Op-Ed: I Tried the Cold Plunge, and Fine, I Found a Reset

Simmering in a 200-degree sauna like "a slice of leftover pizza" and then dunking herself in near-ice water is not how New York Times columnist Taffy Brodesser-Akner
pictured self-care. "You do not have time for this," she writes, before admitting she goes anyway, lured by a friend who insists that regular cold plunges "cured" her of, well, "everything." Brodesser-Akner arrives skeptical, notes that scientific evidence is thin and hedged with words like "slightly" and "marginally," and is upfront that "science has not really gotten involved." Still, she pays more than $50 for a Manhattan "contrast therapy spa," sits in a roasting cedar sauna, then follows orders for the ice bath: don't ease in, just plunge.

The result is two minutes of misery—"a hundred knives" of cold, a background ukulele strumming "Hallelujah" she has "never enjoyed less," and a clock that suddenly feels like an enemy. But on day two, something shifts: after three minutes in the tub, Brodesser-Akner feels "so good, so shiny, so glorious," as if her body "has forgotten how to be sad or worried." A month later, she's rolling her eyes at her own rapture—but still clutching that three-pack and planning to return. For her full, funny account, read the piece at the New York Times.