Celebrities Are Freezing Themselves For (Unproven) Health Benefits—So We Did, Too

I recently bumped into a friend who, during our catch-up chat, casually mentioned that she's just come from a cryotherapy session. As she explained herself, I was shocked to not only learn that people have apparently been freezing their bodies in refrigeration chambers for supposed health benefits, but also that I was only just hearing of it. (Stunt journalism is sorta my thing.) Naturally, I’d have to give it a go myself.

Before subjecting myself to sub-zero temperatures (and for a purpose I wasn’t yet clear on), I thought it best to do some research into cryotherapy, lest I wind up like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining. As it turns out, my gut hesitations were not unfounded. In October 2015, an employee at a Partial Body Cooling (PBT) center froze to death in one of the company’s units.

Risking death isn’t something one typically does without a worthwhile impetus behind it, so the benefits of such a process must be amazing, right? Unfortunately, when you Google “proven medical benefits of cryotherapy” a digital tumbleweed rolls across the screen, as this treatment has yet to be clinically tested in any serious way, let alone approved as a viable medical treatment by the FDA. Some companies offering the service were also listing red flag benefits like “weight loss” and “overall wellness.” This was starting to sound like futuristic snake oil.

Still, a slew of testimonials from athletes, veterans, and others afflicted with joint and muscle pains seemed to be building an anecdotal case for the treatment. Smoking pot became a bona fide medical treatment in my lifetime; maybe a dip in a freezer could, too.

I got in touch with US Cryotherapy, a growing national franchise offering cryo services and they agreed to let me sample their services and attempt to demystify this burgeoning industry. The inside of the US Cryotherapy location I visited in Studio City, California, lived up to the futurist-with-just-a-hint-of-dystopia aesthetic I’d been predicting—major Vanilla Sky vibes. The manager Chase McKinzie greeted me and behind him, a young woman in nothing but gloves, socks, a mask, a hat and her underwear was dancing in place, psyching herself up for the her session.

McKinzie explained that she’d be in temperatures as low as -150 degrees Fahrenheit for two-and-a-half minutes in a Whole Body Cooling (WBC) chamber in order to lower her body temperature. The temperatures in these “refrigerators on steroids,” as McKinzie put it, “maximally stimulates the nervous system.” To his credit, when I pressed him further on the science of what would actually be happening to my body and what medical benefits cryotherapy might offer me, McKinzie acknowledged the lack of FDA approval and calmly stated that they explicitly were not offering medical treatments but customers have reported the sessions worked for their various aches and pains and he could only really speak to that.

McKinzie's transparency about the lack of proven medical benefits was actually refreshing and put me at little more at ease. Maybe there actually is a quantifiable medical benefit to this stuff. Or maybe its just a bunch of hokum and people are forking over serious money (up to $75 per 3 minute session in some cases) to turn themselves into Placebo popsicles. The point is, until actual research occurs and results are reproduced, no one knows. It’s in the best interest of both consumers and this potentially legitimate industry for some people in lab coats to get cracking on these cryo-tanks. 

Now resigned to whatever science or pseudoscience was going to happen to me in the chamber, I began to gear up for the procedure. Chase said “most guys just go in their underwear.” I was cool with that, right? “Sure,” I said as I simultaneously had a micro-panic attack and wondered if the lotion I’d accidentally squirted on my clean boxer briefs that morning during my morning routine was going to still be visible and make me look like some weirdo in crusty cum-stained underwear. I disrobed—crisis averted—and put on the similar accessories to those the woman before me had worn.

After doing an initial spot check on my shoulder (92 degrees F), Chase counted me down and opened the chamber door. A cloud billowed out of the door as I hopped in and Drake started playing over the speakers, my Virgil through these next 150 seconds of icy hell.

It wasn’t hell, though—it wasn’t even that unpleasant. I only started feeling the chill in my bones after the one-minute mark. Right as my eyelashes started to frost up, Chase counted me down from 10 and I hopped back out to the warmth of SoCal. The spot check after revealed that my skin temperature had dropped to 59 degrees F, right in the 30-45 degree drop sweet spot Chase had been hoping for. That number might seem high, but I felt surprisingly fine, like I’d just done a brisk “polar plunge” swim.

Once dressed, Chase took me to a side room for a localized treatment the company offered. I was “fortunate” enough to have some slight pain in my shoulder from a gym injury so Chase focused a shop-vac-like hose on my joint and blew chilly air at it for a few minutes. It worked like an ice pack and numbed my shoulder. And that was it. I had survived cryotherapy.

I’m not going to tell you whether or not to try cryotherapy. I’m just going to reiterate that this field is medically uncharted terrain. You’re essentially rolling the dice on a service that could kill you, soothe your pain, or—if you’re anything like me—leave you feeling a little jazzed but otherwise normal.