Cryotherapy is one of the newest health trends going around claiming to have an array of benefits. You may have heard of it or seen videos on social media of celebrities standing inside cryo-chambers, or maybe you’ve even tried it for yourself, but the question on everybody’s mind is: does it really work? In this article, I’m going let you know if your money is being flushed down the drain or if it’s money well-spent.

Despite cryotherapy being one of the most recent buzz-words floating around health and fitness circles on social media, the truth is, cryotherapy has been around for centuries. Athletes have been swearing by it for what feels like eons and it is even used in clinical settings. In layman’s terms, cryotherapy is simply cold therapy. Traditional forms of cryotherapy include ice baths, cold tubs, cold showers, and even winter ocean swimming in extremely cold temperatures. The common theme here is: it has to be pretty damn cold for it to work!

What is a Cryotherapy Chamber?

A cryo-chamber is a non-invasive, hyper-cooling therapy, where you stand inside a full body chamber (excluding your head) while an influx of liquid nitrogen causes the temperature to drop to approximately -140 degrees Celcius. The entire procedure only lasts a few minutes. Long exposures to these kinds of temperatures would usually cause severe hypothermia, but it has proven to be relatively safe due to its brief timeframe.

What Are The Health Benefits?

Sure, the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming on social media but is there more to this health trend than the celebs even realize. Cryotherapy chambers claim to aid in muscle recovery, treatment and prevention of injuries, weight loss, skin rejuvenation, immune and metabolic improvements, and there’s even some evidence to suggest that it can help treat certain cancers! In fact, in 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) updated their recommendations for the use of cryotherapy for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) – a premalignant type of cancer of the cervix. Let’s take a look at the science to see if there’s any validity to these claims.

Due to liquid nitrogen cryo-chambers being such a novel therapy with limited scientific research, in order to decipher whether or not it actually works, I’m going to compare it to more traditional forms of cryotherapy, in particular, cold-water therapy, which has been well-documented in the literature for many decades.

Some Proven Benefits of Cold Water Therapy:

• It improves immune function. It does so by increasing cytotoxic T lymphocyte (or T-cell) activity. These are basically white blood cells that flow through your system and kill damaged or infected cells.
• It decreases pain. The way it works is by increasing adrenaline which has anti-pain properties. It may even provide long-term pain relief.
• It increases blood flow. Here’s how the mechanism works: When the body’s core temperature drops significantly below its normal range, it promotes a process called vasoconstriction. This basically means that the blood vessels become narrower in diameter, ultimately preventing blood from flowing to the surface of the skin where heat is lost. This causes a subsequent shift in blood flow to your core/organs. When your core temperature eventually returns to normal, the opposite process occurs i.e. vasodilation. In other words, your blood vessels increase in diameter, allowing for blood to flow back to your peripheral muscles and skin.
• It reduces inflammation. This works via two processes: upregulated T-cell activity and vasoconstriction. In a nutshell, the T-cells flow through the body and ‘clean up’ all of the damaged tissue. Once they’ve done their job, the body becomes less inflamed than before. The constriction of blood vessels redirects blood flow away from inflamed and damaged tissue ultimately reducing local and systemic inflammatory markers.
• It has anti-oxidative effects. When people think of antioxidants they think of dietary related foods and supplements such as berries and vitamin C that help fight cancer, but cold water therapy has been shown to have similar anti-oxidative effects.
• It improves thermoregulation. Studies into people who swim outdoors during winter have shown that these subjects are actually able to reduce the amount of heat that they lose during cold exposures, indicating that they have well and truly adapted to their environment.

The Verdict…

Here’s the thing that most people seem to miss about cryotherapy: In order to gain the long-term health benefits, it needs to be regular and somewhat routine. If you think that a dip in the ocean or a session in a cryo-chamber once a month is going to improve your overall health then I’m afraid you’re vastly overreaching. In saying that, if you’re using cryo-chambers to speed up muscle recovery or reduce delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), like many athletes are, chances are a few sessions will help. If you’re using it to accelerate the recovery from a soft tissue injury like a sprain or strain, you’ll have to do at least a few sessions per week for up to 3 weeks. If you’re a regular guy or girl, like most of us are, and you’re simply looking to gain the long-term health benefits of cryotherapy, then you might want to reconsider your approach. Like most things in life, the frequency and dose are a crucial part of the equation. For example, in the right dose and frequency, sunlight is very good for our health (in particular for producing vitamin D) but a few minutes of sun exposure a month just isn’t going to cut it. It needs to be brief and regular. The same applies to exercise. In the right dose and frequency, exercise is very good for our health, but one workout a month simply is going to do the job. The point is: Adaptations take time. Sure, there are some immediate physiological and metabolic changes that occur during a bout of exercise, or a few minutes of sun exposure, or even a session in a cryo-chamber, but the unfortunate reality is, an acute one-off session does not translate into long-term health benefits.

Here’s What I Do…

I prefer to get my cryotherapy in the form of a morning swim. I do it every single day of the year. It’s part of my morning routine. It’s particularly more difficult during winter than it is during summer, but the body slowly adapts over time, making it easier season after season. I’ve always found winter swimming to be very enticing. There’s something so rewarding about shocking the body with an acute, healthy, natural stressor. It’s simply a bonus that my addiction to these kinds of physical and mental turmoil is actually doing my health some overall good. The whole experience is multifaceted. From walking barefoot through the sand to diving into the ocean and moving my body, there are so many beneficial aspects to it. The outdoor shower to follow is like a double dose. In my opinion, it’s a hell of a lot more enjoyable and rewarding than standing inside of a cryo-chamber, plus it’s outdoors in nature and its free!

The Take-Home Message

Cryotherapy does work. The underlying principles of cryo-chambers, like cold water therapy, make perfect sense, and there is plenty of scientific research supporting its validity. If you’re an athlete, it will likely help you recover faster from training/performances, as well as assist in accelerating the recovery from injuries. If you’re simply jumping on the bandwagon because your favourite celebrity is using it as a fat-loss and anti-aging protocol, then you might want to reconsider your approach. The problem is unless you do it regularly, you’re simply not providing the body with enough of a stimulus to make the physiological and metabolic adaptations required to see improvements to your overall health and well-being. Adaptations take time.

The bottom line is…if you’re willing and able to spend 100 bucks to stand in an artificial man-made chamber when a dip in the ocean or a cold shower will likely elicit similar physiological responses, then go right ahead, but I know what I’d rather do.