choice has to come from them.

Joshua Church [00:24:16]:
Yeah. It’s so interesting too because I I mean, I’ve guided thousands and thousands of people through through their cold immersion, their first cold immersion experiences, and and I relate to that as well. And it’s one thing I always like to say is is give people permission, not pressure. When you give people permission, like, you can do this, like and it’s your choice. You don’t have to do this. I noticed it almost there’s, like, reverse psychology thing that happens where then they end up doing it more or they they they’re more apt to do it versus, like, you can do it. Like, I know you got this. Like, come on.

Joshua Church [00:24:47]:
Just for 10 seconds. It’s, like, instant for whatever reason, like, when we feel pressured, like, we put kind of the brakes up even if we want to. But all of a sudden, if we can say to someone, like, it’s your choice, so you don’t have to do this. Or you can get in and then count to 3 and then get out, and even that’s better than nothing. Or you can just put get in and stand in there, not lower down all the way or just put your feet in or put your hands in. Like, dude, you can do something.

Nick Urban [00:25:07]:
Joshua, I wanna circle back at some point to dosing of cold because you mentioned something a second ago that I love that you don’t necessarily go in trying to set any records most of the time. You said you go for you went for 2 minutes recently, I think. So I wanna talk about that. Before we go into that, I’d also like to discuss the benefits that you see that people regularly report. What are some of the things that cold does for people?

Joshua Church [00:25:31]:
I’m trying to think, like, I don’t know how many other modalities there are out there, like natural health modalities out there that can give so many different benefits to so many different types of people. I mean, I’m talking to the the basic ones that people know of and hear when they think are associated with cold immersion is you have reduction in inflammation, you have delight onset muscle soreness is reduced so it’s gonna help with boosting recovery like that’s why athletes use it. It’s gonna help with acute inflammation. It’s gonna help with, with with boosting your recovery by flushing that inflammation out, and it’s gonna help you with energy. It’s gonna help you just feel great. It’s gonna help you, you know, it’s gonna help you just be more focused. And that all comes from some of the some of the neurochemicals, like, we know, like the 250% increase in in dopamine that’s been observed or 530 percent norepinephrine boost. So there’s some great, great research around these things.

Joshua Church [00:26:21]:
Metabolism is gonna light up your metabolism. It’s gonna increase your, your brown fat. It’s gonna help you with brown fat production and activation, which is gonna help burn calories, which is gonna help burn white fat and just help with your metabolic value. So there’s a lot I would simplify it by also saying that it gives people great sense of resilience and and willpower because you’re doing something difficult. Like, it never gets easy. You’re doing something difficult and you’re building evidence that you are someone that can do hard things. And I think that right now, our world needs more people like that and needs to be reminded that we are resilient human beings and we can do hard things. And we can do things that sometimes we may not wanna do, but we can do it anyway.

Joshua Church [00:27:05]:
And we can feel good on the other side of doing that thing that we might not wanna do. One of my other favorite benefits that I that we see a lot, we do a lot of work with first responders or veterans or military. And what it does to help with some people alleviate symptoms of PTSD is just mind blowing and regulating. It’s stress inoculation training. It’s regulating and and and helping people regulate, helping people be more present, more energy throughout the day.

Nick Urban [00:27:30]:
Makes sense. If you were just to look at it on paper, you’d see that it spikes norepinephrine. And for someone who has PTSD or nervousness, that kind of stuff, you’d think that that could be a very negative thing. It would further dysregulate them. But if you bring intentionality to it and you focus on the breath, you focus on, like, regulating yourself via all means possible, then you can also see how that would switch over into being, like, a beneficial eustress.

Joshua Church [00:27:56]:
Right. Exactly. It goes from that de stress to eustress because because you’re working with it. It’s a practice arena. It’s a practice arena for dealing with stress. It’s a practice arena for dealing with facing your fear regardless of who you are. Like, no. Like like I said, every morning too, when I go in, I’m just like, damn, I really can do this again.

Joshua Church [00:28:11]:
Okay. There’s, like, the thought track that’s always playing. It’s deeply psychophysiological. Like, it’s it impacts both the mind and the body in such a unique way where other types of recovery modalities or therapies might just impact 1 or the other. You have this connection and this through line by really, really stimulating your nervous system with this with this stressor. So it it’s a unique there’s a there’s it’s a unique blend.

Nick Urban [00:28:35]:
Do I have it correct in my notes? I I have to ask you about the transition from Wim Hof to Ironmans.

Joshua Church [00:28:42]:
Yeah. So if you can imagine, when I was painting that picture of myself in my early twenties, I felt broken. I mean, I really, really felt broken, and I had nowhere to turn. And and then I started to to heal and to shift, and and I did right as I was starting to make some positive health changes in my life through yoga, through diet and exercise and and and when I realized, like, oh, food can actually help me feel more energized. Like, having an afternoon slump after eating lunch is not a normal thing. Like, that’s not just that’s just not normal across the board. You don’t have to have that if you choose the foods and the timing properly. So I’m like, woah.

Joshua Church [00:29:21]:
There’s this whole other I I started tapping into the stores of energy that I didn’t know that I had and you’re pairing the breath work and cold immersion. It’s like, woah. This is how we’re meant to feel. This is how we’re meant to thrive. So I I I I started to I started to really heal through that process in my early twenties. And one of the things that I did was I signed up for, you know, a short, like, Olympic distance triathlon because I was still rehabbing. I I had bad knees at the time and I was still in a lot of my my body still wasn’t very apt for physical activity like that. But I’m like, triathlon would be great.

Joshua Church [00:29:52]:
That’s a good challenge to help kinda continue to get me in shape because it’s most of the training is low impact. Biking and swimming, those are 2 things that I can do. And then there’s a run, of course, but it’s a short run. In the Olympic distance, it was like I don’t know. It’s like a 5 mile run or something like that. So I’m like, I I can I can do that? So I started training and I did it. And it was awesome and I caught the bug. I was, like, that was so cool.

Joshua Church [00:30:13]:
And just the process of training and preparing to be, like, woah, I just did a triathlon. That’s really cool. I didn’t think I could ever do a triathlon especially in the state that my body was in. And then I got my cousin, Rob, who’s my cofounder here. He we we trained for another one. We did one together. We’re like, oh, that was cool. And after we did that, we’re like, can you imagine how people do a half Ironman, which is double the distance that we just did? That’s crazy.

Joshua Church [00:30:36]:
Can you imagine how people do a full Ironman, which is double that double? Like, that’s just it’s sickening to think about after you go do just any level of triathlon. It’s just like, oh, that’s ridiculous that how is that even possible? And I think from that moment after we did the first one together and we had that conversation, I was just like, maybe one day. Like, maybe one day, I’ll do it. Maybe. So we did another Olympic distance, maybe 1 or 2 more, and then all of a sudden it was like, you know what? The half could be doable. Like, maybe we’ll send it. Let’s do it. We sign up for it.

Joshua Church [00:31:06]:
It’s far away in the distance. We do the training and we work our way up to it and we do a half Ironman. And it was, like, woah, we just did a half Ironman, 70.3 mile race. That is next level. And then the thought after that was, like, I’m done. Like, there’s no way I’m doing this again and there’s no way that it’s even possible to conceive about doing double that for full Ironman. Like, there’s that’s sick. To think about getting to the end of the finish line and being, like, alright, go do that one more time.

Joshua Church [00:31:32]:
No. But we did another half probably 6 months later and then another half and all of a sudden was like, you know what? I think we just gotta do it. Like, I think we’re ready. So this is over the course of several years and and we signed up for full Ironman Triathlon. I trained all the way. I was a 9 month training plan to train to to swim 2.4 miles, then bike a 112 miles, and then run a full marathon, 26.2 miles. And I’d trained 9 months training plan everything. A week before, we were do doing it out in Florida.

Joshua Church [00:32:01]:
The week before, we ship our bike out ready to go, plane tickets, everything’s set. The week before, on one of my last runs, I developed shin splints and I don’t my Oh, no. Stress fracture on my shin. And I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. And I I was kind of debating, do I still try to push through? And then I was talking to some doctors and they were like, you know, they’re just telling me the real risks of pushing through and you have a microfracture and it can become a real fracture in your shin then you’re done. It’s a whole different story. So I had to make the tough decision to pull out of that race the week before, which was gutting. And this was in 2020, 2019, 2020, 2019, end of 2019.

Joshua Church [00:32:39]:
And it was gutting. And I was like, you know what? Fine. That’s I’m done. This isn’t for me. Whatever. And I put it down for a while. And then after a couple years, the itch my cousin Rob went and did it. I went and supported it.

Joshua Church [00:32:52]:
So he crossed the finish line and I and I remember seeing them. I’m like, yeah. One day I’m gonna cross this finish line. One day I’m gonna do it. And I just kept my process, kept my healing, I healed healed through those shin splints and just kept focused on my mobility, kept focused on my training. And, and then about a year ago decided, okay, I’m ready to do this. Let’s do it. Now is the window.

Joshua Church [00:33:13]:
Let’s send it. And so we signed up for Ironman Arizona and in November of 2024 2023, excuse me, we crossed the finish line of full Ironman Triathlon. And it took me there was a gnarly headwind that, that we did not expect. So it was a very slow race, but it took me just under 16 hours, 15 hours and 59 minutes to cross that finish line. But I did it, and it was one of the most amazing experiences for me to go from someone who was in chronic pain and thinking that there’s no way that’s possible to all of a sudden doing the impossible, quite literally the impossible. And that’s the Ironman slogan. Anything is possible to get to that place where you do a 140 mile race like that is just still mind blowing. I get chills just talking about it because of the journey that that’s taken and and and that, like, I can be a testament to the fact that anything can be possible.

Joshua Church [00:34:10]:
If I could go from where I was to doing an Ironman triathlon, then I I really do believe anything can be possible. So that’s how I went and using the breath work along the way, all these different these these different healing modalities, this recovery sauna, cold tub, it just it made all the difference for me, and and that’s how I went to, to to crossing finish line at Ironman Triathlon.

Nick Urban [00:34:31]:
It’s a cool story. And the part that really stands out to me is in addition to actually completing the Ironman, it’s the Ironman before that where you had trained all the way up to it for 9 months, and then the last second had to pull out. I don’t think a lot of people realize how much time goes into training for one of these things. It can range from a part time job to another full time job. And so on top of all that, how did cold factor into your routine and recovery? Because these days, all the talk is about how you don’t wanna use cold at all if you’ve trained beforehand because it blunts the beneficial hormetic adaptations. But, I mean, there’s some stipulations that it’s not as clear cut, but I’m curious how your routine looked.

Joshua Church [00:35:20]:
Yeah. And so the first time around, I was probably between 20 I was, like, 20 hours a week, 20 to 25 hours a week. So that’s a part time job. That’s another literally part time job. And, you know, your Saturdays Sundays are just shot because you’re doing the you know, people people don’t understand, but if you’re trying to go out and bike 60 miles, 70 miles on the street, like, that’s gonna take you half of the day. That’s gonna take you a long time. You’re gonna go around 15 miles. Like, that’s gonna take you several hours and then you’re zapped after and then sneaking in the workouts in the morning before work or after work.

Joshua Church [00:35:49]:
So, yeah, your your body is your body is going through it. So I think there’s there’s a lot to be said about that. I use cold I use cold and sauna all the time. I mean, probably 4 times a week, I was in the sauna, which helped so much as well because the sauna was great in helping build those heat shock proteins and helping build that, that ability to, like, build that heat tolerance and build the build the endurance. I mean, that’s the way that I treated those saunas. I would crank it up 200 degrees plus, and I would be in there and just, like, really be getting my body poof poof poof my heart rate up and just be really focused in the breath because that mimics, like, how you feel when you’re on the run hitting your your thresholds and your heart rate zone or when you’re on the bike and you’re just in that pocket. How do you stay cool and calm under stress? So I used sauna great for that and then I was in cold tub every single day. And the cold tub was great, especially you’re doing something that’s, like, that’s that’s long term like that and that you’re you wanna be able to constantly show up the next day.

Joshua Church [00:36:42]:
Like, yes, there might be some benefit that stunted from that that short term, you know, inflammation response that that I’m otherwise stunting by getting in the cold. But the benefit of me feeling less sore the next day far outweighs that for me. And that can be true depending on whatever you’re doing as well, whether you are doing regular workouts or hypertrophy muscle training, doing a cold immersion even if it’s for less time to still get that feeling that can help you be less sore the next day at the gym, you can get them that benefit. That could happen too. So for me being, like, in training mode in season, if you will, it was all about just management and just trying to be as little sore as possible and and as get as much energy as possible to keep going forward.

Nick Urban [00:37:26]:
That’s the perfect segue on to dosing cold appropriately because, of course, the dose will determine whether or not it has any impact on your performance, at least negative impact. And if you’re doing a one minute plunge at 50 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s gonna have zero impact on your hormetic gains. But if you do a 15 minute cold plunge at 30 degrees, yes, it’s gonna have an obvious impact. And, I mean, one of the things people look at to determine how much it changes your adaptations is the decrease in muscle temperature and the impact on satellite muscle satellite cells. And so I think that if you’re not going with the idea that more is better, then you can have a better outcome. You can train more often, and it has a net positive.

Joshua Church [00:38:17]:
Yeah. I would agree. I I like to follow philosophy of minimum viable impact, or minimal viable dose. Like, what’s a minimal minimum viable dose, like, the minimum effective dose needed, and and and always start there. And and some of the research is really interesting, and there’s still a lot of research to be done. We’re taking part in some research that’s gonna be happening towards the end of the summer as well here in Southern California, which we’re really excited about. But if you look at some of the research, one of the most widely cited experiments was done at 11 minutes per week, full body immersion at 57 degrees Fahrenheit or 14 Celsius. So that’s a that’s a kind of common that’s kind of way the way the way that I like to look at it, a lot from the Sohberg, Susanna Sohberg out of Scandinavia.

Joshua Church [00:38:58]:
She’s great. She’s she’s an awesome podcast on, on, on Huberman. She was on Guess. I spoke with her a few times. She’s she’s awesome. She’s really great with this, and she’s studied a lot of cold water swimming specifically. But full immersion to me, it’s, like, it’s all about full body immersion up to the neck, full body in, hands in, feet in. A lot of people, like, in a lot of gyms, I apparently tell people, like, keep your hands and feet out, which I can kinda get, but there’s so much there’s so much benefit that you can do from having your hands and feet in, but it’s it can be painful and uncomfortable.

Joshua Church [00:39:29]:
But there there’s we’ll go down that rabbit hole in a bit. I’ll pin that for now. So the I I like, you know, to look at it from a from from an intentionality standpoint, it’s kinda like, what do you wanna get out of it? Because the answer on dosing is it’s it’s the answer that nobody wants to hear, but the answer is it depends. It depends based on what you’re going for. If I’m trying to lose weight, then I might use something more like the shiver protocol, which is being in a certain colder temperatures, getting almost to, like, a shiver worked up and then standing up, airing my arms out and allowing myself to shiver and then going back in. And I might do something like that to, like, really activate the shivering thermogenesis. If I’m trying to feel energized for a meeting in the morning, I’m probably not gonna do that. I’m probably gonna do maybe a shorter I’m gonna do a head dunk.

Joshua Church [00:40:18]:
I’m gonna go full immersion. I might go colder temp to get a little bit more of that stimulus. I’m trying to feel less sore after going on a, you know, 15 mile run for the next day. I might do, you know, somewhere in the 50 degrees and be in there for a lot longer in my lower body and then finish on full body in. So I think that’s the first thing to just for people to understand when it comes to dosing is that, like, it depends. It depends what you’re going for. The way that I the way that I instruct my someone like my mother who goes in for her arthritis, the time, temperature, and frequency for her is very different than the one of the one of the forwards for the LA Clippers who we work with. So it it it totally depends in that case.

Joshua Church [00:40:55]:
So I I like to look though at the, like, if you think about from a holistic standpoint, like, most people are just like, I wanna just kinda get the overall benefit and feel a little bit of everything and feel good doing it, then I like to recommend the, 33 by 4. So 3 minutes, 4 times a week is a great dose. Starting at the 55 5755 degree Fahrenheit full immersion, and then working your way down in temperature till you find a sweet spot that works for you or continuously going down. But most of the time for beginners, especially, 5050 55 to 57 is still plenty to give someone a cold shock and make it challenging for 3 minutes. But sometimes people get in and that’s nothing that’s cake for them. So then you can go colder, but you can always go colder, especially with beginners. I’m always I’m always wanting to make it empowering and start at a more milder temp and then work your way down colder. So that 3 minutes is a great time because it’s going to allow you to do a couple things.

Joshua Church [00:41:49]:
It’s gonna you’re you’re certainly gonna get you’re gonna get that cold shock from getting in. You’re gonna you’re gonna be forced to regulate through that cold shock, and not just, like, get in for, you know, half a minute or a minute and then still be in that shock state. So 3 minutes is gonna force you to get over that hump. It’s also going to probably get you to at least one wall, and we call this we call the walls, like, these points of kind of resistance where you’re like, alright. Alright. I’m ready to get out. It’s time to get out. I’m too cold.

Joshua Church [00:42:12]:
I’m feeling I’m feeling, like, discomfort. My my my fingers or toes are really, really hurting. 3 minutes, usually around 2 minutes is typically where I see walls happen for people, like, that then 3 minutes gets you to breathe and be present with your body through one of those walls and and you get out and you’re gonna feel you’re gonna feel great after 3 minutes. So 3 minutes, 4 times a week gets you that 12:12 minutes a week, total time, and that’s a good baseline for kind of holistic hormetic regulation for using cold that I would recommend for people.

Nick Urban [00:42:42]:
Yeah. Any high level athletes or Olympic lifters or any of those types of people can always do pre cooling and use before working out and not to worry about those same potential consequences.

Joshua Church [00:42:55]:
Pre cooling is great. We have on on our Edge app, we have, a couple pre cooling, a pre workout cooling sessions. And what I love about our Edge app too is that so we have, you know, dozens and dozens of guided guided practices, guided sessions where we have coaches leading you through your cold water immersion experience, both pre cooling pre cooling, intra cooling, post cooling. So, like, before you get in, during the tub, and then when you get out to kinda help you with breath and movement along those ways and make it a cohesive experience. And, we have a few different ones that are pre workout. And what I love about that too is because you can also prime yourself in the tub if you’re visualizing, thinking about the workout that you’re about to have or you’re thinking about how it’s gonna, you know, lower your muscle temperature so that you can last longer in the gym and and push hard on those sets. Like, all of a sudden you’re sinking brain and body and you’re you’re priming yourself and you’re you’re brainwashing yourself, if you will, to experience what benefit you’re looking for. And I believe that that that has a massive impact as well.

Nick Urban [00:43:50]:
I like that. You mentioned earlier that your own protocol doesn’t always use, like, super cold water. My gym, the ice bath we have tends to be in the low thirties, sometimes 32, 33 degrees, and the water is circulating, so it’s it’s it’s very cold. And I don’t think that that’s even the best option for peep for most people and those who are experienced. And there’s also a culture where it’s like, oh, how long did you do it? Oh, you did 2 minutes. Oh, I did 3 minutes 30 seconds. Oh, I did 5 minutes. And I think they’re, like, that completely misses the point of, like, the individualized experience, especially because the right therapeutic dose for you is gonna be different on each day depending on your workout if you had one, depending on how you slept, depending on your other stressors in your life.

Joshua Church [00:44:39]:
Yeah. It’s so true. And and you think about this too, if you’re a woman too, where you are in your menstrual cycle, like, all of these things matter. And, it’s, it’s so true. It’s something we refer to as the cold ego. Like, we like to have a like, a lot of people have a cold ego. How long can you go? Oh, I went in. Exactly.

Joshua Church [00:44:57]:
I went in. It was it was 32 degrees, and I was in there for 10 minutes, or my friend did 11 minutes. Oh, that’s crazy. I’m gonna try that next time. It’s like, you’re kinda missing the mark. Maybe there’s another way. And because it really is, like, I I truly believe it and I approach it and treat it. It’s a very intimate experience, and it’s an intimate experience for me because for me, it’s about it’s a practice of connecting more deeply with yourself.

Joshua Church [00:45:20]:
And it’s it’s it’s an exercise in going inward because the cold forces you to be present. It forces you to go inward. And when you’re going and you’re doing that process, it’s not about it’s not about timing or records or anything like that. It’s it’s about what are you giving yourself. Like, why are you doing that? And that’s that’s the often the thing the question that I that I ask people that shatters a cold ego is, like, why?

Nick Urban [00:45:44]:
When you say that you turn inward and you just sit with it with your and you pay attention to your breath, what is it that you’re sitting with? Like, let’s explore the spiritual, like, introspective benefits of it.

Joshua Church [00:45:57]:
Absolutely. Well, it’s it’s noticing firstly, it’s it’s getting to that point. I’m working through that initial cold shock. Right? We have the initial cold shock, usually comes with a gas reflex and, right, takes your breath away. So first, it’s all about just regulating. It’s all about catching my breath and and this happens pretty quickly now for me, because you start to get that’s something that you improve on very quickly as you do this consistently. You can improve on how quickly you’re able to and that’s regulate and that’s something you’ll see the difference between someone who does this all the time and a beginner is a beginner will get in and, like, it can really freak out. They can have a panic attack and more experienced practitioners can get in and they can get right to their breath.

Joshua Church [00:46:37]:
Maybe a couple strong deep breaths. And then into the nose. So I’m always wanting to get to, like and and a fun breath that I like to play with is the ninja breath, ninja breathing, which is, like, how still can I make the water? How little how low and slow can I keep my breath in my belly? How little can I actually breathe? And at that point, it’s like you’re almost becoming the one with the water. So there’s a spiritual thing. It’s like, how can I just be in this water and be part of this water and be at such stillness? Like, how still can I get? And that creates inner stillness. And if you’re taking that experience of, like, if you’re just sitting down, meditating, how still can I get? That is gonna be a lot of benefits there. Just like how still can I be in my mind and in my body and the cold? How still can I be? How little how come how relaxed can I be? How effortless can the breath feel? So these are some of the things when you’re going inward that that I that I like to play around with and I tend to play around with firstly. And then and then the the next stage is, like, noticing what am I feeling? Like, what’s coming up? Is, you know, am I noticing that my hip is starting to light up or my hands feel really, really cold or, like or I’m starting to shiver quicker than I usually do? Like, what’s present? What’s coming up? And I use that as a way to work with that and get curious and get inquisitive and be with that fully and bring my awareness fully to those sensations.

Joshua Church [00:48:06]:
So it’s a way of, like, being with the sensations and observing what’s happening in my body. And these are all things that if I just, like, get in and play a song and set my timer and I’m just or I’m trying to allow people, like, oh, just distract me, talk to me, or, like, I wanna watch a show or something like that so I can distract myself. You’re missing out on that. You’re missing out on all the things that your body’s giving you, all the cues and signals that your body’s giving you. So I have the opposite approach, which is, like, I I wanna go inward, and I wanna notice what are these things. I don’t wanna be distracted. I wanna be in tune with what’s happening.

Nick Urban [00:48:35]:
So say you’re noticing that your hand is colder than usual or you have a little ache or pain somewhere, you notice that cue, what do you

Joshua Church [00:48:44]:
do with it? Well, great question. So first, what happens naturally is, like, I notice that it’s, like, oh, it’s time to get out or, like, maybe I should get out now or maybe let me take my hands out. Right? You you first instinct is, like, this is uncomfortable. So especially when you’re when you’re when you’re brain and your when your body’s in such a heightened state of stress, your body’s like, well, let’s get comfortable fast. Like, okay, my my my hands are hurting. Let me bring my hands out. Or, you know, my knee’s hurting. Like, let’s get let’s just get out.

Joshua Church [00:49:09]:
Let’s get out. It’s time to go. I’ve been in here long enough anyway. So first, the initial response is kinda like the reaction I should say is, like, get out. But it sit with it, be a little bit more curious. What I do in the practices, and I always share this with any time when I’m coaching someone through and they they, you know, I check-in with someone or they I can tell that their hands, feet are very cold or they say, oh, everything’s fine besides my hands. A lot of people can relate to this. Everything’s fine besides x y z.

Joshua Church [00:49:32]:
Okay. Cool. Let’s breathe with that. So what I like to do is and I’ll I’ll do this in terms of how I do for myself, and it’s very similar to how I instruct other people to do this. But if I notice, like, oh, my hands are really achy, like, oh, that that that kinda hurts. Okay. Let me take a deep breath into that. Okay.

Joshua Church [00:49:51]:
Cool. Instead of avoiding that feeling of my hands being painful or cold, like, oh, really, really cold. Okay. Cool. What is cold? Cold does not have to be bad. It’s just a sensation I’m feeling. So instead of trying to sweep under the rug and distract and be, like, oh, let me just let me distract myself or, like, let me just get out. Like, what happens if I bring my full awareness into that sensation? So instead, what I’ll do is I’ll just breathe into that.

Joshua Church [00:50:16]:
So if I feel my hands are really cold, instead of trying to move away from that feeling, what happens if I bring my full awareness to that feeling of of cold and pain? Like, let me feel that pain fully. And what happens after 3? It works like magic. 3 breaths of that, breathe with that sensation, the intensity after 3 breaths, it goes away. It works like clockwork for me. And and and and it freaks beginners out too when I have them do this because it usually helps. I would say 9 times out of 10, it helps. And I think that what what it is is I view I view pain or sensation. It doesn’t happen by accident.

Joshua Church [00:50:55]:
It’s our body giving us signals with the check engine light that’s on. So if oftentimes, these feelings, these emotions, these this energy and motion, these things, these sensations that we’re experiencing, they just wanna be felt. They just wanna be, like that’s why I view it. It’s like the the cold, the pain just wants to be acknowledged and felt. So I can just be like, take a breath into and be like, okay. Cool. Like, I feel you. I’m okay.

Joshua Church [00:51:18]:
I’m okay. You’re okay. I got you. I’m here. We’re okay. It’s like because it’s there for us. It’s there to try to protect us. And if we bring our full awareness to that, then we can it can it can evolve, it can dissipate entirely, or it can shift, or it can it can get a lot better easier.

Joshua Church [00:51:33]:
So that’s what I like to do.

Nick Urban [00:51:35]:
Yeah. I totally agree. And I learned about that first through breath work when I was following Wim Hof and when he would instruct you to pay attention, notice different sensations in your body and just to breathe into that similar kind of thing. And I think that one of the things the research gets wrong when it comes to cold is that it completely ignores that whole side. It’s like, okay. What is physiologically happening? Okay. What neurochemicals are changing as a result? What hormones are changing? But it’s if you actually pay attention to everything it was doing, you were to do it in this way versus just to prescribe 3 minutes in a cold, what however you do that doesn’t really matter. It’s a study.

Nick Urban [00:52:12]:
Then you’d find very different things.

Joshua Church [00:52:14]:
I completely agree, and it’s something we’re always racking our brain around here at Edge of how can we study this? How is there a way to quantify this or qualify this type of data or experience that we can be that that can that can be replicable, that we can that we can we can show because bringing this intentionality and this focus to it because I really believe that through this way of really going inward with this practice, it can that’s what yields the the the vast majority of the benefits. Like, that’s what really can yield life changing things happening for people because it it worked that way for me before I even cared or knew about, like, you know, what it was what was happening on the neurochemical level. It was like, woah. Brace to embrace. How do you quantify? How do you measure that?

Nick Urban [00:52:58]:
One of the other things I see it helping is that our body’s constantly giving us a bunch of, like, biofeedback, a bunch of cues, and we don’t usually notice them. But when you go into the cold, all of a sudden, that cue becomes much, much louder. It becomes much harder to ignore, directly presents itself to you. And then by paying attention to it and training your body to, like, notice these things when we’re living the rest of our lives outside of the cold, and it’s a quite a bit more subtle that we’re able to notice those and feel them, which then shifts our internal state dramatically.

Joshua Church [00:53:33]:
Absolutely. Absolutely agree. It’s it’s it’s one of the coolest things.

Nick Urban [00:53:37]:
Yeah. Alright. I will also wanna talk about amplifying the benefits physiologically with different practices, biohacks, supplements, molecules, you name it.

Joshua Church [00:53:47]:
Sauna, obviously, is one that goes hand in hand, Can amplify the benefits. One thing around contrast therapy and saunas in particular that I always like to that I always practice with and I always encourage other people to is give is is give yourself a few minutes to regulate in between switching from extreme hot to extreme cold. It can can actually mess with your whole vestibular system. It can mess with your your your balance or dizziness or vertigo. Like, it can mess with a lot because I I I keep trying to think, but, like, I don’t know if there’s, like, naturally, if there’s if there’s ever a a time or a way where our bodies were adapted to go from such extreme hot to such extreme cold. Probably not. Besides in, like, rituals like like to mezcal or or sweat lodge or stuff like that or in some of the, you know, Finnish or Scandinavian cultures or Russian even where they’re using sauna. But it’s something that I always recommend people to take a couple, and I always take at least 5 minutes after getting out of, especially a big dig in the sauna.

Joshua Church [00:54:42]:
It can be tempting to just, like, go plop into the ice bath to cool yourself off and it can be easier for some people. Some people can be more difficult. I actually find it to be more difficult going from extreme hot right into extreme cold, which are which is interesting. I I don’t know. A lot of people have the opposite experience, but I feel like it it shocks me even more and so I find it even more difficult and just a bit more uncomfortable. And I always get when I would do it, I would always get, like, I would always feel like I’m spinning. It’s like, woah. Because it it messes it messes with your balance with your inner the inner air fluid.

Joshua Church [00:55:13]:
So, I like to at least give 5 minutes, get back acclimated, let your body that’s where so much of the benefit happens. It’s not it’s not the cold or the heat. It’s your body responding to that stimulus. It’s adapting to that stimulus. It’s the response of that. So giving yourself the ability to naturally do that is really great. Like, yeah, you can do it with the sauna and help you with that with that vasodilation and help you increase that blood flow more, but but being able to practice and strengthen your your body’s natural ability to do that, that’s that’s what you wanna do.

Nick Urban [00:55:42]:
Yeah. I’ve noticed that for sure, and I find it obviously much harder to actually I guess not obviously because your experience is the opposite of mine, but I find it much harder to to put 5 minutes between the sauna and the ice bath. But you’re right. A a lot of the benefit does come from your body, again, regulating itself and decreasing your core temperature or increasing your core temperature. And if you jump from one extreme to the other, not only does it rarely happen in nature, but you’re also limiting some of the benefits, and you’re also setting up yourself to experience more of the potential consequences like dizziness.

Joshua Church [00:56:15]:
Yeah. It’s, it is it is very interesting. Another stack that I like is red light therapy. I love red light therapy. We have red light panel here. So with the cold, red light panel’s nice. Sitting in front of it for a few minutes before or and or after. And then, otherwise, the the biggest stack that I like to do with with the cold specifically is some breath and some awareness and intention before and then after also.

Joshua Church [00:56:39]:
So just being present with, with the whole process. So we we have what we call at edge theory labs, our edge sequence, which is a 3 stage approach to cold immersion. So it’s not just like get in the cold tub and that’s where the main focus is. It’s it’s bringing intentionality. It’s bringing sometimes breath, sometimes movement to 3 stages, precooling before you get in the tub, intra cooling while you’re in the tub, and then post cooling when you get out. So another way to think about it is chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3. Chapter 3 is the ice bath. Most people just focus on that is the actual immersion itself.

Joshua Church [00:57:11]:
But I actually put so much more emphasis on especially chapter 3 on the other side because and and if you’ve ever done cold immersion in a natural environment and, like, in these retreats, chapter 3 is actually where the hardest part is. Getting in the cold tub or or getting into the cold and natural environment. Yes. That can be hard, but that doesn’t hold a candle to getting back out and you’re in freezing temperatures and you’re in snow and you have to center yourself enough to dry off, get changed, get your boots back on and hike out. Like, you have to fully acclimate. You’re not going into there’s there’s no, like, warm room you’re going into or there, like, you know, sunshine that you can just go stand into or full you know, flop yourself pop yourself onto the cement and get the heat from there or sauna you can walk into or, like, dryer where you can take towels out of the dryer. It’s like it’s really your responsibility. You have to be able to to come back to center and regulate after that.

Speaker C [00:58:04]:
So this is, you know, Wim Hof teaches the horse stance, the wide legged squat, heels and toes out, and the arm movements to fire up your your lats and your shoulders and your obliques and your core and and and do these squats to get the blood flow pumping through the, pumping through your glutes, your powerhouse. So being able to bring yourself back and reacclimate after, especially given what we were just saying where that’s so much where the benefit happens, like, that’s where I place such an emphasis on because that’s also where you can experience the after drop when you get out and then you have the after drop because the warm and cold blood mix from all the all the the blood in your, you know, peripherals and your and your extremities has gotten cold from the from the vasoconstriction and now all of a sudden, you know, it it starts coming back to your heart, back to your core and it cycles with the cold. With the warm cold and warm blood, it can be painful and you can get shivers and jackhammer for a while if you’re not properly warming yourself up and being really present with that process. So the it’s a it’s a whole, you know, and and that’s affected based on how you are going into it. If you’re just jumping right into it or if you’re able to center yourself first or if you’re able to then what’s what’s your state that you’re getting into it or why are you getting into the first place? So it becomes as more of this holistic way of looking at this the the practice of cold immersion, more so the ritual of it versus just the recovery modality of it.

Nick Urban [00:59:20]:
Are there any supplements you like to pair with cold? Like, for example, maybe, like, grains of paradise for brown fat activation or anything at all?

Joshua Church [00:59:29]:
Yeah. Funny you say that. The grains of paradise, actually, we’ve been we’ve been playing around with that quite a bit here in our in our labs, with some ginger, like, ginger lemon kinda, you know, warm up or or or any any any type of, like, warming, beverage or drink after can be nice, especially when you’re in colder climates or environments. But, nothing I I haven’t experimented deeper with any supplements per se. I’m curious, have you? Have you have you played around with any supplements before or after?

Nick Urban [00:59:56]:
Yeah. I’ll use I forget which ones. I think EGCG and, maybe bitter melon, and I’ve used Grains of Paradise before to, like, just help the conversion of of brown fat, but I haven’t done it consistently to notice if it actually makes much of a difference. One thing I wanna make sure we discuss before winding down is the bio individuality and, like, the general safety of this. Because when I go to the gym, I don’t struggle with warming up afterward even if it’s 30 degrees and I’m in there for 5, 6 minutes. I don’t feel like it affects me nearly as much as some people. I’ve talked to some people who, if they do 2 minutes at 40 degrees first thing in the morning, they can’t sleep. It keeps them up.

Nick Urban [01:00:45]:
And for me, if I go in the sauna after, like, 6 PM and I don’t use the cold at any point, then I can’t sleep because I’m my core temperature has gone up so high that I’m overheating, and I can see reliably every single time on my wearable data.

Joshua Church [01:01:00]:
It’s a great it’s a very great question and a very it’s a very important part of the conversation that often gets neglected, which is safety, ethics, responsibility, and and bio individuality like you’re saying. Because everybody is different and every day we are different. Energetically, we are different beings, like you said, based on our workout, our sleep, our circadian rhythm. There’s all these different factors. So that’s also part of why I like to be more adaptable. I take more of an adaptable, less regimented approach to this because every day is different and every day I’m a little bit different. There are different factors, but I still give myself what I need and there’s different ways to engage with the cold. Some days I’ll just dunk my head in there.

Joshua Church [01:01:35]:
Like, I’ll just stand on the outside and dunk my head or use that as a way to to to wake myself up. Like, it it can be different. And I think that there’s a sense of liberation that can happen when you give yourself permission to color outside the lines a little bit. And there’s a lot of blind spots when it comes to, to females with cold immersion as well because most of the studies are done with just full male participants and, which is which is really interesting to look into. So there’s there’s definitely underrepresented female participants in human trials of of some of the studies of cold immersion. And furthermore, there’s there’s nothing that’s been done around, like I mentioned earlier, but women and their different parts of their menstrual cycle because their hormones are are different and very different times of the month, different times of the day, very, very different. So it is interesting and and I think that it’s just important as we talk about these protocols and these different dosing that it’s it all comes with a grain of salt. All comes with a grain of salt or a or a block of ice, if you will, that, that every everyone is different, everybody is different.

Joshua Church [01:02:37]:
And and that’s why I view it as and and this kinda comes back to more of the spiritual side of it, but I view it as a playground in a way to experiment with because it’s like, okay, cool. Let me get curious about this. Like, what does it feel like if I do my cold my my my cold tub, like, for, like, super early in the morning? Or what what does it feel like if I do midday? What does it feel like if I do it right before going to sleep or an hour before sleep? Like, oh, that feels interesting. I like to have fun on my body today. Let me try it again tomorrow. Oh, maybe not so much. Let me try it now. So it it can be this experiment, this playground where we can feel and experiment with what’s right for us.

Joshua Church [01:03:10]:
And I always wanna encourage everybody to be your own doctor in that way. Prescribe yourself what you want and what you need and give yourself permission that it might look different today than it did yesterday, and it might look different tomorrow than it does today, and that’s okay. And give yourself that freedom and that discernment to choose because at the end of the day, I think with all these health practices, it’s easy for these to become another distraction for us or it’s it’s easy for the tool to become the path. But I view it as the tool is helping me on my path, and I want to build the self reliance to know when and how I want to engage with these different tools and give them to myself when I need in the form that I need them the most. Does that make sense?

Nick Urban [01:03:57]:
Yeah. It does. And you were describing earlier how in a lot of the protocols that you outlined that you recommend 4 days per week, which is interesting because it’s not 7 days per week.

Joshua Church [01:04:07]:
Let’s say I probably do 4 to 5, maybe 6 times a week. There’s usually probably one day a week where I’m not getting in based on whatever’s happening. I probably do more than that because I happen to have a tub in my office and next to our sauna here at our office and in my house and where I spend the most time. My parents have a tub at their house. So I had kind of have cold tubs all around, which is a perk of starting a cold tub business. So the accessibility is certainly there. But I I think that, you know, for a lot of people, especially if you don’t have a tub at your own home, 4 days a week is really achievable because if your if your gym has it or you’re going to location that has it, like, 3 to 4 times a week becomes a lot more doable than, like, oh, you gotta go every day to get the benefits. But I like to follow more of that protocol of dosing of of looking at the total time across the week versus the individual time throughout it.

Joshua Church [01:04:53]:
But, but that’s just that’s just me personally, and that’s just where I am right now because there’s definitely something to be said about 7 days a week and doing it every single day even if it’s for smaller smaller time or just a higher frequency, lower dosage. So something something to experiment that I’ve certainly experimented with too, and I’ve I’ve loved doing it at certain times. Right now, it’s more of that, you know, 3 by 4 kind of thing that I that I like and that I like to recommend for beginners especially.

Nick Urban [01:05:16]:
Yeah. And I think there’s also a component of, like, if you’re really pushing yourself and you’re doing it, like, in 10 sessions, 7 days a week, you might cause, like, some negative feedback loops and things that you don’t necessarily want. I know I I saw, I think it was a protein called FGF 21 that if you’re, like, constantly doing intense cold therapy, long sessions, cold temperature, 7 days a week for long periods of time, it can start to have some negative impacts. So if you’re going to be doing it often, I think it makes sense. There’s a strong case to be made for pulsing it to do a long session, then the next day to do a shorter session, or to do it for 2 weeks straight and then take a week off and then do it a month and then take a couple days off and

Joshua Church [01:05:58]:
Yeah. That’s great. And I I think that’s kind of what I intuitively have done and what I like doing is you keep some very some variability with it, which I think is really good for your body’s ability to it’s like you switch up workouts in the gym. You can’t just do the same workout every single day. So you kinda gotta switch up and shift. You gotta kinda shock the system in different ways, different muscle groups. So, it sounds it seems kinda similar to that. But especially too if you’re someone that deals with chronic stress and or you have adrenal adrenal fatigue or adrenal burnout, like, that can that can happen and cold can exacerbate that.

Nick Urban [01:06:26]:
Well, Joshua, we’ve been going for a while. If people want to connect with you to check out your cold plunges, how do they go about that?

Joshua Church [01:06:35]:
Yeah. Instagram is a great spot to, to connect me personally. Feel free to reach out. I always love connecting with people. So you can hit me up on IG at joshuadeamchurch. I’m sure we’ll link in the show notes. And then, our our company, Edgetherylabs, is just at edgetherylabs. Our website, edgetherylabs.com.

Joshua Church [01:06:50]:
And there you’ll see all the different products that we offer and the, and the the Edge app as well that you can download from there from the App Store.

Nick Urban [01:06:58]:
And I can’t remember if we set up a code for them.

Joshua Church [01:07:01]:
We will. We, I don’t know if we have it yet, but by the time this is live, we will have a code. So if you’re interested in getting an Edge hub and getting set up, we, because of being part of this community, we’ll get you an exclusive, exclusive discount on your Edge products, on your Edge hub. And, and then we will, and there’s also we offer 0% interest payment options as well to make it more accessible if if that’s something you’re interested in. Otherwise, we are in stock and we ship within 1 to 2 business days. So you can get set up and get rocking and rolling right away.

Nick Urban [01:07:29]:
Thanks for that. I have a couple more questions for you before we call it a day. Let’s do it. If there was a worldwide burning of the books and all knowledge on earth was lost, you get to save the works of 3 teachers. Who would you choose and why?

Joshua Church [01:07:42]:
What a phenomenal freaking question. I love that one. I’m gonna take that question with me. I was gonna say in in terms of text that I would save, I would save the bible, because so who what teacher do I say? That God? I would take, Esther and Jerry Hicks, Abraham Hicks, one of my absolute favorites, just all around, us as human beings and law of law of attraction and, getting into the, the art of allowing and receiving and just energy management. Dan Millman, who wrote The Way of the Peaceful Warrior and some of his other books. I think that it’s just absolutely brilliant in terms of holistic human operation. Michael Singer, Surrender Experiment and Untethered Soul are 2 of his great books, and his teachings have been game changing for me. And then I would say Stephen Covey for, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Joshua Church [01:08:36]:
That’s a timeless classics and some of those other books as well. So

Nick Urban [01:08:40]:
There we go. We have lots of rabbit holes for people to explore now. Quick rapid fire round. Cool. What is the biggest myth around cold thermogenesis?

Joshua Church [01:08:52]:
I think that it the biggest myth around cold thermogenesis is that you need you need it to be super cold and you need to be in there for super long for it to work. Most people don’t realize this. Most everyday people see people doing cold immersion and think, oh, that’s that’s extreme. I could never do that. Or you have to be a pro athlete or you have to be a hard o or sicko or someone really into health and wellness to, like, to get any benefit from that. But I think the biggest myth is that is that they don’t realize that, you know, we can get cold shock and get benefits from cold immersion and and temperatures as mild as 60 degrees, and we can get benefit from that. And it doesn’t need to be that long, and we can feel acute relief from things like arthritis or things in our hands or feet. So I think that’s the biggest myth is that it’s it it’s only for the pro athletes or the hardos, and it has to be freezing cold.

Joshua Church [01:09:38]:
It has to be 30 degrees. You have to be in there for 10 minutes a time to get the benefit.

Nick Urban [01:09:41]:
Yeah. We didn’t even discuss the mammalian dive reflex of adding extra benefit to your session just by putting your head underwater or even not go submerging your whole body, just your head underwater has unique benefits.

Joshua Church [01:09:53]:
I know. I I don’t I’ll tell you this. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been into a cold tub or any body of water that’s cold and have not dunked my head. I’m fortunate too, and my hair is short. I know a lot of I know a lot of my girlfriends are like, it has to be hair wash day for me to do it, but then I’m like, you can spot you can splash some water on your face or just dunk your head like your face like that, and you can still activate that and slow slow the toning down. So, yeah, love the head dunks. It’s the best.

Nick Urban [01:10:17]:
Yeah. And cold water is better for the hair anyway than really hot water. Okay. What is something that you’re interested in or researching these days?

Joshua Church [01:10:25]:
I’m really interested in doing my wilderness first responder course to become a wilderness first responder, and just to learn those that skill set. I also am very interested in, potentially doing a, like, becoming an EMT and going through, like, EMTs and training. I just find it fascinating, like, how our body works and and how it works in, like, in real situations and emergencies perhaps. And I think it’s just something like I’m I always want to make myself the most useful human being that I can. And I feel like being able to know how to deal with injuries or help people or save someone’s life is a very useful thing as a human. And along that lines, hunting and, wilderness survival techniques and skills is something that I’m always I’m currently in this mode right now, very fascinated in is also. And I think it’s a skill that we might need, unfortunately, someday soon. So I’m I’m trying to get my learning in.

Nick Urban [01:11:21]:
Yeah. I get it. In high school, I created my own internship where I

Joshua Church [01:11:25]:
Wow.

Nick Urban [01:11:26]:
Did ride alongs with the paramedics, and it was an eye opening experience.

Joshua Church [01:11:31]:
That’s so cool. Wow. What a what a good for you. What a cool experience.

Nick Urban [01:11:35]:
What is one thing that your tribe does not know about you?

Joshua Church [01:11:39]:
Probably that I can do a Rubik’s cube in 90 seconds.

Nick Urban [01:11:44]:
Wow.

Joshua Church [01:11:44]:
It’s like a fun it’s like a fun fact. I can do a Rubik’s cube. Yeah. I don’t think many people know that about me. I don’t I don’t it doesn’t really come up, and it’s not something that, like, I flaunt necessarily.

Nick Urban [01:11:55]:
Yeah. You memorize the algorithm.

Joshua Church [01:11:57]:
Yeah.

Nick Urban [01:11:58]:
Well, Joshua, for people who have made it this far, any final thoughts you’d like to leave them with?

Joshua Church [01:12:03]:
Yeah. Just, I mean, if you’re listening to this far, like, keep trusting yourself. It led you to hear. And if there’s something you’re taking away from this, go put it into practice and go experiment with it and see what it can do for you. I love the line, take what works and leave the rest. So something’s resonated from here, great. Take them. With some other things that ain’t great, leave them.

Joshua Church [01:12:19]:
Go internalize them on your own and go forward with it and and continue your learning expansion journey. And and don’t forget that nobody gets out alive anyway, so we might as well have some fun along the way.

Nick Urban [01:12:30]:
Perfect way to end this. Thank you so much for joining me. It’s been a pleasure hosting you, and I look forward to catching up with you hopefully in person for wilderness survival skills.

Joshua Church [01:12:40]:
That’s right. That’s right. If not in Austin beforehand or San Diego if you’re out here.

Nick Urban [01:12:44]:
Yeah. Exactly. Alright. Take care. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to this episode. Head over to Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave a rating. Every review helps me bring you you thought provoking guests.

Nick Urban [01:13:02]:
As always, you can find the show notes for this one at mindbodypeak.com/andthenthenumberoftheepisode. There, you can also chat with other peak performers or connect with me directly. The information depicted in this podcast is for information purposes only. Please consult your primary health care professional before making any lifestyle changes.