As it’s heating on up I thought it might be refreshing to chill things down a bit over here and talk about waves … and no, not the ones in the ocean. This wave is zero percent salty and is so much “cooler” (that’s an understatement). In fact, it’s about -260 degrees!
Last week I paid a visit to Cryo Wave Manhattan Beach for a little whole-body cryotherapy.
What’s cryotherapy you ask?
Non-scientifically speaking, it’s stepping into a freezing cold chamber for a couple of minutes to shock the nervous system and get your blood moving! Think of it like a cold plunge x 1,000,000.
Step 1 is robing up. I headed to a locker room to take off all my clothes, except for my undies (wasn’t sure which word to use there), and then put on a robe, knee-high socks, clogs and mittens.
I felt like I was being transported to Arendelle’s local Burke Williams … and kind of loved it!
Very spa-meets-Sven chic.
Then I was brought to a large black “sauna” – they call it – but really it looks like a life-size witches’ cauldron with dry ice and magic spells frothing out and over it.
The feeling of maybe being turned into a potion or the guinea pig for an Austin Powers-like science experience brought an immediate and full-on adrenaline rush. But once I got in, the mood quickly switched to arctic. Think Antarctica. In an igloo. Minus the fire.
I was instantly surrounded by ice-like walls, giving off a very bearable “dry”-cool. My head popped out of the top, making me look like the garnish to some sort of trendy molecular-mixology martini.
The total runtime was two minutes, and I was told to rotate every thirty seconds, so that kept everything moving. Literally.
I thought I was invincible until about 1:15 when my body started shaking things up. By 1:30 I knew I was actually freezing but I only had 30 seconds to go!
The feeling when you’re done, re-robed and descending from the “sauna” stairs is pure euphoria. No other way to describe it.
And that’s just from 2 minutes!!!
They say it takes your body around 4 hours to fully re-heat and in that time you can burn an additional 500-800 calories (not making this up!).
Other benefits? Well the list is long:
http://www.cryowavecenters.com/benefits-of-wbc/
My favorites are:
- Soreness relief.
- Boosted metabolism.
- Skin blemish and skin tone improvement.
The real thing I noticed though was that I felt highly caffeinated for the rest of the day. On a bit of an eight-cups-of-coffee high, that wasn’t going away.
I’m hooked, to say the least.
This IS a big budget item, unfortunately, with a single session starting at $65 BUT you can also buy packages or a monthly membership that gets each cryo all the way down to $15/freeze.
If you live in the Los Angeles area, I HIGHLY recommend taking a trip to Cryo Wave to try it out for yourself. And if you’re not? Google “cryotherapy near me” and you should get some hits!
Figuring out if this could count as a wedding budget item 😉 XO,
Alex
6. The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway