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Okay I'm starting recording. Do you have the towels? I have the towels, yeah. Okay. She said the scene that it's about 40 degrees in the morning. No it's like 45. No it's colder now. It's set of 50 on my big 45. Okay it's raining. We're coming down to the beach. We're meeting our friends. Beth and Joe. Yeah. No not at all. I'm excited. I'm excited. Okay Charlie do you have our towels out? I have a timer. What
do we get in the floor? I don't know. Two, three minutes. Oh I'm going to do six minutes? No I'm going to get two. That's what I think. I'm going to do two. I think you'll get used to it after two. No but I'm that's all I'll set it for three and then I'll give a shout out at two. Your bones will tell you when it's time. I've been doing cold showers. This is vastly different. Okay. Are you going to hold that in your hand? Yes. No. You're waiting.
Joe usually I'm going from like a warm space. I know it's a little harder when you're not one and one. Do you want to try it again? Come on. Okay over here. Okay Chris under Yeah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Breathe! Breathe! Is that so bad? Breathe! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! It sounds tremendous! It's so great! That's the most! Ah! It's so cold! Get your shoulders under a little. I can't! Ah! Ah! Moving helps and it hurts. You got hurts more. Yeah! Ah! Ah! If you go out now, you're at two minutes.
Do it. That's good. Oh yeah, I'm good! You did it! You did two and a half! I don't want to do it for you. I'm good. Oh! Oh! My God! It's time to cry. Oh! I just feel very alive! I know I did too! This is the Gultures Study of Podcasts in Iman, Helen Feederson. And I'm Charlie Worsell. I'm a staff writer for The Atlantic and Cold Plunge enthusiast. You're my partner. You live in the same house as me. Hello. And you are a person who has encouraged me to Cold Plunge several times in the past.
You are a person who has looked at cold plunge devices that go in your backyard online seriously. And then we live on the ocean, cold ocean. Yes. That's all correct. I am a little more, I would call myself a little more than Cold Plunge curious, is probably how I would frame it. I've looked at the literature, I've done the browsing.
I'm ashamed to say that I've like hovered my mouse over the more info button on like a $6,500 ceramic filtered cold plunge tub that we can't afford and should never have in our backyard. Especially because we have access, as you said, to abundant cold water in the form of an ocean. So yes, so I've been sort of had a little bit, I think.
Like part of why I'm happy to come and talk about this is because I can both look at it from the standpoint of like the internet, which is the thing that I write about a lot and this sort of like the personalities and like the influencer style of that. But also like as a mark, like I am straight up, have been targeted by the Instagram ads, by the podcasts, the wellness sort of industrial complex and I feel its presence. And I feel like working on me.
How would you rate my cold plunge that we did this past week? Well, you didn't get in because you had to hold the phone to get the audio all the way. And that's a much older. I know that's a tactical mistake though because what you want is you want to get up to sort of like the neck, not just because it's like the hardcore thing to do, but also like it's more it's helpful. Like you don't want the wind to cut across and like expose some of that flesh.
Like it's a little it's almost like warmer in the water plus after a little bit it like numbs those senses so that like you know you're not, you're actually sort of like you're feeling more and less at the same time. But you know I think I think you something I really like admire about you in general is you don't want to like suffer unduly and something that I need to work on myself is that like I sometimes equate suffering with like just like good.
So when you get out sometimes I'm like she should sit in front of her minute, but so you know maybe you just know you don't want to be uncomfortable in that sense. I mean you could hear in the audio there's places where I'm like I can't feel on my fingers. Yeah that was so nice. And I know that the numbness is like part of it like that's part of the process.
But I also like I think for me personally understanding that limit of like okay I'm underwater I'm breathing through like the discomfort and there's a line between discomfort and like torturing myself that's an interesting line. Yeah it's interesting because like I think that's really undefined just in general in the cold plunging community right or like the stuff about it like it's interesting to know where the discomfort moves into just becoming a virtue for virtue's sake or if there's
actually like a certain amount of benefits at a certain thing like you know there's there is like any sort of hobby or any kind of culture different benchmarks right and like people like lowering the floor like can I get into you know the 30 the can I break 40 right in
my degrees right and so like the plung we did together there on that's on tape is the coldest that I've ever felt in one right it was like a 45 degree day it was raining the water was about was about 45 degrees at the time which is really cold like it's really
actually quite chilly and so like there's a point there where like you actually don't like you don't want to stay into that's like where hypothermia comes in like you don't want to be hypothermic that's not that's not like helpful no medical professional would
want you to be so I would rate it might plunge a success because I stayed in for two minutes and like 20 seconds and then also got out so that to me success no next time I'll go to my shoulders it's totally fine and we have so many questions and they're all like
kind of in the same vibe like they're all basically like why why bros is this real but I think the first one is just a basic why this is from Aaron my question is about cold plenching specifically why just why I know the supposed reasons brown fat increased cold
tolerance above is akin to runners high but is any of that real or is it just broy pseudo scientific biohacking that's been rebranded as wellness why do people actually do this like this make a ritual out of risking hypothermia and cardiac damage okay Charlie will
you outline for me the way that you have in several conversations in the past the supposed benefits of cold plenching yes I think first of all I feel so weird like listing this out because it almost makes me like like complicit in it like and I got to say like full honesty
like I I legitimately don't know if this is just snake oil or not and that's part of the interesting thing like I I legitimately couldn't tell you every time I read something about it I feel like if I read it from like a cold plunge website or people who are into
it they're like very adamant about the benefits and then you read scientists and doctors talk about it they're like I don't know there was a study that they did in like you know lab rats and it doesn't translate humans or the study was like eight people and that was
in 2014 and like we don't know now and then like I read something on like I believe it was like the American Heart Association is just like no don't like stop you're not a polar bear like do not do not do this or like you know don't do it too cold it and too fast anyway
yeah the benefits as they are outlined by all the different people that the questioner laid out there the most obvious one is like anti inflammatory benefits right and that is like that can go as surface level as like after working out you know it gives you gives
you a chance to sort of like I mean you see athletes all the time taking like ice baths or like pictures in baseball like the classic ones just like dunking their you know elbows in there to to reduce inflammation I think that's pretty like standard I don't think
there's anything like yeah like no one's like we should stop icing right you know I think it works and if you we should ice our whole bodies yeah if you dunk your whole body in there like I honestly like I I'm dealing with like a little bit of like a runner's injury
and like it feels better right just like it feels better when you go in a hot tub like doing that hot and cold that that is benefits there's this idea of like how it works on on brown fat again I'm not like a doctor or a scientist I mean good question this is
one of the things I just say and just hope that no one like you calls me out on it it's adipose tissue according to the Cleveland Clinic that regulates your body temperature in cold conditions so it activates before you start to shift brown fat burns calories
and so I mean I think I think that's the way I'm going to think of it let's just like let's do that if that's not precise people are going to probably get mad at me online for no they'll get they can get mad at me I'm used to it too right let's go nuts anyway there's
an idea that this activations like really good because there's not a lot of things in the world that that activate that and you know there there is a sort of like a caloric element to this that has like diet culture I think it's been pretty debunked though like that they
get that the sort of the activation of that brown fat burns like like two or three more calories per minute or what or whatever then then you normally would so it's like it's really unless you're in the tub for like you know hours on end you're not going to see
like really any any noticeable difference there are sort of you know there are thoughts that you know putting just like running or something like that the putting some cardiovascular strain on your body is just naturally good to do then there's the sort of like the inflammation
on a larger scale right there are people who have said I struggle sort of like chronically with like back issues or like gut inflammation or blah blah blah you know like these sort of larger sort of inflammation issues that are sort of chronic inflammation is such like
someone suggested that we do an episode just about inflammation as like a buzz word and wellness because somehow like there's all these foods and supplements and cold plunging that you can do to cure it because apparently like we are just inflamed beans it's it's
everywhere right like they're just like yeah I get those Instagram ads all the time where it's just like some guy who just like unbeknownst we just like rips you shirt up and all so you just see like this just extended belly and they're like you have got gut inflammation
from eating unnatural processed foods like you need you know a G1 green powder whatever right so there's definitely like an obsession with that and and it is sort of in that realm right of like like clearly there's like this is a real thing it's there are problems for
people but like it can also sort of be used as like this all encompassing bubble of um of like medical diagnosis anyway there's people who who say that like long term this really has benefits right so all those are are very contested by the science like it's
it's not that like there isn't something there but it's like there's not really science that is like proving that or there's you know small based studies but it's a lot of it is like it is still like TBD I think is the way to say it right or or like undetermined
at at this moment and then I think that there's these other ones which I actually like this is the ones I subscribe to right which is that it activates a lot of endorphins right to get in there like you get like a severe dopamine hit some people say have I've seen the comparison
is like 25x what you you know the level of dopamine released when you do like cocaine or something like that so it's this idea that like you know it sort of makes you feel all these different extreme feelings and there's something that is really addictive and
both like lovely about that and I would say every single time like that's the one thing that is true to me as someone who's done it every single time I get out of there I am like I am alive right and it's like that's that's like a nice that's a nice thing and
the other one that I would say is really intriguing to me is that the culture around this says that you know doing an ice bath either every day or three times a day or whatever to establish and go regular cadence with it is doing something hard nobody wants to get
into that that body of water however big it is whatever it is the tub like your body fights that right it activates that fight or flight sense in you you you shiver you scream you do all that stuff and your body knows that once you've done it a few times right like
your hand trembles in the shower if you're like if you turn it all the way down right like you're it's telling you don't do this this is going to be a bad thing and some of these evangelists suggest that doing it all the time builds up a sort of resilience inside
you right like for other things if you are used to doing this if you can just like you know kind of say okay I'm going to do this that it is sort of a tactic for building resilience that can show up in other parts of your life and whether that's true or not I don't really
know but I also find it like as a human in 2024 preparing myself to do things like if that's something I can build that's I don't think that's a terrible thing you know a lot of that at least the last stuff that's stuff that you hear all the time in the distance
running community or in any sort of like endurance sport that it's hard but then when you're done you feel good I agree that when I get out of a cold plunge I feel good like that's so weird to describe you feel freezing you feel like like sopping like we we have
to use our our sneakers to go in because it's really slippery and and rocky but it still feels good and it especially feels good if you can get into a hot tub or a hot shower afterwards and that's the same feeling that I get after I do like a long hard run and
also that's something that like when you're on mile 20 in a marathon part of the work that you have put in in order to train to get there is by pushing through other points where you said like I'd rather not right like I'd rather not go on this run I'd rather
not run this extra mile and I think this is again where stuff gets contentious because there's a difference between say running through extreme pain in order to finish and to achieve a goal and running just when like you'd rather lay on your bed like that's
it I think that sometimes those two things get confused the same way that they could get confused when it comes to cold plunge in yeah I've tried to think about how it makes me feel sometimes and one of one of the thing it's similar almost in a way to like making
your bed every day right when you get up yeah you make your bed you've like you've done the thing right like they can't take that away from me like I'm starting today off right and then like who makes the bed in our house I do I know I know because I'm only
one that you can quote unquote do it right yeah okay the most capable person I know can't make the bed like I'm not buying it I can't do it the way you can do yeah exactly but I see it sort of like similarly like on a day when I manage to walk my ass into the
ocean and sit in it for a few seconds like that's that's a that's a win that's something like you you kind of can't take away like I did I did we often say in our household like after doing some exercise we didn't want to do or something like we did the hard thing
and like that's that's a hard thing that you can just chalk off the list and there's there's something great about that I mean obviously it feeds into the style of like you must be productive every day you must do so like but I also genuinely think that like
it's not a bad thing to feel pride in in a hobby right it's it's like almost the exact opposite of like the way that I feel after like scrolling TikTok right which is like a thing that like my body tells me I want to do and then I feel like garbage after doing
it this is like a thing my body tells me I do not want to do that I feel like God after you know the next question is about how it became a trend let's hear from Alyssa who's a paid subscriber so this excellent question was at the top of our list how did cold plunging
go from a fringy activity embraced by Wim Hof and his followers and something that extreme endurance athletes use for post-race recovery to something so mainstream and how did we take something so basic with such minimal barriers to entry and make it something that
boutique studios charge upwards of $40 for okay so first I don't know who Wim Hof is do you yes Wim Hof is a Dutch man who has kind of become like a motivational speaker e type fellow and he is known for doing kind of extreme things at cold temperatures like
he climbs mountains barefoot or without a shirt on he plunges in like the Arctic he holds the world record for a barefoot half marathon on ice and snow and he is sort of like the person who is most associated with cold plunging but like from from way way back well before
it became a fad but he created this I mean that's the thing is that like the polar bear plunge has been it's like as far as I can remember everywhere yes like in my hometown like in the you know big cities people doing on Kony Island it's also like a total like it's
just a big practice lots of places where there are oceans and lakes like this is not this is something that has a long long long long long history and we know that I think most people know that yes well the the Kony Island Polarbrett Club is is quite old from either
late 1800s or 1903 I think was the first one it was led by this guy who is sort of like like the the 1903 version of like Huberman or like you know an influencer like that who sort of had had some maybe even like a Joe Rogan type and he was also the inventor of a penis pump
for male enhancement and it was this this is this is called the penis skirt yes this fits together because you know you mentioned Huberman I think many listeners know who Huberman is but that's really key to the popularization don't you think yeah I mean it's so who is
Huberman tell us you know human is a I believe he's a neuroscientist at Stanford and was a Randall lab at Stanford for a while still I think does and he does a lot of of like neuroscience experiments with like the effects of you know daylight and circadian rhythms
and you know stuff that sort of ties into like optimization culture and he's the he's the one who told you to tell me that like when we travel internationally that the first thing we should do is like go stare at the sun yeah he's big into the I mean not so even internationally every day
you're supposed to like wake up and the first thing you do is you're supposed to stare to write like like don't focus your eye your retinas on the on the sun but stare like as close sort of to it for like at least five minutes and direct sunlight to like wake your body up he's got a lot of
stuff like that it's interesting so he has and he has a very popular podcast in so in 2020 he started going on podcasts I think he went on Rogan's he went on some of these other like Tim Ferris these sort of self-helpy people and or I mean Rogan obviously branches and other things but
popular podcasts and was such a popular guest he started his own and the Andrew Huberman podcast is essentially anywhere between like 90 minutes and three hours of him in a dark room just reading off stuff about studies like it's it's just it's like a science lectures and neuroscience lecture
like two thirds of the time other times he interviews a guest but he's ridiculously popular it's like the fifth most popular podcast in the land which is all just to say that this guy is like for better or worse he's just very influential and he is a he is a plunge advocate and you know I
think this is like a larger conversation in some ways but I think that like hit the popularity of his thinking and like biohacking more generally just this idea that you can optimize your body and all these different ways through attention to science and through attention to scientific studies
and like be your best self why do you think it's so popular now I spoke to this summer I was boarding around for this and I spoke to the founder of of plunge which is like the highest end tub right they're like the six thousand dollar ones and he's obviously really into this stuff but
I was asking him like why do you think this is a thing now right like obviously the benefits aside or whatever why is this a thing and he said that like COVID was a real like jump starter for this in a lot of complex ways right ways that some people you know some of your listeners might
agree with and others that that you know maybe that they won't but what what he said is basically like COVID did two things right it revealed a importance on being healthy a lot of people picked up habits during COVID that were unhealthy whether it was you know coping through drinking or
or what have you or it was just kind of like a shock to you know normal systems of like people spend a long time without going out to bars or things like that and that there was a an idea of focus on health and also change and then there's sort of a reactionary element to all that which is
like a reaction against public health right and this idea of like you know again it gets all messy but there's people who are sort of like trying to take their health into their own hands right because they don't trust what other people are saying about it so there's two branches of of the street
two different camps but one of the big things that he was kind of pushing and that a lot of people in this are are pushing is that that there is broadly culturally different understandings and influences on health and so like there are lots of plunge clubs there's like lots of like sort
of like little plunge like festivals that people can go to where it's like this is a way to hang out this is a thing to do and like you know we don't necessarily subscribe to that right but like when we went plunging the on the audio there like we went with our friends like it is like a social
thing you can do and there's like an excitement about it and it makes you feel really good and chatty so I do think that there is this like this is tied up in a lot of complex things especially like the internet part of it right and like the social influencers and all that but I think
there is also broadly speaking new ways of socialization and new norms around you know like the traditional method of like going out to the bar and stuff like that yeah I think that there's like on one end there's people who are doing it because it feels kind of cool to in your body when
you do it and also it's fun to do with other people and it's a mechanism for social gathering and we don't have a ton of those right so there's that end and then on the other end there's like people with the six thousand dollar tubs or pain for entrance into places where they can do these
plungers right who authentically think of themselves as like better than other people because they do these plungers right because they this is part of how they have become a superior person or like an optimized person so that's just my my polls that I'm setting up here yeah part of the
question that led into all this is and like we talked about like like Wim Hof for a second he his big thing is breathing exercises like these really deep breathing things that like get you into whatever and and they're controversial too because like people have passed out or like
you know like had seizures doing them because they're so serious but they're supposed to like be kind of like transcendent right it's almost like having like a you know like a spiritual experience you know people talk about having on them again not for me to say but alongside the cold
plunging is also this like this idea of like these deep breathing things like and there are facilities like the guy who cuts my hair is like really into like he's a sober person living this sort of like active optimization lifestyle he's like an aesthetic or that's not the word he's
aesthetic aesthetic like the word like a monk like he like is very into like a simple straight forward life like that and he always tells me about this place and I don't know what it's called right now but it's like essentially like a spa in San Diego where he goes like every couple of
months and it's all breathing all hot and cold so sonas and plunges and yoga and then massage and like the way that he describes it is like you know it sounds like oh man we all get in this room we do his breathings in these chants and then we plunge or whatever it's like there's a way
in which you can read that and go like that's weird or that's you know whatever but it's also like it's not totally different from like cold plunging is part of the of the normal spa experience right it's that idea of treating yourself this is just more of like a sort of like I guess
intense level of treating yourself in that way so there's a luxury element to it for sure I would also say that that situation does not sound dissimilar from some religious gatherings uh and that that I mean that's part of this too when we're talking about like an opportunity for
a social gathering that feels that makes you feel something that is oftentimes why people go to church this question is another kind of broy question but also it's about plunge etiquette so I think this will be an interesting one for us this comes from Megan I'm curious as to why or how
bro culture has quote unquote taken over cold plunging for context I've been dipping all winter long in my nearby lake here in Vermont and when I first started uh more than four years ago it was just if I saw anyone it was small groups of women usually middle aged or older it was a pretty
quiet affair I'd say just within the last year pretty regularly I've been seeing large groups of bros by bros I mean sort of like cut white dudes in their 20s I was down there not too long ago at this popular spot and over 15 guys just charged into the water yelling um like some sort of raid while my friend and I were peacefully sitting in the water for me the practice is uh confidence building it's about mindfulness um it's a way to be in nature and quiet my mind it seems to have some other
purpose for this group I think there's plenty of room for all of us I don't want to be exclusionary I'm just curious as to what's causing this cultural shift first I want to start with the fact that like obviously you heard us doing some whooping and charging in the audio for us but what is the
etiquette around screaming because another person wrote in about being in a spa that had a cold plunging thing but you weren't allowed to make noises when you got in because they were trying to like keep the peaceful environment at the at the spa so that may be a little different but like
what are the rules I've gotten into the cold plunge tiktok algorithm unsurprisingly you sort of show your bonafides by how like calm and cool you can keep it you know like there are these guys who are um that they're all like extremely chiseled you know like not like bodybuilders but just like
lean sinewie do you there a body fat yeah yeah um and they don't seem like like douchebags honestly like I who knows right but like the like the way that they are doing it is more like they're just talking about like you know their practice and like I do this for two minutes every day before I go
and like wake my kids up whatever anyway isn't there a guy that you showed me that like just films his plunge every day and he's like really popular yeah his name's Jordan something and he's on uh he's on like day uh I mean as we record this he's on like day like 379 of doing an ice bath
every day and he like every day he comes in in the winter he lives in Canada he'll like find a different way to break the ice because he uses like a feet like a stock tub from like a farm you know supply place and it's just you know naturally frozen over so he like break the tub and then
he'll say this is day whatever of me doing an ice bath every day and he gets in it and you just you know he's always wearing his like a stocking cap and he does you know like makes quiet noises he suppresses it uh and then he does like a motivational quote um he's very popular
it's he's got him for like two million followers on tiktok why why do people like watching that like why do you like watching it well I don't I don't know if I like it necessarily I mean it's interesting to see um like I mean I like the ritual I'll say like that's the that's sort of why
I was like hovering you know my cursor or my mouse button or whatever over the um you know like well what what are the specs of this you know a backdoor tub because it's like the idea of like doing something every day like I really I like that I like the idea of aspirational routine so
I think that there's something about that um in there I don't I usually never watch the parts of the video where he does like the motivational thing where he's like you know like whatever um at anyway there's like the bonafights right like in terms of etiquette where it's like if you're
one of those people who does it all the time you know it's like act like you've been there before right like you get in and you just who and that's it and you keep it keep it chill um and I also think it gets it does get easier like if you do it with frequency your body is a less shocked by it
I think that it's just like anything right it just depends on the environment you're in like if you're in a spa environment right like yeah I mean it's probably best not to just like scream bloody murder right or like have you and five of your friends like can and ball into like the
cold plunge tub in the you know the place where everyone's like listening to and you like like that's not that's just like not a chill thing to do but if you're like in the ocean with your friends and you know you guys are just like trying to have a fun experience together like yeah I don't
think that's a that's a terrible thing in the situation of like we have like a small cove I personally a conflict avoidant person a little bit further away um but I also think like it's some of it is involuntary right like your body's gonna do what you're gonna do if you're
not used to that stuff and yeah if you're an Allen Peterson you're going to scream at the top of your lungs and say no but I will say that when I get in if I'm by myself I like I'm muttering but I'm not like screaming right because who are you screaming for like some of this is
performative and I think that what she's seeing is in some ways like these guys performing for one another or like the same way that they would before you know she points out like running into battle and that probably that that energy will dissipate right yeah and I will say like as far as
like groups of dudes doing things in a destructive way like a bunch of them cold plunging in you know a cove is like probably like the best thing you could ask a group of 27 dudes to be doing um you know I'd much rather than be doing that than like 99% of other things that guys get together to
do so um you know I don't know go easy on the bros just there and then you know go hard on the bros everywhere so the next question is about cold plunging in wellness and like wellness trends overall so this is from Brianna I'm fascinated by the uptick to interest in cold plunging it's
something that every algorithm seems insistent on me doing for wellness and while I logically understand the supposed benefits I just can't get into it I've tried a cold shower routine before and it's miserable what's the larger why behind the continued emergence of these wellness hacks
does it always come back to trying to exert control over our lives when the universe is largely chaotic is it a replacement for spiritual practices that used to take place in religious communities is it tech bros seeing troubling economic trends and trying to optimize every part of their lives
through individual behavior is it puritanical instincts wrapped in a new package to discourage us from ever doing anything that is comfortable and enjoyable but maybe most importantly why do we in modern society still believe that suffering is a requirement for self-improvement
and self-actualization is it wow this person just like wrote the first paragraph to like any piece that you want to write in the future about cold plunging you should thank them for that that's like all the guiding questions it can can guide an essay yeah my response to those questions are
just going to be yes um because like wow there's so much there i mean we've talked some of these we've already addressed great we've talked about the the religious component the gathering component and how that's feeding something we've talked about the covid component as well and how
that relates to like a general both an individualization of health practices like trying to figure out what works for me but then also like trying to i think i've seen a lot of this like trying to make changes in oneself post-COVID because of the frailty of the human condition and all those sorts of
things i'm interested we can start with at least the whole like everything is chaos but we can control this what do you think about that i think that's i think that's like dead on right i think i think that's a huge part of it i also think it's like again like let's not undercount the
endorphin boost and like the need that a lot of people have for that right like it's just that's i mean that's why people turn to all sorts of awful terrible things um we just win life's hard when life feels chaotic right so that's that that's that's a total thing um i wanted to like
address though the like there's a nugget in that question that's just like i just can't get into it like what's wrong with me it's like don't worry about that but i think that like this is sort of the tough part about i've been thinking a lot about this with just the internet in general
is it forces you to see how so many people live right and like i think in a way that we were never supposed to you're like you're just like not supposed to be bombarded with like that much difference and i don't mean like you know diversity of thought or whatever like i just mean like
there's just like there's a lot of people who live their lives in ways where you're like uh pass um and you just like have to be subjected to it and also like the way that the internet delivers that to you is like my different way of doing something my you know whatever is also virtuous
in some way that's like how is often presented there are plenty of people who live active healthy lives and never touch an endurance sport ever right and then there's other people for whom endurance sports give them sort of like their reason to you know to be and wake up in the morning and like
there's nothing better than riding the high of of an ultra marathon or whatever it is right it's like there's just a lot of ways to be in the world and i think that like like the plunge phenomenon is um i've seen it compared in places to the same kind of exercise or like wellness fads is like you
know jazza sizing or like you know using those like rubber bands that like you know went around your waist or whatever like i think that there's a bit of that that is just this this time this generations like fat or way of being or way of feeling superior um and i just think that like you can
live a happy healthy life without ever jumping into a cold body water you know and i think the one of the reasons it feels like it's everywhere is because it's very instagramable right like it is something that like is proof of life like proof of getting outside proof of doing something
like weird and fun and thus it travels in a way that all of the other parts of our day do not travel but i also support you in the like some people don't have to do it like it just you don't have to feel like you should do it like it doesn't make you a better or a worse person it does not make
you more virtuous which this kind of keys into the whole like Protestant suffering thing like suffering does not make you better necessarily and and to be like internetty about it like the algorithms that dictate what we see on all sorts of platforms are driven by optimizing for
engagement and things that are extreme optimizing engagement whether it's extreme political thought and extreme take whatever and this is sort of like a especially given sort of the rise of of you know instagram reels and tiktok and like sort of a visual internet short form video internet
it is it is like a form of extremism right like it's extreme content and so therefore it plays really well like you asked me why do i want to watch this jordan dude get in the tub and like i don't have a good answer for you for that unless i'm thinking about it to the prison of like
i guess i kind of want to see like what his reaction is or what other people's reaction is and like if you do that once or twice just because as a human you're interested like oh this person's plunging into a tub that's got ice floating on the top of it then tiktok picks up on that or
instagram or whatever and says like oh you want to see a lot of people cold plunging and then you start seeing it everywhere and then you see the ads which are like brutal like the entire holiday season was just that company plunge just like inundating maybe like you want a six thousand
dollar tub do you want a six thousand dollar tub would you like a six thousand dollar tub wait it's it's five percent off would you like yeah yeah the black Friday tub deal where it's still fifty five hundred dollars yeah it's great it's lovely stuff okay for today's bonus segment we're
going to answer one more question about cold plunging but also about how other people react to unique hobbies and then we have advice time and charlie and i will answer a very pertinent question about pets will our relationships survive if that peaks your interest to head to culture study
pod dot substack dot com and become a paid subscriber to get full ad free episodes and to support the show charlie if people want to hear more from you on the internet where can they find you oh gosh the internet's broken um by his prescription to the elanix that we can eat no um i'm
driven legitimately trying to think of where to direct human beings no they can like they can well you have a lot of dog photos and like occasional plan photos on your instagram on instagram i'm at sea or zel i'm at sea or zel on threads i'm at sea or zel on blue sky i don't check
you on musk social network anymore so don't find me there um and and uh i write at the elanix every week so yeah thank you so much for listening to the culture study podcast be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts we have so many great episodes in the works and i promise
you don't want to miss any of them if you want to suggest a topic ask a question about the culture that surrounds you or submit a question for our subscriber only advice time segment check the show notes for a link to our substack if you want to support the show and get bonus content
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the culture study podcast is produced by me and Helen Peterson and melody roul our music is by pottington bear you can find me on instagram at anhuland peterson melody at melodius 47 and the show at culture study pod thank you so much for your support