We do not offer this. There is no cold plunge, no cryotherapy and no cold-exposure service at Restorative Wellness Center. This page is education, written because patients ask me about it. I am a dentist. My clinical work is jaw joints, facial pain and breathing during sleep, and cold exposure sits outside that. Nothing here is medical advice and nothing here is a protocol for you.
The short answer
The claims made for cold water are much stronger than the trial evidence behind them. That is not the same as saying it does nothing. It means the honest summary is smaller and stranger than the marketing, and the honest summary is what this page is.
I use it myself, most days, and I think it has been good for me. Those two things sit side by side on this page without pretending to be the same kind of statement.
What the best available review actually found
A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of cold-water immersion in healthy adults found a significant increase in inflammation immediately and one hour after immersion, a significant reduction in stress at twelve hours, and no significant effect on stress immediately, at one hour, at 24 hours, or at 48 hours.
Read that again, because it is not the shape anybody expects.
The stress benefit showed up at one time point and not at four others around it. A result that appears at twelve hours and is absent immediately, at one hour, at 24 and at 48 is a thin thread to hang a daily habit on. It might be real. It is not the settled finding the internet says it is.
How much evidence is under that
Eleven studies. The headline participant count is 3,177, and that number needs a caveat in the same breath: 3,018 of them came from a single study. Every other study in the review enrolled only men.
So “3,177 participants” reads like breadth and is not. The authors themselves say the evidence base is limited by few randomized trials, small samples, and a lack of diversity in the people studied.
About that inflammation result
This is the finding most likely to be quoted at you wrongly, in both directions.
Inflammatory markers went up immediately and at one hour. That is an acute measured response in healthy adults, and it is not evidence that cold water prevents healing. Acute inflammation is how repair starts. You need an inflammatory process in order to heal, and that is a different thing from chronic inflammation that never resolves.
What the review measured was markers in healthy people, not healing outcomes in injured ones. Anyone using this result to tell you cold plunging blocks recovery is reading more into it than it holds, and so is anyone using it to tell you cold plunging drives repair.
What it has done for me
This section is personal experience. It is not evidence and it is not a recommendation, and I have kept it separate from the section above deliberately.
I have used cold exposure regularly for a while now. What I notice is mental and emotional more than physical: a sharper, steadier start to the day, and a sense that having done a hard thing early makes the rest of it easier. Whether that is the cold, the discipline of showing up, or simply being awake at that hour, I cannot tell you, and neither can the eleven studies.
I mention it because leaving it out would be its own kind of dishonesty. Plenty of people find this valuable. The point of the section above is not that they are wrong, it is that the trial evidence does not yet carry the weight the marketing puts on it.
Who should not do this without asking a doctor first
Cold water immersion is a cardiovascular event. Getting into cold water causes a sharp involuntary gasp and a rapid rise in heart rate and blood pressure. For most healthy people that passes. It is not a trivial thing for everyone.
Ask your own doctor before starting if any of these apply: any heart condition, any history of arrhythmia, high blood pressure, pregnancy, Raynaud’s or a cold-triggered condition, peripheral neuropathy or reduced sensation, or anything that affects how your body regulates temperature.
And two practical ones that have nothing to do with your medical history. Never do this alone in open water, because the gasp reflex and cold water do not combine well with nobody watching. And do not combine it with alcohol.
I want to be plain about the limits of that list. I am not a cardiologist and I am not your physician. This is the part of the subject where you should want someone with the right training, and that is not me.
Common questions
Does cold plunging reduce inflammation?
In the review above, inflammatory markers went up acutely rather than down. That is a measured response in healthy adults over hours, not a verdict on chronic inflammation or on recovery from injury, and it is a good example of how a mechanism story and a measured result can point in different directions.
How cold, and how long?
The studies in that review used water between 7 and 15 degrees Celsius, for anything from 30 seconds to two hours. That is not a protocol, it is a description of how varied the research is. There is no established dose here, and anyone giving you a confident one is ahead of the evidence.
Will it help my jaw pain?
Nothing in this literature speaks to jaw pain, and I would not suggest cold immersion for it. If your jaw or face hurts, the useful step is finding out why.
Is a cold shower the same thing?
Not necessarily, and it matters here more than usual. The single study contributing 3,018 of the review’s participants was a shower study, so a large share of that evidence base is showers rather than immersion. Treat conclusions drawn across both with care.
Where to go next
How we grade evidence, and why the restraint above is deliberate, is set out in our editorial standards. The rest of the library is at health optimization.