So, you may have heard of whole-body cryotherapy and you have to be thinking to yourself, “Oh my god. Negative 250 degrees? Won’t I die?”. We are here to assure you, no, you will not die. In fact, whole-body cryotherapy is extremely safe when properly used.
Why is cryotherapy safe to use?
If you were to stand in the Arctic tundra while it is negative 40 degrees for an hour without any clothes on, then you will probably end up like a frozen popsicle. That makes sense. You ran out of body heat and your body could not keep up with the extreme temperatures. So, what makes whole-body cryotherapy any different?
Whole-body cryotherapy is a session that last 2-3 minutes and reaches temperatures of around negative 250 degrees. It sounds extremely intimidating and dangerous.
Well, it is not! The main reason why your body is able to withstand these temperatures is because you are not directly dropping the body’s core temperature. The hypercooled air that brushes your skin during the session is only dropping the surface temperature of the skin and you are not in the chamber long enough to experience a dramatic drop in your core body temperature.
This means you are 100% safe to use a whole-body cryotherapy chamber without any worries of you freezing to death.
But what about the girl who died using whole-body cryotherapy?
Hey look, let’s be honest. When not used properly, the temperatures are extremely dangerous.
If you are not familiar with the story, a 24-year old Nevada woman froze to death in a cryotherapy chamber. An extremely sad story.
When you take a closer look at what went wrong, she worked at a cryotherapy center and decided to use the chamber after her shift ended all by herself. Rule #1 – Do not operate the cryotherapy chamber on yourself. You always need a cryotherapy certified person operating the machine for someone else. At Elevated Sauna & Cryotherapy Studio in Las Vegas, all of the staff are trained and certified to properly operate one of these devices. Additionally, their machines come with state-of-the-art safety features to ensure that nobody can be trapped in the machine.
Are there certain health issues that could make it dangerous to use whole-body cryotherapy?
Absolutely! For example, your blood pressure is taken before every session. If you have a history of high blood pressure and regularly find yourself with a systolic blood pressure over 150, then we take extreme caution because a session will raise it about 10-15 points.
Other medical conditions that you should be weary about are if you have heart disease, heart issues, vascular issues, blood clots, strokes, seizures, Raynaud’s Syndrome, an allergy to the cold, pregnant, a fever within the last 24 hours, and any other serious medical conditions.
We always recommend consulting with your primary care physician before starting a new wellness protocol.
So overall, cryotherapy is pretty safe to use?
Not only safe, but extremely healthy for your body. Exposing your body to extreme cold puts your body into a “Fight or Flight” mode and turns on specific longevity genes that help your longevity. Not only that but the exposure to cold is great at reducing inflammation in the body, reducing pain, aiding in recovery, giving you rush of energy, increasing your metabolism, and much more.
Cryotherapy is a necessity if you are looking to improve your overall health, so if you are ever in the Las Vegas area, stop by Elevated and use our state-of-the-art cryotherapy services.
