Hot or Cold? Which is Better for Pain?
A cold plunge or hot tub soak? Wondering which is better for you? Or can you benefit from both? In this article, we learn about the benefits of both and how it can be super beneficial to go from one to the other.
You can go from hot tub to cold plunge or sauna to cold plunge and enjoy the best of both worlds. This is especially true if you are like one of the millions of Americans suffering from back, neck, shoulder, or foot pain. We look at how to manage your pain with both cold and hot options.
The Types of Pain
At one time or another in your life, you will encounter acute pain. This type of pain is short-lived and usually related to an injury in your body.
If you have chronic pain, you know this is long-term and often occurs in your spine or your joints. You may have chronic pain due to injury, health complications, arthritis, old age, or even something else. Both types of pain include the following:
- If you have inflammatory pain, your body is responding to injury or overexertion. It can occur anywhere in your body.
- Radicular pain may be a pain in your body that is affected by a mental factor.
- Neuropathic pain is often related to diabetes and includes pressure, burning, or shooting that is caused by nerve damage.
- Nociceptive pain is often acute pain and comes from tissue damage.
Whatever pain you are experiencing, acute or chronic, you may find it nearly impossible to find natural pain relief. You are miserable, but you don’t want to take a narcotic pain medicine.
Where do you start? A good place to begin is with heat and cold.
The Cold Water Plunge
Cold water therapy or cold hydrotherapy is the practice of using water that’s around 59°F to treat health conditions or stimulate health benefits. It makes you feel amazing!
The Ideal Water Care Solo Plunge is cold water therapy. When you use an ice bath, you find that it decreases pain by lowering your skin and muscle temperature and reducing blood flow. Cold water therapy numbs your nerve endings so they can’t tell your brain you’re in pain. As an added benefit, cold water reduces inflammation and swelling.
Ice water has also been found to boost your immune responses, so sometimes you can avoid pain in the future. Consider soaking in a cold tub after you exercise as a natural pain remedy.
Other ways a cold plunge soak helps:
- It flushes lactic acid from your body.
- Cold water reduces swelling.
- It helps speed up the healing process.
- Cold water therapy reduces muscle soreness.
The Hot Tub or Sauna
Heat is the opposite of cold. So, when you soak in a hot tub or sauna, you increase the temperature of your skin and muscles. This enlarges your blood vessels, increasing your circulation. This means oxygen and nutrients flee to the area where you feel pain to speed up healing.
Heat promotes healing, reduces stress, and encourages muscle repair. Whether it’s the wet heat of a hot tub or the dry heat of a sauna, heat does the following:
- Speeds muscle repair.
- Reduces pain.
- Calms stress and anxiety.
- Helps you sleep better.
- Increases blood flow.
Which One Should I Choose?
We can simplify this for you. First, cold is usually better for acute injuries right after they happen. You are usually swollen and have inflammation, so cold helps with this.
Heat is better after ice and definitely when you have chronic pain, or you are stiff, achy, or tense.
Choose a cold water soak for:
- Acute injuries right after they happen, much like you’d use an ice pack.
- For plantar fasciitis relief.
- To soothe sore areas after a workout.
Choose a hot water soak for:
- Chronic conditions and chronic pain.
- After a workout, when you have post-workout or delayed onset muscle soreness.
When You Should Combine Them
You can use cold and heat together to supercharge your results. This is called contrast therapy. For example, you can sit in your cold plunge and then move to the hot tub or sauna.
You might also use cold water therapy in the morning and hot water therapy in the evening. Going from a hot tub or sauna to a cold plunge has great benefits.
You may find that you can repair sore muscles more quickly by altering your therapies. Do be sure not to overuse them. The cold plunge should be used sparingly (less than five minutes), while a hot tub or sauna can be used for 15 minutes.
Always speak with your doctor before beginning cold or heat therapy and get their advice as to what is best for you!
Don’t have a cold plunge, hot tub, or sauna? Come see us! We have all three. You’ll even find a dual plunge with one side cold and one hot!
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