“I recommend it to literally everybody.”
Before he found Revivery, Ben D. had only used a sauna in a hotel, where it was a quiet, solitary experience. Everyone sat silently, avoiding conversation and eye contact.
Then he tried the guided sauna and cold plunge experience.
“It became an addictive thing very quickly,” Ben said.
Ben, who works in product management in the tech industry, said he’d heard about the benefits of sauna and cold plunge, so he thought he’d try it out.
Unlike most people, however, Ben wasn’t worried about the cold.
“I was more concerned about the heat,” he said. “I don’t like being super hot, and it was kind of a terrifying thought to me.”
Ben said he remembers when he first sat down in the sauna with the other members and the lead, Annette. He was so overwhelmed by the heat, at first all he registered was that someone was talking. Then, as he sat there in the 200-degree heat, sweat running down his back, he realized Annette was discussing the science behind sauna’s health benefits – both physical and mental.
She told them about how sauna has been shown to improve cardiovascular function and reduce inflammation. Then Annette began asking the group questions about themselves.
“People would answer, and you’d loosen up, and it took the edge off,” Ben said.
Even though it was overwhelming, Ben kept moving between the sauna and the cold plunge with the group, led the entire time by Annette, who also took them through breathwork and meditation exercises.
Then, toward the end of the hour-long session, Ben began to feel something happening to him.
“You’re not quite sure what it is, but it was a good thing. It was very much like a natural high,” he said.
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It’s been more than two years since that first experience, and now Ben goes to the sauna and cold plunge class almost every day.
The reason he keeps coming back, he said, is because of the instructors leading the class, coaching them through breathwork and meditation, offering healthy living tips, and facilitating connections among the members.
“If that didn’t exist, I doubt I would go as much as I do,” Ben said.
He said sitting in the heat and the cold by himself could get boring, and he wouldn’t have the accountability of other people asking where he was if he didn’t show up.
“There’s very much a community aspect that happens to it,” he said.
Part of the reason for the deep connection among people at Revivery sessions is what happens in those hour-long classes as people move from sauna to cold plunge and back again. As the session goes on, Ben said people start to share things. They talk about what’s going on in their lives, both the challenges and the triumphs. Many times people open up and get vulnerable, and when they do, the other members are there to support them. Even though he doesn’t usually share things about his life with most people, Ben said the welcoming environment along with the shared suffering inspires him to open up.
He knows it’s a safe space to be vulnerable because the leads are there, making sure the conversation moves forward while honoring each person’s contribution.
“All of the leads are super well equipped to keep the conversation going and draw stuff out when it’s needed and move along if necessary,” he said.
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His experience with the guided sauna and cold plunge inspired Ben to look further into breathing techniques and try them out on his own. He said it’s opened up a whole new area of his life.
Ben is able to use the breathwork techniques he’s learned and apply them to difficult situations in his life. Whenever he’s feeling frustrated or agitated, or in a contentious meeting or a difficult situation, he finds himself returning to his breath.
“I catch myself starting to do some of these things that you do in the sauna subconsciously. I may just start doing a deep breathing exercise or a box breath or something like that,” he said.
The research supports Ben’s experience.
In 2020 a study by Yale researchers found that participants who practiced breath meditation had better mental health, social connectedness, positive emotions, and stress levels. The participants in the study were also better able to handle stressful situations and think clearly and effectively, even when facing an anxiety-producing scenario.
Learning how to control your breathing is an excellent way to override your body’s feelings of anxiety and stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system, which controls the rest and digest functions in our body. (This is opposite of the fight or flight response, which is regulated by our sympathetic nervous system.) If you are trained to activate your parasympathetic nervous system you can find calm amidst the stress and better handle challenges that come your way.
Breath meditation, box breathing, and breathwork are all skills that require practice. It takes time and repetition to learn these techniques and then use them in the midst of an anxiety-producing scenario. Most of us struggle to fit in a daily breathing practice, and even if we manage to find time for breathwork, we aren’t sure how to begin.
The guided sessions at Revivery work this practice into your life, exposing you to the stressors of hot and cold and teaching you the techniques to find calm. Once you’ve used breathwork to handle a 200-degree sauna and 35-degree water over and over for an hour, week after week, you can begin to use those techniques in the inevitable real-life stressful situations you’ll encounter.
The sessions at Revivery don’t solely prepare you for negative scenarios, however. The practice can also prepare you for more joyous occasions, so you’re ready to participate in whatever adventures come your way.
Ben discovered this when he accompanied his wife on a work trip to the south of France. They went out on a boat in the French Riviera, and were told they could jump in—if they could handle the cold water.
Ben didn’t hesitate. He dove right in and found himself floating in the French Riviera at sunset.
“I thought, man, if I didn’t have sauna and cold plunge, I never would have done that. You’re just not afraid of uncomfortable things,” he said.
