Will Immersing Your Head in Ice Improve Your Mental State?
We’re testing out a lot of hacks from the youthful abyss of TikTok, but today we’re trying something so austere that it was covered in The Gray Lady. (I am assuming this woman does not have a TikTok account yet, as we had to read the written excerpt.)
In an article titled “ Five Minute Coronavirus Stress Relief, ” Jenny Taitz describes some simple ways to deal with the agony [gestures wildly] of whatever happens. While some of the tricks sound like they can’t hurt, like taking deep breaths slowly, some of the tips popped up as … odd.
Did I say weird? I was referring to the “mild form of torture.”
In the interest of journalism, we decided to test these methods. After a harmless slow breathing exercise, we tried to do the opposite by breathing through a straw for a minute. (The article suggests using a coffee stirrer , but we couldn’t even get through a full minute with a regular straw.) The article says that “once you learn to welcome physical symptoms all the time, you stop seeing them as catastrophic.” All in all, if you don’t die from this exercise, you will learn how easy it is to overcome it. Certainly.
Finally, we tested the technique that Lifehacker Editor-in-Chief Alice Bradley wants to be shown on camera over the course of several weeks. We dipped our heads into the icy water. The author says that this “activates your body’s response to immersion , a reflex that occurs when you cool your nostrils while holding your breath, lowering your physiological and emotional intensity.” Or is everything as bad as it seems? Watch the video above to find out.