Saunas and Cold Plunges for Entrepreneurial Success

Entrepreneurship demands all sorts of physical and mental challenges—perseverance, creativity, mental clarity, and stress management. But most importantly, entrepreneurs must maintain overall health. And balancing the stress of building and maintaining a business while staying productive is no easy feat.

Fortunately, both the health benefits of saunas and the health benefits of cold plunges have become increasingly validated by modern science. Continue reading to learn how entrepreneurs can use saunas and cold plunges as a game-changing part of their path to success.

Harness Dopamine to Improve Work Drive and Performance

Entrepreneurs need a powerful drive to stay motivated, perform well, and push through obstacles. Dopamine is commonly thought of as a “pleasure” neurotransmitter. In reality, however, dopamine is one of the most powerful neurotransmitters for modulating our neural pathways of effort and reward.

This study found that “elevating dopamine function enables a dynamic motor adaptation in response to an environmental reward.” In other words, when dopamine is elevated, humans are willing to work harder for a reward.

Cold plunges have been shown to increase dopamine levels by up to 250%. This spike in dopamine (and other catecholamines such as epinephrine and norepinephrine) can significantly improve drive (as well as mental clarity), enabling entrepreneurs to stay on top of their workload.

Furthermore, the research in this article found that “individuals with higher dopamine levels tend to exhibit more perseverance.” Simply put, optimizing your dopamine levels increases motivation and drive and increases your ability to work harder for longer.

But it’s not just the dopamine rush from cold plunges that can increase work capacity. This study tested a sauna’s effects on work efficiency by having the participants perform a “mental task.” The researchers found that “morning mist sauna bathing improves work efficiency” compared to sauna use later in the day or no sauna use at all.

How Saunas and Cold Plunges Increase Perseverance

Succeeding as an entrepreneur requires resilience, perseverance, and the ability to overcome obstacles. The stress endured in professional life can take a toll, but building resilience in one area of your life can directly translate into other parts of your life. In other words, when you do difficult things outside of the workplace, it becomes easier to do difficult things inside the workplace.

Recent research has studied “tenacity”—the ability to persist in the face of challenges—and the role of the anterior mid-cingulate cortex (aMCC) within it. This study found that the “aMCC can be ‘trained up’ in the domain of exercise,” but also that the high level of plasticity (i.e., the ability for the brain area to reshape itself by creating new neural pathways) allows the aMCC to improve tenacity in other aspects of life. This means that when we engage in difficult behaviors, our brain physically changes and becomes more efficient at doing other harder things.

Putting the neuroscience talk aside, it should come as no surprise that purposefully engaging in challenging activities builds grit and determination. So where do sauna and cold plunge come into play?

It takes perseverance to withstand the heat of a sauna or the cold of an ice bath. The initial shock of a cold plunge is enough to get most people to want to jump out immediately. But using cold plunges and saunas challenges the body and mind to push through discomfort, building physical and mental fortitude.

Andrew Huberman even came up with a protocol for building such endurance using a cold plunge. He calls it the “counting walls” approach, which entails counting each moment of resistance as a “wall.” When your brain tells you not to get in before you’re even in the cold plunge, but you still get in, that’s a “wall” you’ve overcome. When you get in and immediately want to get out but stay in, that’s another “wall” you’ve overcome. And so on and so forth.

The same principle applies to enduring the extreme heat of a sauna.

When you overcome the mental and physical challenges of integrating sauna and cold plunge into your wellness routine, other challenges in life become easier. Entrepreneurs can take advantage of this principle to build the mental and physical resilience to overcome the many hurdles of business life and succeed in the face of adversity.

How Sauna and Cold Plunges Can Relieve Stress

Stress management is a critical aspect of entrepreneurship. The physical, emotional, and mental demands of running a business and making tough decisions can lead to chronic stress. If left unchecked, chronic stress can and will negatively affect your work life—decision-making, creativity, and productivity—but it will even negatively affect your physical health.

Luckily, both saunas and cold plunges can help relieve stress by decreasing cortisol and increasing endorphins.

Cortisol is an important hormone that plays an integral role in maintaining our health. But when it remains elevated, it can contribute to negative health outcomes. Luckily, both saunas and cold plunges have been shown to reduce cortisol levels.

This study found that cold-water immersion at 14°C “did not increase blood concentrations of cortisol.” Rather, it found that “cortisol concentrations tended to decrease.” Furthermore, this study found that cortisol levels were lower than baseline at three hours after cold-water immersion and concluded that “an acute bout of cold-water immersion [of 15 minutes at 10°C] may benefit mental health by reducing negative feelings and cortisol levels.”

And while cold plunges decrease cortisol, saunas promote a strong increase in endorphins. Endorphins are naturally occurring pain-relief hormones that our bodies release during times of pain or stress. 

This study concluded that “sauna use has perceived health benefits that vary from generalized effects such as relaxation, stress relief, … and improving mental health.” Furthermore, this cross-sectional study found that most sauna users “reported health benefits, especially around mental well-being (and sleep).”

This study found that “the psychological impact of sauna bathing may be due to a combination of factors that include the release of endorphins… forced mindfulness, psychological stress reduction, relaxation, improved sleep, time out from busy life schedules, placebo effects, and other aspects of individual psychological and social interactions that likely occur around frequent sauna activity.” Simply put, using a sauna is exactly what most entrepreneurs would benefit from!

How Saunas and Cold Plunges Improve Immune Function

A strong immune system is crucial for entrepreneurs who need to maintain a high level of productivity. Getting sick means taking time off, losing valuable workdays, and falling behind on goals. Luckily, saunas boost immune function, making you less susceptible to common colds or the flu.

Saunas promote the production of white blood cells, which are often called our body’s “first line of defense,” and are vital in fighting infections and illnesses. Regularly using saunas will help your body maintain optimal white blood cell production, thus lowering your risk of sickness.

Cold plunges, on the other hand, trigger the body’s production of norepinephrine. And this study found that “norepinephrine has been shown to modulate immune cell responses leading to increased anti-inflammatory and blunting of pro-inflammatory effects.”

No one likes being sick, but entrepreneurs have more to lose than a typical employee by calling in sick. Using saunas and cold plunges to optimize your immune system enables you to keep a regular work schedule without illness setting you back.

How Sauna and Cold Plunges Improve Sleep

Some entrepreneurs think sacrificing sleep in the name of productivity is the way to succeed, but nothing could be further from the truth. High-quality sleep is one of the most important aspects on a path to success, as it’s essential for mental clarity, emotional balance, and overall cognitive (and physical) performance.

Fortunately, both saunas and cold plunges can have a profound effect on improving sleep quality, which in turn can enhance your work performance.

Using a sauna in the evening relaxes the muscles and encourages the release of endorphins, creating a state of relaxation that promotes deeper sleep. In fact, this study found that 83.5% of respondents reported sleep benefits after sauna use.

Matt Walker, a sleep expert and author of Why We Sleep, has emphasized the importance of body temperature regulation in achieving high-quality sleep. Saunas naturally raise body temperature, but it drops after you exit, mimicking the body’s natural cooling process before sleep.

Cold plunges also help regulate the nervous system by stimulating the parasympathetic response, which promotes relaxation. This is doubly as important for busy entrepreneurs who only have time to exercise in the evenings. 

Exercise activates your sympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system, which isn’t ideal in the hours leading up to bed. But if you must work out in the evenings, cold plunging can help you switch from sympathetic to parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) as well as help you recover from your workouts.

Optimizing your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activity not only improves your ability to perform during hours of wakefulness but also helps you recover by improving your quality of sleep. And optimal sleep is a crucial part of maintaining cognitive performance, focus, and energy levels during the day.

Incorporating Sauna and Cold Plunges Into Your Routine

Incorporating saunas and cold plunges into your wellness routine can provide numerous direct and indirect benefits for entrepreneurs. Integrating these practices into your life will help you maintain mental and physical health—two pillars of achieving entrepreneurial success.

The benefits from saunas tend to be seen above 150°F and 120°F depending on whether you use a traditional or infrared sauna. Most studies recommend durations between 10 and 20 minutes.

Most cold plunge benefits begin below 59°F but can be seen with much shorter durations (adrenaline release happens almost immediately!). However, Andrew Huberman recommends a total of 11 minutes per week distributed over at least two or three sessions.

The fact of the matter is that for the little bit of time these practices take, they can provide incredible benefits for any entrepreneur. Of course, there are numerous benefits of contrast therapy—combining sauna use and cold plunges—if you really want to elevate your wellness routine.

Check out our Listings page for sauna and cold plunge locations near you!