25/10/2025
At Recovery Hub, we offer a range of cold immersion options for a reason.
Your nervous system responds differently at each level, and how long you stay matters just as much as the temperature. Everybody responds differently!
Sympathetic nervous system → “Fight or flight”
This is your body’s stress mode, it kicks in when you’re in danger or under pressure.
Your heart rate rises, breathing speeds up, and blood flow shifts to help you react.
This is why we don’t push people to “go as long as they can.”
We’d rather see controlled breathing for 10 seconds than irregular breathing for 2 minutes.
When your breath becomes unsteady, your body believes something’s wrong and that’s when the stress response takes over.
Because we want you walking out feeling better than you walked in, we want to avoid going into “Fight or Flight” mode.
Parasympathetic nervous system → “Rest and recover”
This is the calming side. It slows your heart rate, improves digestion, and brings your body back into balance after stress.
When your breathing is steady, your body knows you’re safe and in control of the situation, that’s when the real benefits of cold exposure kick in.
You recover faster, feel calmer, and train your nervous system to handle stress better in daily life.
Applying the same methods in the ice bath, to everyday situations is what we are trying to encourage and achieve. Because if you can breathe through physical pain, imagine what breathing can do while emotionally unregulated.
