BEAUTIFUL ICY CHILL OUTS
Freeze negative energy:
1. Imagine one large block of ice melting from head to toe to cover every part of your body.
2. Make the layer of ice over your skin transparent
This simple guided exercise, from Cube Hills, is a literal illustration of the mind-cooling effects of meditation. It is also found to help aid fever, heartburn and arthritis.
Meditation cools down a hot and busy mind. And now, it’s being used to cool out the angers and frustrations of prisoners. It’s having a dramatic positive impact on both their physical and mental health.
The Journal of Psychiatric Research, reported that prisoners who completed a 10-week course in yoga had “less stress and better moods, and also performed better on a behavior-control task compared with their non-yoga-doing peers.” The hope is that meditation can help them live happier lives outside of prison as well.
Photo: by Erich Ferdinand. “snowy garden meditative bookmark.”
Meditation is a wonderful way to chill out -- kind of put your thoughts on “ice” for a while. It can refresh, revive, and rejuvenate your mind, body, and soul. We’ve become big fans and avid devotees of Calm, an app that lets you tap into meditation for just 10 minutes a day, with super-interesting guided meditations, sleep stories, and helpful ideas that can help you chill out in any situation.
So, why don’t you just chill out and consider someone else’s view for a change!? You can do it better by having a nice cold drink first. Really!
Cold water helps us see other people’s points of view. A study published in an issue of the Dutch psychological journal Acta Psychologica reports that when humans are exposed to cooler temperatures, they grow more vulnerable to outside influence.
We form our own perspectives and opinions by a process called “egocentric anchoring.” As we chill, we reduce our egocentric anchoring, which enables us to better consider and adopt another’s point of view, according to lead researcher, Claudia Sassenrath, of the University of Ulm in Germany.
Previous studies suggest that physical coldness is associated with “social distance.” If we want to feel warmer, we need to get closer to other people, in mind, if not just in body. Offering someone a cold drink on a hot day might do more than you think to endear them to you.
Get colder still. Immerse in spectacular pools in temperatures of no higher than 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit.
The "cold plunge" trend is a revival of one that began thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, Rome, China, and the Ottoman Empire. Korean Jjimjilbangs (찜질방) have been offering plunge pools and ice rooms as part of their spa service for centuries. The “Polar Bear Club” has continued an annual cold plunge tradition by jumping, naked, into the freezing ocean on New Year’s Day.
State-of-the-art athletic training facilities, like Aquarius Health Medi-Spa, and über-luxe spas, like Hoar Cross, are now catering to a growing desire to take a cold plunge.
Photo: Courtesy of Criosauna
Cryotherapy
Cryotherapy is a curative health and beauty treatment involving extremely low temperatures (-120 to -160 degrees Celsius). Short-term freezing of the skin’s surface leads to the immediate release of endorphins and adrenaline. Whole Body Cryotherapy is a new trend in Sports & Fitness because it has been found to improve muscle recovery time and enhance performance.
Cryo Health, a new cryotherapy clinic in the Emirates Towers in Dubai, offers customers cryofacials, whole body cryotherapy, and local cryotherapy. Criosauna offers four clinics in Romania.
Get ready to plunge your entire body into an antechamber for one to three minutes. That’s just to get you revved and ready for the real deal, a chamber cooled, by liquid nitrogen from -120° to -160°Celsius. What about frostbite, you wonder? A face mask, a headband to cover the mouth and ears, gloves, socks, and clogs are issued to protect your extremities. Your skin has to be bone dry when you enter. Any residual water will freeze instantly and can damage your tissues. Because it gives you a major metabolic surge, enabling you to burn 400 to 800 calories a single treatment, whole body cryotherapy is being used to aid in weight loss programs.
If you’d like your own cryosauna, try these from Life of Millennium. You can try one out at Playtri, a store that caters to triathlon athletes, as one of their Recovery Services offered.
Here’s a list of what cryotherapy might do for you:
SPORTS & FITNESS
-
Increase in muscle strength
-
Increase in performance
-
Allows for more intense and higher volume training
-
Improves immune system
-
Reduction of the regeneration stage
-
Reduction of pain, muscle soreness & inflammation
HEALTH & WELLNESS
-
Reduce stress
-
Reduce anxiety
-
Reduce depression
-
Increase in oxygen and nutrients around the body
-
Improved circulation
-
Improved release of endorphins for natural pain relief
-
Increased libido
-
Increased metabolism and caloric burn
BEAUTY
-
Increase in collagen production
-
Reduction of cellulite
-
Tighter and healthier skin
-
Fewer skin blemishes
Photo: by _dChris. “Blick ins Salzkammergut.”
And finally, for today, music is a great chiller-outer. We like this list: 25 Years of Chillout Music. Aaaahhhhhh......
Read more about Ice Ice Baby all this week on BeautifulNow, including Our Travel Ice Bucket List. And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Wellness, Impact, Nature/Science, Food, Arts/Design, and Travel, Daily Fix posts.
Want more stories like this? Sign up for our weekly BN Newsletter, Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. Join our BeautifulNow Community and connect with the most beautiful things happening in the world right now!
Do you have amazing photos? Enter them in this week’s BN Photo Competition.
