Cryotherapy or cold therapy is a natural treatment that is proven to benefit your body and mind in a multitude of ways. By submerging ourselves in a cold body of water, our bodies cut off blood flow and circulation to injured muscles and nerves, reducing inflammation and swelling that cause you pain.
At Be Well Physio we are used to dealing with physical pain. Our goal is to treat your problem area and give you the tools to bring about a full recovery. However, pain is not just felt by the body. Using cryotherapy as pain management for the mind is also an effective way to relieve yourself of stress and anxiety symptoms.
For the purpose of clarity, this blog is in two parts. The first is cryotherapy benefits for physical pain management and the second is cryotherapy benefits for mental health.
Cryotherapy Benefits For Physical Pain Management
When you first come to use our cryotherapy baths, we conduct a consultation to understand what results you are looking for so that we can help you reach your goals.
When it comes to physical pain management, cryotherapy doesn’t just reduce inflammation and swelling but can also lessen our sensitivity to pain. As well as helping your body to heal physical ailments faster, cold therapy also assists in continuously managing pain, especially around joints and tendons.
Cryotherapy has also been proven to help greatly with many chronic conditions. Just as a sports physio runs onto the pitch with an ice pack for a single-point injury, we prescribe treating all affected areas at once. This results in overall pain relief.
If you are suffering from any pain management issues and conditions, just get in touch and we’ll let you know if cryotherapy is the right move for you.
Cryotherapy Benefits For Mental Health
An expert in many things, one of them being cold therapy, Andrew Huberman outlines how exposure to cold temperatures can improve our mental performance and ability to overcome challenges in his podcast; Episode 66: Using Deliberate Cold Exposure for Health and Performance.
He states that cryotherapy causes an increase in catecholamines like dopamine and adrenaline to such an extent that it improves our mood and levels of attention. You may be thinking, “but that sounds really uncomfortable,” and to be honest, that’s the point.
Deliberate exposure to the cold allows us to control how we respond to discomfort. By doing this regularly we learn how to maintain mental clarity and calmness while our body goes into a state of stress. This in turn allows us to manage real-world scenarios that are out of our control in the same way.
Think of it like training for a big run. You train over a long period of time to make sure that when the day comes, you are ready to take on the main event no matter the weather. Cold exposure preps your mind for whatever life may throw at you in a deliberate and proven way.
When To Get Cryotherapy
Cryotherapy can be done at any time. Some of our clients use it as a form of meditation. You do not have to be suffering to undergo cold therapy. However, if you do suffer an injury and have some swelling or bruising, book an assessment and we will recommend cryotherapy along with other physio treatments.
Should you exercise regularly and want to give your muscles some TLC, cryotherapy is the perfect way to do so.
If you would like to book a session with us or have any questions just contact the team about cryotherapy at our Dublin clinic and we’ll be happy to help. You can also read more about cryotherapy and how it works on our blog.
