Cold water immersion can train interoception to manage adrenaline effects.

“I do not think it matters how one gets into that stressed state provided it as self-directed and that therefore could be cold shower. It could be ice bath. It could be anything that induces an acute, meaning a sudden onset of Adrenaline and is self-directed that's really the key feature here.”

“If you throw yourself into an ice bath or a cold shower, adrenaline. If somebody upsets you or you get a triggering text, adrenaline. Adrenaline sounds like a terrible thing, except when you deliberately induce it. As my colleague, David Spiegel says, "There's a big difference between going into a state and you controlling your entry into a state."”

“Vim Hof breathing, cold showers, et cetera, are a great practice in my opinion, because they allow you to spike your adrenaline. And you can do that, for instance, by making the water colder if you want more adrenaline, staying in longer if you want more adrenaline, moving your limbs around in the water will give you more adrenaline 'cause it breaks up that thermal layer. It makes it a lot colder. Or doing 50 deep inhales and exhales. That is very useful because then you have the opportunity to use that prefrontal cortex and to stop and sense all that adrenaline in your body and yet maintain clarity of mind.”

“Why does a cold shower wake you up? Adrenaline is released and believe it or not, your body is heating up internally to combat that cold, unless you make yourself hypothermic.”

“So it's not just about the state you're in, it's about how you got there and whether or not you had anything to do with it. States of high adrenaline are very powerful. When you self induce adrenaline by cold shower, cyclic hyperventilation, AKA Wim Hof breathing or Tummo breathing, you then have an opportunity to create a very distinct mind-body relationship.”

“Any behavior that spikes adrenaline, you will eventually get better at tolerating it. You will become cold adapted and you'll become comfortable at high adrenaline states.”

“one of the best ways to do this because it works the first time and every time and is also zero cost in fact it will save you money is to put yourself in a cold shower or other deliberate cold exposure environment but most everyone has access to a cold shower not everyone but most people and of course by turning off the heat you're going to reduce Heating cost right your water bill so getting into a cold shower for a minute or so to elevate your levels of adrenaline and learning to either use your breathing you could do physiological size or to distract yourself or whatever tools and approaches you need to be able to stay calm while you have elevated levels of adrenaline in your body”

“the other thing you can do is that if you can't uh uh access light of any kind just dark dark dark that's where the cold shower really can help because you get that adrenaline bump um early in the day which is good”

“I believe that whether or not somebody decides to you know recite the alphabet or think about how cold it is or whatever it is what they're doing is they are practicing this frontal control over the lyic pathways it's just sort of a general exercise for controlling the lyic system through thought”

“the learning I believe is in recognizing just how destabilized our patterns of thinking get when we have adrenaline in our body which is what uncomfortable cold does and it deploys that adrenaline in the brain and body and it also is a great learning in seeing the return to a BAS line just seeing how that affects our psychology”

“if you start to focus on what what neuroscientists call interoception everything our perception of everything from our skin inward you can start to feel the deployment of adrenaline in your body or at least its effects”

“cold water is a highly reliable way to elicit an adrenaline response. It's just a great training for this feels uncomfortable. I want to get out, but I'm going to learn to control my thinking in this uncomfortable circumstance.”

“You know, why take a cold shower? It's it's not about the specific benefits of the cold shower. It's it teaches you how to navigate having high adrenaline in your body, which is the universal generic response to stress.”