Alright, a eight thirty nine here on the Big One seven underd WLW. Welcome to the Morning Show. And we do this every Tuesday. We get together with former United States Olympian Julie is for Ding, who, by the way, is always out in the business world, television radios, speaking engagements, you name it, she does it and does it great.
Julie, Good morning, Good morning Tom. How's everything with you today?
It's great. I love my Tuesdays with Tom so much to talk about.
Yep.
And we get into lots of different things. So we're going to over the next couple of weeks, we're going to get into some of these I'm gonna call them. Maybe it's not the right word, maybe fads isn't the right word, but you know, whether it's intermittent fasting.
We'll get into that next week.
IV vitamin drips, these R rings, weighted vest protein diarits, that kind of thing. But two things I want to get into today. I was talking about and you and I were talking about this. I've always been fascinated by the people that go climb Mount Everest and they're exposed to these off the charts extreme weather conditions and how their bodies react and so forth. One are the sort of hot things right now is what's called a cold plunge.
Now a lot of people know what this is. It's basically the practice of briefly submerging your body in cold water, typically between fifty and sixty degrees and some of the health benefits that have been proven to come about from this.
This is something though that is not new.
You were around this going back to your days in the eighties, and a lot of football players, athletes, they've been doing this for a while already, right, Yeah.
These cold plunges at the Olympics. At the Olympic Village, we had a huge healthcare facility and in it were these cold punges. Oh they were awful. They were about fifty nine degrees. We went in there after big workout, and you know, we went in there, we'd have to stay in them. I thought they were torture, but they were proven to reduce inflammation really quickly in your body, speed up recovery, which is what we needed because we were practicing and competing. And obviously they can boost your
mood and improve your circulation as well. And then there's some studies out there that you know, would help you with your sleep, and obviously at the Olympics or football players are any high level athletes very very nervous. So you know, if you can sleep better, you do better. So all these things were supposed to be part of this cold plunge, but I'll tell you I was misible every second I got in those I dreaded them, and
now they're here for the public. I mean, you can pay a lot of money ninety two one hundred dollars to go sit in an ice bath. Essentially it's an ice bath. And and you're right, you know, the people about climb Mount Everest or my Bill Keating, a good past friend of mine. He has to swim the English Channel, so he would do icebath to get him ready for the competition, or you know, to swim.
In cold water.
Yeah, but sometimes I question. I mean, obviously it is benefits, but I'm talking about high level competition, high level events in your life, like climbie Mount Everest. But for the average American to go through that must much misery. Don't you think it stresses your body as well? I mean, can you see the cons in that?
You know, I've got a friend of mine across the street he was a former college athlete so too with his wife, and they have a small one in their house. And I mean he will talk to you from now until the end of time about what a difference it has made for him and the way he feels and his ability to recover, like you're talking about like you were doing back in the eighties and other athletes were doing. You know, whether it's reducing the inflammation, reducing the soreness.
There have been some studies It says it increases the level of dopamine indorphins, which gives you that, you know, reduce stress, that sort of euphoria. You know all about that where the runner is high. I just wonder, you know, can can you do this taking a cold shower. I don't mean to be flipping about it, but I mean it could it serve the same purpose.
See, I think I agree more with you and all the things you know that you're saying. We really it's limited science. Most studies are pretty small, and I think some of the benefits might be more like feel good than medically proven. And it's short tom term results, and you could risk crossbite and cold burn, and what if you have heard disease or high blood pressure poor circulation. I mean, all those are you cannot do that stuff
if you have those. But have you read about people who just take a two minute cold shower in the morning.
No, but I'd like to hear more about it if you know about it.
Well, the cold shower routine, I do it. You know, if you get done with the run, you know, you're in the shower two minutes and you know, nice cold shower and then put the heatpock on your body, and it does it might serve the same purpose. And think about it, Tom, all the money you save and more the time you save. Like that's the other thing about all these health AADs there really nice and they do serve a purpose, But at what cost money financially and
your time? And is there something better you could do, like go on a vacation, go to the beach, you know, take a day off. These are all other things that maybe when you google all the symptoms, Google comes back and says, hey, why don't you go take a nap?
Right exactly?
You know, it should be noted we're talking about this and most of the time it is highly recommend that you consult with your doctor before you ever start thinking about doing these cold plunges, because you just mentioned it. It can put an enormous strain on your heart, especially if you have heart issues respiratory issues. Any prolonged exposure
to cold water obviously can lead to hypothermia. So while a lot of people talk about this like, you know, everything's groovy, everything's perfect, you better make sure that you're the kind of person who's body and heart and lungs can handle even thinking about doing these extreme conditions kind of things.
And that might be the best point of all, Tom, because you don't want to find out you have a heart condition in the middle of your cold plunch. But the other thing, Tom, is the cryotherapy. Have you heard about that?
I have and I've never tried it.
If you tried it, yes, what you do is you step into this chamber and it's negative two hundred degrees and it's for about two to four minutes. You have to wear gloves, a hat, sock, and it's expensive and it's time.
Let me let me, let me, let me interrupt you real quick, okay, because I've never done it, and and and and that's what I understand. You're only in there for a couple of minutes. You talked about a hat, gloves, socks. Are you wearing like sweatpants, you're wearing shorts? What are you wearing?
Yeah, you wear short you know, limited clothing. And it's the same idea. You reduce his inflammation, your body speeds up recovery, you can boost your mood. People say, oh, it just puts me in the best mood. But the other thing, the science is limited short results, which we talked about. And the other thing, it's not regulated by the FDA. So you know they're pipe in liquid nitrogen or refrigerated air into that chamber and you're My doctor said,
he's like, you don't know. You know is because none of this is regulated. So and then let's get back to it's expensive. When'd you rather just take a cold shower and plan your beach vacation. That's where I struggle with a lot of these health sads. What do you think about that?
You know what?
It strikes me when you and I were talking about this yesterday, about discussitting on the show today, I was really really surprised because virtual, I mean right where we are, right now, right across the street, there is a cryotherapy office building and I was stunned when you shared with me, and you just shared it with a everybody at home about how the FDA has not cleared or approved of
any of this stuff. They've not said that it's safe, they've not said that it's effective in treating any medical condition. I just assumed that, because they seemingly are everywhere right, that right, that these things had at least some or at least enough science behind it where the FDA would say, Okay, cool, no problem, knock yourself out if that's what you want to do.
But that's not the case, not at all.
And then you know, you ask yourself those same three questions, Does it make sense? If it sounds extreme, you know it probably is? Question number two? Does it feel good long term? No? I was completely miserable these icepaths. I was miserable. I think I was more stressed thinking about the misery. And the third question I always ask does it fit with your real life? Can you afford it to have the time? Would you rather take a nap? Would you rather save the money for a family outing?
Would it better just to be go take a walk, you know, in the winter, Go take a walk in the winter, and you've got all your problem solved, and you just saved yourself one hundred dollars in an hour of your time.
You know, it's funny.
When we moved back to Cincinnati back in two thousand and seven, my father in law, who is was for years and years and years. He was one of these ironman triathletes right did Hawaii, you know, the whole nine yards. He got to our house before we had moved from Arizona to Cincinnati. We had two doctors living next door to us, husband and a wife. There had been a ton of snow the day before we were supposed to arrive, and my father in law was outside, great physical shape.
This guy he's outside in the cold, freezing air, was like ten degrees shoveling the driveway. The neighbor the guy comes out, looks at my father in law's never seen him, never met him, know nothing, and he says to him, sir, do you mind if I ask what you're doing? He says, well, I'm shoveling. He says, oh, no, I understand what you're doing, But don't you understand the risk of being in this cold air and your lungs inhaling this cold air while
you're exercising. It's he said in the hospital in the winter. This is the number one thing we see for heart attacks in senior citizens. Are men and or women out there shoveling snow in freezing conditions? I just wonder, And again there's no science one way or the other. I just wonder for your heart. And that's specifically what he's talking about about the exercise and the cold and inhaling it into your life lungs. I just I mean, I look, I don't know one way or the other. I don't
do it. I have friends that do do it, they like it, they swear by it. But I just wonder without a lot of medical science behind it, I just wonder, at the end of the day, is it good for you?
Yeah? And then the other question, aren't we all trying to simplify our life and now we're making it more complicated. We're adding all these things in because perhaps Instagram said it's wonderful, you know, and the impact of social media influing and fluent thing us as opposed to a good old doctor's appointment where the doctor looks you and says you are enough, You're doing enough. Let's not add more in.
Let's do three things, sleep more, eat less, and I want you to exercise more and not any of those three things included. Okay, I got to get to my appointment for my cold punch, okay, cryotherapy on Wednesday. Then oh yeah, I'm doing that inter minute fans saying, oh and I got to put that weighted death on on Friday. I mean, I'm exhausted just talking about it. I mean, I know we'll cover a lot of these health ads,
but I think we're trying trying too hard. Somewhere along the way, we've kind of lost that self worth that says I am, Okay, everything's going to be okay. There's no perfect way to do things, but there's a hundred good ways. And these are my good ways, not what Instagram told me, not what the latest my neighbor's doing.
But this is going to work for me and the health SAIDs And I want to be certain that you know, we said there's pros and cons, but I think a lot of times Tom and I think you know we talked about this last night. I mean, the cons sometimes so outweigh the pros that it just makes sense to keep on keeping on with you know, the successful things you're doing, and you know, save your time, save your money for all the other things that really matter.
That's right, that's right, Jules. It's always great being with you. I hope you have a great rest of your Tuesday, and we'll catch up again next week.
Oh we will, all right.
Julius for day kind enough to join us as she does every Tuesday at eight thirty eight here on the Morning Show seven undred WLW. And it's been a crazy morning out there on the road.