EXTREME WELLNESS

From bone-chilling baths to oxygen chambers, three marie claire writers push their bodies and minds to the limits in the name of wellness

THE CHALLENGE

ICE, ICE, BABY

Alison Izzo takes the plunge

My sister happily describes herself as a desert rose. It’s a cute moniker that rings true, so I’ve happily co-opted it. See, we grew up in the Mallee, in a town that is said to get more hours of sunshine per year than anywhere else. Forty-plus-degree summers were the norm, and the sandy earth of the school playground was always warm – even in winter. It figures then that I don’t do well in the cold.

Which is why I’m questioning my life choices as I stand waiting to submerge myself in a bar fridge-sized chest filled with sub-zero water. But I’m not the first to choose cold water therapy, and I won’t be the last.

Dutch extreme athlete and motivational speaker Wim Hof put ice baths on the wellness map, but we can thank Gwyneth Paltrow for bringing cold water therapy into the cultural zeitgeist when she dedicated an episode of her 2020 Netflix docu-series The goop lab to the Wim Hof Method (WHM). Now, it’s positively mainstream. Your local physio probably has cold water therapy on the menu, PTs routinely recommend an icy ocean swim post-workout, and any infrared sauna provider worth their salt lamp will have an ice bath add-on. But why? Ice bathing, a form of cryotherapy, has been scientifically proven to help reduce inflammation, aid muscle recovery, reduce stress levels, aid sleep and boost dopamine levels.