The Best Places To Do Ice Baths and Cold Plunge in Bankok
Bangkok, a hot and bustling city, offers lots of cool coffee shops to escape the heat and cool down. But if you don’t fancy another iced coffee, why not try a cold plunge or ice bath instead? Not only will it cool you down but you’ll feel amazing afterwards.
These are the best places that we know of in Bangkok to get your cold exposure.
Yunomori Onsen & Spa
In our opinion a strong contender for the best Onsen outside of Japan, this a beautiful, peaceful and luxurious experience.
You can get your hot and cold therapy here with several different hot spring baths, a large sauna, and a large cold plunge at a chilly 17 degrees.
There’s also a beautiful traditional japanese garden, a cool relaxation room to chill in once you’re done with the baths, and a cafe. This is a favourite amongst locals and expats alike.
🏆 Most relaxing and beautiful
💰 550 THB
🔗 https://www.yunomorionsen.com/
Healthworld Onsen Spa & Massage
Boasts a large number facilities including hot baths of different temperatures, a massive sauna, big cold plunge, and various interesting rooms to relax in such as the Himalayan Salt room.
A unique selling point of this place is the fact that there is shared unisex area in the middle with sauna, hot baths and a cold plunge which is a game-changer for mixed friend groups and couples alike.
🏆 Best for couples and mixed groups
💰 590 THB
🔗 GoWabi
Silom Sauna
First of all, massive disclaimer - it’s men only. And whilst it might not win any awards for most beautiful spa - it’s old, rustic, and utilitarian in design - and some of the clientele might look like extras from a gangster movie, they have indisputably the hottest sauna in Bangkok and offer the best value for money.
For 250 THB you get access to a very hot sauna, a cold plunge, swimming pool, a plate of fruit and a refreshing drink.
🏆 Excellent value
🏆Hottest sauna (provided you are male)
💰 250 THB
❗️Male Only
Breath Inspired
No list of places to do Ice baths and cold plunges in Bangkok would be complete without mentioning Breath Inspired. Wim Hof has arguably done more than anyone else to popularise Ice Baths as a therapeutic tool, and Breath Inspired offer the authoratitive way to learn the method in Thailand, whilst boasting possibly the largest and coldest ice bath in Bangkok, if not Thailand.
For anyone that wants expert guidance in the Wim Hof Method, this is a must-try. Check the Wim Hof Website for details of upcoming courses and prices.
🏆Best for learning Wim Hof Method
🏆 Best for expert guidance on combining breathwork and icebath
💰1650 THB - includes Breathwork, Ice Bath and Sauna
Bangkok Ice Baths
You probably knew this one was coming. Our mission is to provide the best and most accessible places to do Ice Baths in Bangkok, whilst building a positive supportive community of people. Our events are a great way to connect with other locals and expats and have been featured in BKK Magazine’s ‘Things To Do in Bangkok This Weekend‘ several times.
We have events on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. If that wasn’t enough, we also offer a more private and relaxing experience with Bangkoks first dedicated Ice Bath and Sauna Spas, in partnership with Kate’s Place. PM us to book!
🏆Excellent value
🏆Bangkok’s first Ice Bath and Sauna Spa
💰200 THB - 250 THB
📍Thonglor, Onnut, Ari (See Events for more details)
Guide to taking your first Ice Bath
Everything you need to know about doing your first Ice Bath, including what to expect and tips and tricks.
Doing your first Ice Bath can feel a bit intimidating. Nobody likes the cold. Perhaps you remember a time when your shower accidentally switched from hot to freezing, or you tried to swim in the sea but you couldn’t bring yourself to go lower than your waist. It can be a really unpleasant experience, and one that people generally try to avoid.
But taking an Ice Bath is a completely different experience, and can actually be a very rewarding one. That’s not to say that you won’t feel uncomfortable - you will, but keep in mind that it’s from that discomfort that you get a lot of the amazing benefits we talk about here. It’s different because instead of trying to avoid the cold and discomfort, you are deliberately putting yourself in this situation. You are in control.
In this guide, we’ll assume that you’re already motivated to do take an Ice Bath. (If you’re still a bit skeptical, you can read more about benefits of Ice Baths). We’ll start with what you can expect, and then some tips for how to deal with it. Knowing what to expect will make it much easier.
Table of Contents:
Wet your face before getting into the Ice Bath, activating the Mammalian Dive Reflex
Get into the ice bath quickly, and brace for the cold shock
Calm yourself down with deep breathing
Keep your hands out the water at least for your first few ice baths
Remember that the first 30 seconds are the worst, and it will only get easier from there
If you get intense sensations in your feet or other parts, just remember it won’t get worse
Don’t stay in for longer than 10 minutes, or much after you start shivering, whichever comes first
If you want to do it at home, you could use your bathtub (if you have one), something portable like this or the one we use at our events, the Arctic Ice Bath.
You could grab some bags of ice from 7/11, but you’re going to need quite a few, especially if you’re doing this in Thailand where the tap water temperature is around 30 degrees. If you’re serious about doing Ice Baths regulary we recommend contacting one of the any Ice companies that deliver ice to restaurants. We’ll happily share the details of the ice company we use, just drop us a message.
Be careful not to fill your bath tub with too much water. The more water you use the more ice you will need to lower the temperature. Experiment with filling your bath tub half way and then adding the ice.
How cold should an Ice Bath be?
As a general rule of thumb, the Ice Bath should be ‘uncomfortably cold but safe’. This can range between 15 degrees and 4 degrees depending on the individual. It’s unnecessary and potentially risky to go below 4 degrees.
The first 30-60 seconds
When you first get into the Ice Bath, it’s a bit of a shock. As anyone who has swam in a cold swimming pool or sea, it’s best to get in quickly and get the initial cold shock out of the way quickly. The cold shock occurs as your body senses the huge temperature shift, and immediately sounds the alarm. Your sympathetic nervous system is activated, and you get a rush of adrenaline and noreprinephrine which accelerates your heart rate and quickens your breathing. It's your body's way of preparing to either face the threat or run away.
You may feel a build up of anxiety in the chest as your breathing gets quicker and more shallow. At this point you may feel an almost overpowering urge to jump out. With deep breathing you can learn to manage this feeling and calm yourself. Indeed, one of the benefits of Ice Baths is learning how to quickly manage stress.
30 seconds - 2 minutes
As the initial cold shock starts to subside, you may become aware of discomfort in your hands, feet, or other extremeties. The most common source of discomfort is in the hands. If your hands start to feel too uncomfortable.- as they do for most people - you can raise them out of the water - like you’re impersonating a lobster.
The second most common locale for discomfort is the feet. A few things to keep in mind:
1) The discomfort will not get worse than it already is and will gradually get better. We’re used to pain signals indicating that we should stop doing something, and if we keep doing it then it will only get worse. A good example is when you put your hand on a flame. But taking Ice baths is not like that - whatever discomfort you feel at the beginning is the worse it’s going to get, and it will hopefully get better over time
2) Focus on deep breathing, it helps. Really.
Approx 2 minutes onwards
After you’ve got past the initial cold shock response, the body starts to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, reward and motivation. You should start to feel a bit calmer, and you might even feel a bit high. If you get this far, it should be a lot easier and you might even start to enjoy the experience. Eventually you’ll start to shiver, a sign that it’s time to get out.
Breathing
Deep breathing is your most powerful weapon when you take an Ice Bath. Rapid or shallow breaths can amplify feelings of anxiety during that intial cold shock. Deep breathing helps you calm down and deactivates the fight or flight response, making it much easier to resist the urge to jump out.
Deep (Diaphragmatic) Breathing Technique:
Place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach.
Breathe in slowly through your nose, aiming to expand your stomach outward. You should feel the hand on your stomach rise more than the one on your chest. This ensures you're filling your lower lungs and engaging the diaphragm.
Exhale slowly through your mouth. As you exhale, your stomach should contract inward.
The Mammalian Dive Reflex
Let me introduce your new secret weapon that will make you sound like a marine biologist when you mention it to others. The Mammalian Dive Reflex is a physiological response shared by aquatic mammals and humans that evolved to help conserve oxygen when diving underwater. The heart rate slows down and blood vessels constrict to preserve oxygen for vital organs - both of which are very useful responses for the Ice Bath. You can activate this Mammalian Dive Reflex by wetting your face with cold water before you get into the Ice Bath.
ice baths in Bangkok
An overview on Ice Baths and Cold exposure including the benefits and risks, how cold and how long, and where in Bangkok you can do it.
Ice Baths are trending. In the past it seemed like only elite athletes and stern men with impressive beards did Ice Baths. Now celebrities like Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian and Harry Styles are touting the benefits. So, what’s all the fuss about? Is it just a fad?
Ice Baths are nothing new. Their ability to aid in muscle recovery and leave you feeling elated and invigorated afterwards have long been known. However, more recently Ice Baths have been studied as a potential weight loss aid and a tool for learning how to deal with stress more effectively.
Despite there not being many places you can do Ice Baths in Bangkok, due to it’s hot and humid climate, Bangkok is probably one of the few places on earth where it might actually be desirable to do an Ice Bath even if there were no other benefits than that it effectively cooled you down..
This article is intended to give you a useful overview of Ice Baths including the benefits, risks and where you can do Ice Baths in Bangkok. If you’ve never taken an Ice Bath before here are some tips and tricks for doing your first ice bath.
Table of contents
”The key is to aim for a temperature that evokes the thought, “This is really cold (!), and I want to get out, BUT I can safely stay in. For some people, that temperature might be 60°F, whereas for others, 45°F.” Andrew Huberman, Stanford University Professor
Essentially, as the name implies, Ice Baths are a combination of Ice and Water, in a large enough container that allows you to fully immerse yourself. We’ve seen a whole array of containers used, from bins to metal troughs to chest freezers!
How cold is cold enough? For this Andrew Huberman, a stanford professor, perfectly summarises it: ”The key is to aim for a temperature that evokes the thought, “This is really cold (!), and I want to get out, BUT I can safely stay in. For some people, that temperature might be 15.5, whereas for others, 7 degrees.” Normally at Bangkok Ice Baths the temperature range from between 4 degrees to 10 degrees. It might be cool to boast to your friends that you did an Ice bath at 0 degrees, but there’s little added benefit to doing so, and risks of hypothermia and frostbite are much higher.
The benefits of Ice Baths are actually the benefits of Cold Exposure in general. This means that you could theoretically take a cold shower or cold plunge. However, taking a cold shower or doing a cold plunge in Thailand is a bit like trying to gain muscle from lifting very light weights. It’s possible, but will take a lot longer, since in most cases the water just isn’t cold enough. Therefore, Ice Baths are probably the most effective, affordable and feasible way to get your dose of Cold Exposure.
Below are the main benefits to Ice Baths:
Boosts Energy, Motivation and Mood
Plunging into cold water triggers a burst of adrenaline and norepinephrine. These brain chemicals make you feel instantly more alert and invigorated. After spending about 5 minutes in the ice you can boost your dopamine levels by up to 250%. This boost in the "feel-good" neurotransmitter can uplift mood, making you feel more positive and motivated.
Strengthened Willpower
Resisting the urge to immediately jump out of the cold water strengthens mental resilience. Over time, this can help in building grit and determination, allowing you to handle discomfort better.
Enhanced Stress Control
Ice Baths are stressful. When you go into the Ice Bath, you activate your sympathetic nervous system or fight or flight response. By deliberately putting yourself in a stressful situation and then calming yourself down with deep breathing, you learn how to manage your body’s stress response better.
Metabolic Boost
You burn extra calories from the body struggling to warm itself back up again after an Ice Bath. Repeated cold exposure can also activate more brown fat, which boosts your metabolism further.
Muscle Recovery
Perhaps the most well-known benefit of Ice Baths, athletes have been using Ice Baths to aid recovery for forever. Ice Baths are thought to speed up recovery by reducing inflammation in the muscles. If you’re a runner or practicing a martial art like Muay Thai reducing inflammation and speeding up recovery is desirable.. However, if you are looking to gain muscle, it might be better to have your Ice Bath at another time, since this may have a small but not insignificant impact on your gains.
Ice Baths can be a very intense experience for some. Anyone who is unsure about their health status should consult a doctor before jumping into an Ice Bath. That being said, for generally healthy people, ice baths are relaively there are two main risks of extreme and prolonged cold exposure, namely frostbite and hypothermia, especially when precautions aren't taken. Frostbite occurs when skin and underlying tissues freeze due to prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures. Hypothermia happens when the body loses heat faster than it can produce, causing a dangerously low body temperature. Symptoms might start with shivering, but as it progresses, you may experience confusion, drowsiness, and difficulty speaking or moving.
At 0 degrees it would take less than 15 minutes to develop hypothermia. At the Bangkok Ice Bath events we limit the Ice Baths to around 4 degrees, and make sure that people don’t do more than 5 - 10 minutes per cycle. At 4 degrees, it would take between 15 and 30 minutes for hypothermia to set in. In terms of frostbite, given that none of our Ice Baths get to freezing point, and we restrict people from staying too long, this is a very low risk.
Bottom line is to be aware of the risks and symptoms, listen to your body, and always be cautious. You can enjoy all of the benefits of Ice Bath without pushing yourself to the extreme.
“Almost all the risks of cold exposure are from greater than 10 minutes and almost all of the benefits can be accrued from cold exposure less than 5 minutes.”
Now that we’ve discussed the benefits and the risks, the question remains, how long should you stay in an Ice Bath? Maybe you’ve seen people staying for 10-15 minutes and wonder if you should be aiming for that. The short answer is: no. Almost all the risks of cold exposure are from greater than 10 minutes and almost all of the benefits can be accrued from cold exposure less than 5 minutes.
The following suggestions assume that the Ice Bath is uncomfortably cold yet safe:
If you are primarily interested in Ice Baths for it’s invigorating and energetic effect, do a few short and intense plunges at very cold temperatures (less than 4 degrees) for less than a minute each time.
If you are interested in the dopamine release, 5 minutes should be sufficient to get a huge increase in dopamine. If you don’t experience increases of dopamine at 5 minutes then the Ice Bath isn’t uncomfortably cold enough. If it’s below 4 degrees and you still don’t feel uncomfortable enough - perhaps because your body has adapted to the cold - you can increase the difficulty by moving your limbs, circulating the water around you. This will significantly increase the intensity.
After reading about the benefits perhaps you’re inspired to do Ice Baths every day, However, for most people this is impractical due to the hassle and expense of ordering enough Ice. So, let’s instead look at the Minimum Effective Dose (MED). Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, having reviewed the scientific literature, suggests a total of 11 minutes deliberate Cold Exposure per week in total. He suggests that this 11 minutes should not be all in one session, but rather in 2-4 sessions lasting 1-5 minutes distributed throughout the week. Of course, you can do longer, but this is the minimum to enjoy the benefits of cold exposure and Ice Baths.
For many, Ice Baths are synonymous with Wim Hof. Many people come along to our Ice Bath events and are suprised to see we’re not all doing the special breathing techniques popularised by Wim Hof. Some of members do, some don’t. The benefits of Ice Baths we talked about earlier are seperate to any benefits you may get from doing the Wim Hof Method. If you’re interested in learning The Wim Hof Method and are based in Bangkok, check out Breath Inspired, the only certified Wim Hof Method instructors in Thailand. They are highly regarded, and boast probably the coldest (0 degrees!) Ice Baths in Thailand.
People have been combining hot and cold therapies for centuries. There are amazing benefits to sauna just by itself. A large study conducted in Finland found that going to the sauna 4 or more times a week for 20 minutes per session was associated with a 18% reduction in the risk of dying from any cause. That’s incredible! Putting these amazing benefits to one side, taking an Ice Bath after being in a hot sauna can be very refreshing and invigorating. We love doing several cycles of hot and cold therapy to get the benefits of cold exposure and the benefits of sauna. At our Wednesday and Saturday events you can warm up after your ice bath with a session in the sauna! Some people wonder if the extreme contrast from sauna to Ice Bath can be harmful to your health. Of course it is a shock to the system, and therefore anyone suffering from a heart condition or uncertain about their health status should consult a doctor first.
As you would expect in the capital of Thailand, there are several options in Bangkok for getting your Cold Exposure and Ice Baths. We’ve made a list of the best places for Ice Baths and Cold Plunge in Bangkok to suit different budgets and individual requirements.
BANGKOK ICE BATH
Bangkok Ice Bath is an Ice Bath Community based in Bangkok that meets regularly to take Ice Baths, meet like-minded people, and enjoy the many benefits of Cold Exposure. We have several community Ice Bath events a week in different parts of Bangkok. It’s a very supportive group, and we have beginners coming all the time. Experienced members are always on hand to give tips and support if it’s your first time.
Bangkok Ice Bath exists to make the benefits of cold exposure accessible to everyone in Bangkok and to build community. We want everyone to join in!