Deliberate cold exposure can increase the release of catecholamines such as dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, leading to improved mood for many hours afterward.

“but the impact on dopamine & adrenaline is clear & extremely beneficial.”

“Try starting the day (post sunlight viewing) w/1-3min of uncomfortably cold (yet safe) water exposure (shower or immersion to the neck). The research-supported benefits are significant & long lasting elevations in dopamine & adrenaline, & thereby elevated mood, alertness & focus.”

“I’m seeing doubling of circulating dopamine and of course not all of that makes it to the brain but I am not aware of these studies on minimal increases in relevant neurotransmitters.”

“the potent noradrenaline & dopamine increases from cold (ideally 11min per week total, or more) have protracted positive effects on metabolism & mood.”

“The catecholamine (dopamine, epinephrine, etc.) increasing effects of deliberate cold exposure are significant & long lasting (hours)”

“The catecholamine (dopamine, epinephrine, etc.) increasing effects of deliberate cold exposure are significant & long lasting (hours)”

“The dopamine & epinephrine increases have been documented in humans.”

“The impact on neurotransmitter levels (e.g., dopamine and norepinephrine) and thereby mood and alertness hours is substantial and long lasting (hours).”

“If you dread cold showers or a cold plunge first thing in the morning, you stand to benefit more, not less from the long lasting adrenaline & dopamine increase it triggers.”

“cold water exposure led to very rapid increases in norepinephrine and epinephrine, which is also just called adrenaline.”

“This does appear to raise the baseline of dopamine for substantial periods of time. And most people report feeling a heightened level of calm and focus after getting out of cold water.”

“It's well-established now that getting into cold water, whether or not it's a shower, an ice bath circulating cold water, a stream, et cetera, that can evoke the norepinephrine release immediately, and the long arc of that dopamine release.”

“The increase in dopamine from a cold water exposure of this kind was comparable to what one sees from cocaine, except, except in this case, it wasn't a rise and crash. It was actually a sustained rise in dopamine that took a very long time up to three hours to come back down to baseline.”

“And this cold water exposure done correctly really can help people achieve that state of mind through these increases in dopamine that lasts a very long time.”

“Again, 250% of a rise in baseline, two and a half times rise in baseline rivals that of cocaine which is really remarkable.”

“But then what was interesting is they observed that dopamine levels started to rise somewhat slowly and then continued to rise and reach levels as high as 2.5 times above baseline. That's a remarkably high increase. Remember if we go back to our examples of chocolate, sex, a doubling above baseline, nicotine two and a half times above baseline, cocaine. The increase in dopamine from a cold water exposure of this kind was comparable to what one sees from cocaine, except, except in this case, it wasn't a rise and crash. It was actually a sustained rise in dopamine that took a very long time up to three hours to come back down to baseline.”

“And the dopamine release continued to rise and rise and rise, and eventually reached 250% above baseline.”

“This has been shown that immersing oneself in cold water up to the neck or so. How cold? Well, it depends on what you can tolerate, but uncomfortably cold, but not so cold that you become hypothermic, but where it's challenging to get in, but you can stay there for three to 10 minutes or so, has been shown to lead to very significant, up to doubling or more of baseline dopamine levels and epinephrin levels that go on for several hours.”

“This is why I'm a big fan of things like, cold showers and cold water exposure, which has been shown to lead to long-lasting 2.5 X increases in dopamine, or in some cases, supplementation with things like L-Tyrosine, which are precursors to dopamine.”

“And the studies on the very well, now well established increases in dopamine and epinephrine that occur in cold water exposure, were actually done at an hour in 60 degrees Fahrenheit.”

“The subjects also experienced a 250% increase in dopamine concentrations, which while not 530% as it was with norepinephrine is still a very large increase in baseline levels of dopamine. And what was interesting is that those increases in dopamine persisted for a very long period of time afterwards, even out to two hours.”

“But nonetheless, I think that a dopamine impact on testosterone is very likely given the 250% increases in dopamine that have been observed with cold water immersion and all of that points to the fact that cold water immersion very likely increases testosterone, but as a downstream consequence of the cold water immersion effects on dopamine and luteinizing hormone.”

“Now the most interesting data to me, at least in terms of mental effects of deliberate cold exposure, were that the plasma or serum levels of norepinephrine in the blood increased 530%.”

“because of the ways in which deliberate cold exposure can increase this category of chemicals called the catecholamines, that includes dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine, it can also be used to elevate mood for long periods of time.”

“So in that study, we could put a link to this, it's published in 2000 in European Journal of Physiology, that big dopamine increase. They also looked at epinephrine and cortisol and saw some really. Yeah, so this has been done.”

“Basically the cold stimulus, that shock, that catching your breath, etc., is adrenaline from the adrenals. But also from what we understand now, some new neuroimaging, there's epinephrine and norepinephrine released from locus ceruleus, which again is a brain structure in the back of the brain, kind of sprinklers the rest of the brain with a kind of a wake-up chemical. And there's a long arc on dopamine release. This paper back in 2000 showed that it's a steady increase up to about 2.5x of circulating dopamine. So they weren't looking directly in the brain admittedly, but it goes on for four or five hours.”

“Do you need ice floating in the bath? No, it's all about the temperature not whether or not there's ice present or not.”

“getting into much colder water of say 50 degrees or 55 degrees or even 45 degrees Fahrenheit can potently increase dopamine and epinephrine, as well.”

“the cold water exposure protocol that I talked about earlier and that's covered in our episode on cold and in the newsletter on cold. Well that, as I mentioned earlier, potently increases dopamine, but also epinephrine. So that's another terrific tool, whether or not it's applied by cold shower or cold immersion or some other thing like cryo, that is going to make you more alert because it releases adrenaline.”

“but in general, we can say that the way to evoke dopamine and epinephrine release using cold water is to ideally you would do cold water immersion. If you can't, you'd use cold shower, but you want to use a temperature that is safe, meaning you're not going to have a heart attack, but that is uncomfortable such that you really want to get out and then staying in for anywhere from one minute to 10 minutes, depending on how cold adapted you are, and then getting out and drying off and going about your day, unless you have some other protocol that you're trying to extract from the cold.”

“when you look at the data in humans on the effect of cold water exposure to stimulate long-lasting, very significant increases in dopamine and epinephrine, I think you'll agree that this is a really potent tool”

“It also has the advantage of increasing not just adrenaline, but dopamine, which is a molecule involved in motivation, focus, et cetera.”

“Well, there, I would look to the kind of standard protocols of, you know, one to three minutes or maybe even six minutes if you can tolerate it, or if you're really cold-adapted, maybe you do seven or ten minutes in a cold shower, although that could be a lot. Most people are going to experience a sharp increase in epinephrine, in adrenaline, and a long-lasting increase in dopamine from one to three minutes of deliberate cold exposure, ideally done immersion up to the neck, again, do this safely, please, please, please, or a cold shower where you're getting under the shower as much as possible.”

“There's a beautiful study that was published in the European Journal of Physiology that showed that the increases in dopamine are massive, near doubling or more of dopamine levels that are very long lasting for hours, and epinephrine, and indeed cortisol levels are also increased, and in ways that support not just immune system function because they do that, and mood because it does that, but they can really improve concentration and focus.”

“And then, years later, we discovered, not we meaning my lab, but other labs, that when you get into cold water, even just 60 degree water, that there's a very long lasting increase in dopamine. That is 2.5x above baseline, which is on par with some prescription drugs for increasing dopamine.”

“it's a powerful relatively safe, if done properly. Safe, if done properly, way to modulate your internal dopamine.”

“There's a lab at Stanford, Craig Heller's lab that works on cold and performance, and the athletes at Stanford, mainly the cross-country team and the football players are doing cold before their training because of the huge increase-- huge long lasting increase in dopamine and adrenaline that's caused by that. They're finding it increases performance mainly by waking people up and getting them-- it creates energy, basically.”

“So I would say, not too close to sleep. Then what you do is you restrict your maximum cortisol release to a period earlier in the day that buffers-- reduces, that is-- the likelihood that you would have excessive amounts of cortisol later in the day, which not only can disrupt sleep but is correlated with a number of other hormonal effects that are not good for us and therefore not good for fertility.”

“Although it is the adrenaline evoked by that [GASPS],, that quickening or shortening or elimination of the breath for a short period of time when you get into uncomfortably cold water that correlates with or is actually the reflection of-- would be more accurate to say-- the release of adrenaline and then dopamine and so forth, which has been very well documented.”

“And we have episodes of this podcast on. And we have toolkits on deliberate cold exposure for increasing dopamine levels, epinephrine levels, immune system function, et cetera.”

“It has been shown to reduce inflammation, to increase metabolism, and I think some of the most exciting results that have been published are the results certainly in humans showing that deliberate cold exposure can increase the release of so-called catecholamines, which are dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine.”

“Many people do enjoy the effects of deliberate cold exposure, in particular for those increases in mood and alertness that are the consequence of those increases in the catecholamine, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. And again, those increases are very long lasting. So it's not just during the exposure to cold. It is for several hours up to four, maybe even five or six hours, depending on how cold and how long the deliberate cold exposure happens to be.”

“the simplest one for which there are excellent data and here I'm referring to data published in the European Journal physiology I'll provide a link to this is that exposure of your body up to the neck to cold water and it doesn't have to be super cold by the way to cold water has been shown to increase Baseline levels of dopamine and the other so-called catecholamines which include norepinephrine and epinephrine but for sake of today's discussion dopamine in particular for not just one but at least two and probably as long as four or five hours”

“deliberate cold exposure what are some of the other things that happen at the level of metabolism and brown fat in let's say the hours and um day after deliberate cold exposure as soon as you go in of course there's an activation but it seems like no you're asking for the the later outcomes like blood pressure and stuff like that is that what you mean yeah blood pressure but also in terms of metabolism I know that you know in your study you should and we'll talk about Brown fat in depth here in a moment but that there were changes to the brown fat that equate to changes in for instance people's ability to be comfor able in colder environments when they're not doing deliberate cold exposure or in the same way that I can um exercise on an exercise bike or go out for a hard run but then if I go hiking um with the family on Sunday and it's a steep climb I could do that steep climb more easily because I'm quote unquote fit as a consequence of the of the exercise what are some what are some of the fitness adaptations of deliberate cold exposure yeah so what happens is that you you get adapted a little bit every time you go so you will like exercise get a Little Bit Stronger so every time you go into the cold water for every time you will be more exposed to it you will you feel more comfortable in the cold so you going to you're going to build your adaptation which happens on a metabolic level which is going to be the brown fat so you have more activation of your brown fat the mitochondria in the the brown fat cells are going to be um you'll have more of those and they will be more efficient at heating you up because it expects the body expects you to to do this again so you are prepared in a way the capillaries in your skin is also will also become better at like constricting so you will have a better Shield of your body to uh prepare you for the next time so you be become better at H going into the cold water in that way so the the body makes these mechanism and changes your body in a way so you can expose yourself to the next time right and uh and also you will have um also a your um stress response will also be subside a bit so you will have a less increase of your um catac colomines um with time with time also you will have because of this activation of your uh Brown fat or your muscles you will have an increase in um uh in in your metabolism which will then make your insulin sensitivity uh better and this is shown in in studies for example um there's this interesting study I found just before I I started my PhD which was from um keeper stor um at L from 2016 where they measured um metabolism not in not on Brown fat but they measured insulin sensitivity in middle-aged men and women um during one winter swimming season so they were not very young like”

“what's very clear from the research literature is that deliberate cold exposure can induce dramatic positive shifts in so-called catac colomines that is dopamine norepinephrine and epinephrine this is a small collection of molecules that are released in the brain and body body when we do deliberate cold exposure and that subjectively lead to greatly enhanced feelings of mood alertness and focus for many hours afterwards”

“the best data are the increases in catacol Mees epinephrine nephrine dopamine that are long-lasting people feel a big state shift they feel better yeah”

“it's really those big increases in Adrenaline and dopamine that lead to those long lasting increases in alertness and feelings of well-being”

“one of the most robust effects of cold water exposure are big increases in Adrenaline also called epinephrine and dopamine”

“one of the most robust effects of cold water exposure are big increases in Adrenaline also called epinephrine and dopamine”

“it's really those big increases in Adrenaline and dopamine that lead to those long- lasting increases in alertness and feelings of well-being not just in the seconds or minutes after the cold plunge but indeed for several hours afterwards”

“I like deliberate cold exposure in the form of a cold shower or a cold plunge or an ice bath mostly for the effects that occur afterward meaning more alertness a kind of semi- euphoric Buzz that goes on a long long time no I don't think it increases metabolism significantly enough to have a meaningful difference but the long long lasting increases in the so-called catac colines dopamine or epinephrine and epinephrine to me are pretty impressive and I just like the way it makes me feel”

“yes deliberate cold exposure increases release of the so-called catacol amines dopamine epinephrine nor epinephrine also yes I know that those catacol amines are going to make me feel much better after I get out of the Cal plunge for many many hours that's been established”

“And yet, they still can benefit by getting those increases in dopamine epinephrine and norepinephrine.”

“But it absolutely causes an increase in the catakolamines, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. And the long-lasting effects on dopamine are quite striking. Meaning there are very few other things that can cause that long slow release of dopamine to the levels that it does which changes mood alertness etc for many hours after.”

“Upon getting into cold water, the changes in adrenaline and noradrenaline, epinephrine and norepinephrine were immediate. But then what was interesting is they observed that dopamine levels started to rise somewhat slowly and then continued to rise and reach levels as high as 2.5 times above baseline.”

“there's also this idea that deliberate cold exposure increases cortisol, but when you look at the data, it definitely increases adrenaline. Yeah. >> And peripheral dopamine and probably, I'll go on record, it probably central dopamine, although we don't have as good evidence for that yet, >> but there evidence points to the fact that deliberate cold exposure lowers cortisol.”

“studies that have looked at ice cold water immersion noting that dopamine levels gr rise gradually over the latter half of the immersive ice cold water bath and then interestingly those dopamine levels and serotonin and nephrine stay elevated for hours afterwards before going back down to the Baseline levels of dopamine firing”

“Cold exposure parameters for increasing dopamine”

“Cold water immersion at 14°C increased metabolic rate by 350%, norepinephrine by 530% & dopamine by 250%.”

“It's not a typo—the increase in dopamine and norepinephrine from cold water immersion is influenced by both the temperature and the duration of exposure.”

“In the episode with Andrew, we discuss a specific study where men experienced a 250% dopamine increase after spending an hour in 57°F water.”

“One hour of cold water immersion at 14℃/57℉ elevates dopamine by as much as 250% above baseline.”

“This study found that one hour of cold water immersion at 57°F increased norepinephrine levels by 530% and dopamine levels by 250%.”

“only the coldest of the three increased norepinephrine by 530 percent and dopamine by 250 percent compared to their levels before immersion not only that but the coldest water increased their energy expenditure by 350 percent compared to pre-emersion levels”

“we know that there's this beautiful study in European Journal physiology you know far more about this this work than I do but I've spent some time with that paper and there's a pretty remarkable and significant long lasting increase in the three catac colomines dopamine epinephrine and norepinephrine”

“that one minute one minute of being uncomfortably cold can create”