For about a year now, my Instagram feed has consisted of a few things: cold plunges, protein, and creatine. Somebody is always submerged up to the collarbone with a look of transcendence on their face, and somebody else is always explaining scoop timing. Apparently, that is the whole industry right now.
While I am joking slightly, the cold plunge has really had a moment over the past year. The gap between what coaches are saying about cold plunges and what the research actually shows is wide enough to drive a truck through.
Most coaches are recommending cold exposure as a recovery tool for soreness and inflammation, the stuff that lives in the tissue. That is defensible. It is also the smallest reason to use it, and if that is the only conversation you are having with clients about the cold, you are missing the part that keeps them coming back to it.
What the Cold Is Actually Doing
Cold works because it is stressful; that is the mechanism, not a side effect. Put a body in cold water, and homeostasis is threatened immediately, so everything fires at once. The heart rate climbs, the breath goes short and fast, blood retreats from the hands and feet, and stress signals light up the whole system.
Whether that is useful depends on the dose, the context, and what happens afterward, which is a calculation you have already made a thousand times without anyone needing to explain it to you. You run it every time you decide how hard to push a client this week.
What the cold gives you is a rehearsal. Stress arrives, the person stays with it, recovery follows, and something adapts. That is the same sequence you use to build a stronger back squat, except the thing getting stronger is not tissue. It is the nervous system’s ability to get knocked out of balance and find its way home again. Nobody ever built resilience by avoiding stress. They built it by getting better at the return trip.
The Alertness Piece, and Why It Cuts Both Ways
Norepinephrine handles alertness, attention, and the mobilization of energy under stress, and cold sends it up through sympathetic activation. A 2024 review in The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences describes cold-water immersion as triggering several hormone and neurotransmitter systems at once, norepinephrine and dopamine included. It points to neurohormesis as the mechanism.
Here is what almost nobody says out loud. That activation is not a gift to every client. Some of the people on your schedule have been running hot for months, hyped on too little sleep and too little food, with a nervous system that has forgotten how to come down.
You cannot hand that person a plunge, call it recovery, and expect the math to work. You are adding load to a system already asking you to remove some. A few of them will thrive anyway, which you will discover by screening rather than by hoping.
Related: A Coach’s Guide to Heart Rate Variability Training
The Reward Loop That Matters More Than the Chemistry
Everyone calls dopamine the reward chemical. It is closer to a motivation system, the thing that decides whether effort is worth spending.
But the chemistry is not what interests me. What interests me is what happens after somebody gets out, and the energy that carries into the afternoon. They chose to do a hard thing, they stayed in it, and they came out feeling more capable than when they went in. You run that same loop every time you add weight to a client’s bar. Effort turns into evidence of capability, and the cold hands over that evidence faster than a barbell does.
The dopamine story deserves more skepticism than it gets. A 2025 study of winter swimmers observed stress hormones and catecholamines respond, while dopamine largely remained steady. Whether it moved at all seems to hinge on how cold the water was, how long the person stayed in, how accustomed they already were, and when anyone bothered to measure. So the claim to make with a client is modest. Cold exposure can influence stress-related neurochemistry, and for some people, at some doses, it may lift mood and motivation.
The Timing Detail Nobody Is Coaching
A 2023 study on short-term head-out whole-body cold-water immersion found that participants reported more positive affect and less negative affect afterward, with those mood shifts correlating to changes in functional brain connectivity across networks governing emotion regulation and attention.
Not every study shows an immediate lift. A separate 2023 investigation found that positive mood did not spike right away, while cortisol and negative mood were both lower several hours later.
That nuance is the most useful thing in this body of research, and almost nobody is coaching it. For some clients, the real shift is a delayed drop in negative affect, a steadier afternoon, and a day that does not spiral the way it usually does.
This means a client who plunges right before a high-stress obligation may walk in more keyed up rather than less. Practiced earlier in the day, paired with intentional breathing, and given time to rebound toward parasympathetic balance, it is far more likely to deliver the steadiness they were actually after.
The Line You Do Not Cross
A 2020 randomized controlled trial found whole-body cryotherapy improved mood and quality-of-life measures when added to pharmacological treatment for people in a depressive episode. The finding is promising, and it is also precisely where coaches need to be most disciplined.
Cold exposure does not replace therapy, medication, or comprehensive mental healthcare. It may help some individuals regulate stress physiology and build self-efficacy. Those are different claims, and the gap between them is where your credibility lives. When a client is genuinely struggling, a plunge is not what they need from you. What they need is a referral.
How to Coach It
Start with screening. Cardiovascular disease history, uncontrolled hypertension, arrhythmias, a history of fainting or panic responses to intense physiological sensation, Raynaud’s phenomenon or other circulatory disorders, and pregnancy all require medical clearance before a client goes anywhere near this.
For everyone else, start absurdly small. Fifteen to thirty seconds of cool-to-cold water at the end of a warm shower, slow, deep breathing to manage the gasp reflex, and gradual increases that are not daily by default. Track sleep, mood stability, recovery, and stress perception.
Let it stay optional. The moment cold exposure becomes a test of whether someone is tough enough, you have lost the thread.
“We are practicing regulation here, not proving toughness. If your nervous system feels worse afterward, we adjust, or we stop. You get to choose the dose.”
— A coaching cue for clients starting cold exposure
The goal was never to endure the cold. The goal is to build the capacity to meet hard things and come back from them. If the plunge is not doing that for a specific person, then for that person, it is not working, regardless of what your feed says.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does cold exposure actually do to the brain?
Cold exposure triggers sympathetic nervous system activation, which increases norepinephrine signaling and drives the alertness people report after a plunge. A 2024 review in The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences describes cold-water immersion as activating multiple hormone and neurotransmitter systems, including norepinephrine and dopamine, and frames neurohormesis as a possible mechanism for adaptive benefit. Research from 2023 also found that mood improvements following cold-water immersion correlated with changes in functional brain connectivity across networks governing emotion regulation and attention.
Is cold therapy appropriate for every client?
It is not. Many clients are already living in a chronically sympathetically activated state due to poor sleep, under-fueling, and unmanaged life stress, and for those individuals, cold exposure can function as additional stress on an already taxed system rather than as recovery. Cold exposure also requires medical clearance for anyone with a cardiovascular disease history, uncontrolled hypertension, arrhythmias, a history of fainting or panic responses, circulatory disorders such as Raynaud’s phenomenon, or who is pregnant. Screening comes before enthusiasm, and the practice should remain optional rather than framed as a test of toughness.
When should a client do cold exposure for the best mental benefit?
Timing matters more than most coaches realize. Research from 2023 found that positive mood did not always increase immediately after cold-water immersion, but that cortisol and negative mood were both lower several hours later. A client who plunges immediately before a high-stress obligation may enter it with residual sympathetic activation and feel more keyed up rather than calmer. Practicing earlier in the day, pairing it with intentional breath regulation, and allowing time for the system to rebound toward parasympathetic balance is more likely to produce the emotional steadiness clients are seeking.
Where is the line between cold exposure and mental health treatment?
Cold exposure is a physiological regulation tool, not a substitute for therapy, medication, or comprehensive mental healthcare. A 2020 randomized controlled trial found whole-body cryotherapy improved mood and quality-of-life measures when added to pharmacological treatment for people in a depressive episode, but that finding describes an addition to care, not a replacement for it. When a client is genuinely struggling, the coach’s job is to refer, not to program around it.
About Jessica H. Maurer
Jessica is a recognized fitness business consultant and strategist focusing on transforming businesses from overwhelmed to organized. Her international presentations, workshops, certifications, and consultations underscore her commitment to helping fitness professionals and businesses realize their full potential. When Jessica takes the stage, she’s sharing fresh ideas and inspiration that spark positive change. Jessica’s international presentations and consultations are about growth, career transformation, overall wellness, and making fitness a joyful journey. Her expertise spans education, program and instructor development, and brand evolution, making her a key player in elevating the industry. Jessica also played a pivotal role in developing the Mental Well-being Association’s certification for Fitness Professionals., always striving to bring a holistic approach to wellness that’s as uplifting as it is effective.
Jessica has presented at prestigious events like IDEA World, Fitnessfest ACSM Health & Fitness Summit, SCW Mania, AsiaFit, and more. She has worked with brands such as FIT4MOM, SFR, BOSU, Lebert Fitness, Savvier Fitness, SCW Fitness, FitSteps, canfitpro, IDEA, and VIBES music. She also has written content for the IDEA Fitness Journal, canfitpro Magazine, Mental Well-being Association, FIT4MOM, Motherly, and more.
