Cold plunging for health: Dr. Jaime Seeman's guide to wellness
There are a lot of things that you can buy to improve your health — supplements, workout clothes, gym memberships. It takes dedication, though, to put those things to use and get results.
Dr. Jaime Seeman, known as Dr. Fit and Fabulous on social media, understands this better than most. A lifelong athlete, Dr. Seeman played collegiate softball and twice won the lifter of the year. Life changed, though, as she went on to medical school, got married, and became a mom of three. She discovered that she was struggling with the same metabolic disease as her patients.
“I could see it. I could feel it. But I told myself that I would just take care of it when I had more time,” she says in her TedX talk. “And so many of us let ourselves believe that we have a lot of time.”
Now, the Nebraska-based physician has made it her mission to inspire and motivate people to lead healthier lives. Through her personal experience and her five pillars of health, she wants to help people become physically, mentally, and spiritually strong.
It’s not just about eating a whole-food based diet or lifting weights in the gym, although nutrition and movement are a part of the five pillars she shares in her book “Hard to Kill.” Sleep, environment, and mindset are also pivotal to changing your health.
One key practice that she champions is cold plunging. This practice helps accelerate recovery and reduce inflammation, as well as build resilience and improve your mindset. Designed to bring the advantages of cold water immersion into your home, a Michael Phelps Chilly GOAT Cold Tub offers a convenient and effective way to incorporate cold plunging into your wellness routine.
Athlete to advocate: A path to cold plunging
Before she was Dr. Fit and Fabulous, before she was a board-certified obstetrician, Dr. Jaime Seeman was a softball player at the University of Nebraska.
The Nebraska native was was one of the Huskers’ top pinch runners, playing from 2003 to 2007. With a willingness to work hard, she earned a reputation for her dedication to the team and doing what it took to be her best on the field.
It was then, while playing at Nebraska, that Dr. Seeman was introduced to ice baths.
“When I was a collegiate athlete, we used to have an ice bath that we would use after training sessions,” she says. “It was used as a recovery modality, but we would really get in like to our knees or to our thighs.
“We'd always challenge each other to get in further, but it was never like full-body submersion.”
The benefits of cold water immersion go beyond helping athletes speed their recovery. For those on a wellness journey, it can help reduce stress, increase energy levels, and support immunity.
“As I got back into trying to take care of myself, learning how to eat again, how to train again, I started to use other modalities to increase my resilience to stress and just my overall wellness,” Dr. Seeman says. “So I started to look into ice baths again, and I started with cold showers.”
Cold showers, though, are often the first step toward a cold water routine. Showers allow you to gradually increase your tolerance to colder temperatures and make the idea of cold plunges more approachable.
For Dr. Seeman, she went from cold showers to creating a DIY cold plunge. Putting a horse trough on her porch, she and her family were able to start doing full-body submersions.
“And then I eventually invested in my Chilly GOAT,” she says.
A cold tub like the Michael Phelps Chilly GOAT Cold Tub by Master Spas makes cold plunging more sustainable. With a 2.1-horsepower chiller, Chilly GOAT Cold Tubs are designed to maintain a controlled cold water temperature.
“I don't have to haul ice out to the horse trough on the porch like we used to,” Dr. Seeman says. “And it's really easy to maintain, too, which is important.”
‘Hard to Kill’ and mastering your health
Dr. Seeman doesn’t go to the gym to get better at exercise. A competitor on NBC’s “The Titan Games,” a competition reality series hosted by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, she goes to the gym because “doing hard things in the gym makes life easier.”
Dr. Seeman says that you can apply the same perspective to incorporating cold plunging into your wellness routine.
“Nobody wants to get into 46-degree water,” she says. “But when we do that and show ourselves that we can overcome those barriers that we continually set upon ourselves, it really creates a mental resilience. I think it is so important.”
What happens to your body when you get into a cold tub?
“The reason that I love cold therapy is because something called cold shock proteins get released,” Dr. Seeman says.
Cold shock proteins are the body’s stress response to being exposed to cold. Made up of amino acids, cold shock proteins are responsible for some of the physiological benefits of ice baths and cold plunges. Among those benefits are reduced inflammation, improved immunity, and wound healing.
“We have immune cells that get released,” she continues. “We get a huge dopamine effect. So it really boosts your mood a ton.”
Are you Team Morning or Team Evening when it comes to going in the cold tub?
“I've played with the timing of my cold plunges, doing it in the evenings versus doing it in the mornings,” says Dr. Seeman, who is also a fellow in integrative medicine and a board-certified ketogenic nutrition specialist.
“The morning cold therapy is the largest cup of coffee you can drink without ingesting that much caffeine. I mean, it is so invigorating. It really just gets me awake, gets me going, gets my brain firing.”
How do you balance your Chilly GOAT sessions with your workout routine?
“We know that cold water immersion therapy can help with recovery, and it can decrease something called delayed onset muscle soreness. So using cold therapy after a session can help with that,” says Dr. Seeman, who incorporates resistance training, HIIT, and sprint intervals into her workouts.
“Now, there is a caveat: We know that if you get in here too quickly after your workout, it can blunt muscle protein synthesis. So we actually don't want to get in here right after the workout. It would be best to space out your Chilly GOAT usage a couple hours from your strength training session.”
How has the Chilly GOAT Cold Tub influenced your environment and community?
“Well, we tend to become a product of our surroundings,” Dr. Seeman says. “So that's why the people, places, and things that we are or that we interact with are so important. The Chilly GOAT has allowed us to create a community around ice water therapy.”
Where did you install your cold plunge?
“We've created almost a sanctuary of health around our Chilly GOAT Cold Tub and Sweaty GOAT Sauna,” she says. “Just walking down into this area just really lifts my spirit so much, and it allows me to just come relax.
“Most people wouldn't think it is relaxing, but it is. It's stepping away from our stressful lives and really focusing some time on ourselves and on our health so that we can go out into the world and do all those awesome things.”
What features of the Chilly GOAT Cold Tub do you find most beneficial?
“Well, the one thing I love about the Chilly GOAT is the fact that I have a place to sit in here. It's not just like this empty basin,” Dr. Seeman says. “I can either put my arms in or not put my arms in. I love that the temperature is adjustable.”
Chilly GOAT Cold Tubs feature a built-in seat and armrests, allowing you to control your descent into the cold water.
With your demanding roles as a physician and a mother, what has your experience been like with the Chilly GOAT Cold Tub?
“It's really been easy to maintain. That's one thing I was worried about because I don't have a lot of time,” she says. “We had to change the water in our horse trough like every week to keep it sanitary.”
Cold tubs are often easier to care for because the chilly water slows down the growth of bacteria and other organics. With an advanced UV water purification system, Chilly GOAT owners enjoy clean, clear water with minimal chemicals.
“It was literally kind of a plug it in and fill it up and we could be in the Chilly GOAT right away.”
