What to Know About the Cryotherapy Craze

Cryotherapy has been extremely popular with celebrities lately, and many are going after the promised benefits of things like anti-aging, stress reduction, increasing sleep, and beating jet lag. But does it actually deliver?

During a whole body cryotherapy session the person will stand in a chamber that will be filled with cold air. The air is chilled using liquid nitrogen and can get to temperatures as low as minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit. People stay in the cold for anywhere from 1.5 to 3 minutes, and each session can cost $20 to $90 on average.

Cryotherapy was originally pioneered for physical medicine reasons. Those included: helping athletes to recover their muscles and get back in the game stronger and faster, to help treat people with muscular illnesses that could be facing relapse, and to prevent relapses from illness of the pathology variety. Kobe Bryant and Floyd Mayweather are two mega athletes who swear by the process to keep them feeling good.

It’s somewhat similar to the idea of using an ice bath to help the body recover, which is a common practice is sports. Using cryotherapy does have it’s risks however. You can get burned by touching the walls inside the chamber because they get so cold, and some people react poorly to the temperature drop and experience things like rapid heart rate and loss of coordination or mental confusion. It’s technically possible to go into cardiac arrest as the body is shocked by the extreme change in temperature.

One article published in the Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine urged:

“Until further research is available, athletes should remain cognizant that less expensive modes of cryotherapy, such as local ice-pack application or cold-water immersion, offer comparable physiological and clinical effects to [whole body cryotherapy].”

That being said, people are always drawn to the new popular way to improve their life and looks, especially if it involves a quick fix. The concept of treating aging with the cold has been around for quite some time, and in fact Nordic and Eastern countries have used it in an attempt to retain youth for quite some time.

Many who are fans of the process say it’s exhilarating and feels great on the body. Certainly all of the places that provide the service carefully monitor body temperature before and after the process to make sure that it is done as safely as possible.

But the thing is, that while this might be true, the cryotherapy treatments aren’t necessarily tested out for these reasons and we don’t really know a lot about the safety of it.

One thing to keep in mind about the cryotherapy beds is that the manufactures are not required to get the approval of the Food and Drug Administration to sell them, so many of the claims that are made about the process are not guarantees or even proven. And add to that the fact that there aren’t any whole body cryotherapy devices that have been cleared for medical purposes either.

Basically, it could be great…but proceed at your own risk.