The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
Exposure to cold water (shower, ice bath, cold plunge etc) for 11min per week (divided into 2-3 sessions), adjusts brown fat (around the heart mainly) which in turn heats the body more robustly and raises comfort in cold environments.
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Now, this is interesting because cold exposure of anywhere from one to three minutes, two or four times per week, or maybe even 10 minutes, two to four times per week can increase brown fat stores.
What they discovered was that by going into these cold environments, in this case cold water immersion up to the neck, for 11 minutes total per week, that these men experienced increases in so-called brown fat thermogenesis, I'll talk more about what that is in a moment, and increases in core body temperature that translate to increases in core body metabolism.
The simple translation of this is that getting into cold water for a total of 11 minutes, perhaps more, but at least 11 minutes per week divided into two or four sessions can increase your core metabolism in part by increasing your beige and brown fat stores.
the general protocol, again, is to get 11 minutes total per week of uncomfortable, yet safe deliberate cold exposure, either through ice bath, cold shower, cold immersion up to the neck, or some other form of cold exposure.
people that do 11 minutes total of deliberate cold exposure by immersion and cold water up to the neck per week, so 11 minutes per week total, spread out across some different sessions by way of getting into water that's uncomfortably cold up to the neck, and then getting out and then doing that several times per week to hit that 11 minutes or more threshold, and, this is very important, we'll come up in a moment in the context of this new study, and warming up not by getting into a warm shower, which is frankly what I do after my cold showers or getting into the ice bath or cold water immersion, but rather forcing their body to warm up naturally by using its own metabolic abilities. In those studies, they observed substantial increases in brown fat stores, which are fat stores that you really want around the heart, and clavicles increases in metabolism that were quite dramatic in my opinion, and that could be very beneficial for allowing people to feel more comfortable at cold temperatures when they're not in cold water and on and on.