My Journey with Cold Water

How I came to write my book, “The Ultimate chest Freezer Cold Plunge DIY Guide.”

There are two answers to why I wrote this book. I’ll start with the short answer, and if you want the detailed story, keep reading.

The short answer:

This the book I wish I would have had when I knew that I needed a cold plunge but didn’t have any helpful information. I made a lot of mistakes that were costly financially, emotionally, and wasted a lot of time. If I had guidance in the beginning the project would have been much easier to complete. Further, because I love teaching and helping people, my goal was to help others avoid the mistakes that I made so they could more get the life-changing benefits of a regular cold water immersion practice- without the hassles.

Here is the more detailed answer, which includes my story.

I hated the cold as a kid.

It didn’t get very cold very often in our central Texas subtropical climate growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, however, when it did, I was miserable. If it dropped below 60°F I would put on thermal underwear underneath my blue jeans, pull my socks up over them, and hope that nobody would find out what a wimp I was.

Barton Springs pool is considered by many to be the sacred jewel of my hometown Austin, Texas. It’s natural spring-fed waters stay around 68°F to 71°F year round, and hanging out there is a right of passage for many high school students. As a native, I absolutely hated getting in that water because of the intense shivering. One time my feet actually turned a purplish blue color because I was so cold.

In 2013, when a friend invited me to a workshop with a guy named Wim Hof, part of which involved getting into big stock tank filled with a few hundred pounds of crushed ice, I said “You want me to pay money to get into cold water?”

The resistance to doing that was strong, however, which caught my attention and I decided to sign up. It truly was life-changing – but not right away. The breathing was amazing, and my first ever cold plunge experience was equally horrible and amazing.

One issue is that Austin’s sub tropical climate didn’t make it easy to have cold enough water to get the benefits.

Furthermore, I didn’t have enough of a need at the time. I was healthy, so I didn’t actively seek out doing ice baths. I went to a few other workshops and cold plunge events that came through Austin, but I did not have a regular practice.

That changed about three years later when I was suffering from brutal insomnia. My daughter was born early- at 27 weeks- and weighed only a 1 lb. 10 oz. We spent 121 harrowing days in a neonatal intensive care unit.

She came home with a feeding tube and needed to be fed every three hours for about the first 14 months.

I had the midnight and 3 AM schedule on top of working a full-time job.

That schedule destroyed my body’s natural rhythms and sleep cycles. I didn’t have any issue falling asleep but no matter how much sleep I got or how many naps I took during the day, it wasn’t enough to refresh me. I woke up feeling exhausted every day. My ability to focus and concentrate were completely gone.

The effects of insomnia were brutal.

Often, I couldn’t walk through a doorway without hitting the wall. If I was cutting vegetables in the kitchen, I would frequently slice up my fingers. On top of that, I was irritable and it was impacting my relationships personally and at work. My wake-up call came when I turned the wrong way down a one-way street and was wondering why all of the other drivers were honking at me. At that point I knew I was endangering myself and other people.

I tried a countless different approaches from Western medicine to the esoteric. My endeavors included pills, herbs, supplements, diets, fasting, sleep hacking, hypnosis, red light therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic, super-hot baths, pulsed electromagnetic fields, neural feedback (the EEG data said I was not getting nearly enough restorative Delta sleep), and a bunch of other different things. At one point I signed up for a unlimited membership to a cryo-therapy place where I worked up to doing three sessions in a row each day. That gave me an energy boost, but had no effect on my sleep.

Overall, I spent several thousands of dollars on different remedies, treatments and practitioners. While some of them provided short-term relief, ultimately none of them made a long-term difference in the quality of my sleep.

One day a friend suggested that cold water immersion before going to bed might help. That seemed counter-intuitive because I found cold water to be invigorating- it gave me a short energy boost if I did it first thing morning.

I had nothing to lose, so I went to a convenience store, bought a hundred pounds of ice, took it home, and unloaded it into the bathtub about three hours before bedtime.

What happened?

I got the best night’s sleep I’d had in more than two years! I actually felt rested when I woke up the next morning. But would it work again?

Yes, it did.

However, after three more times I realized that hauling ice was going to get expensive. On top of that it was time-consuming and inconvenient. I knew there had to be a better way.

I started searching online. The local pool companies I talked with wanted between $30,000 to $70,000 to put a cold plunge in the ground – and it would only get down to the 50˚ F range. That was simply not in my budget.

I found beautiful cedar cold plunge made by a Canadian company that cost more than $10,000. I found another one in from a hot tub company in Michigan-it was supposed to the water down to about 45˚F- it cost $8,000 plus another $700 for shipping. While that was a lot less than the cost of an in-ground cold plunge, it was still out of my budget.

My friend Elee, who is a certified Wim Hof instructor, had recently moved from Austin to Colorado, where she could get regularly get colder water. Moving was not an option for me so I asked her if she knew of any other way to go about it. She mentioned that some people were using chest freezers to make cold water. That sounded interesting to me and provided a glimmer of hope. I had done a few DIY projects in the past and was somewhat handy, so I thought I could make this work.

I found a new Whirlpool chest freezer for $600 at a local hardware store. I brought it home, filled it up of water, and waited eagerly for about four days to chill it down to 40˚ F. I got in a few hours before bedtime, and just like the ice bath got a great night’s sleep.

This was awesome because it was instant access, and I didn’t have to buy or haul a single cube of ice. It was easy, quick, and simple, and I thought I had my life back!

However, on the third night I went out to the garage, opened the lid and was horrified to see a river of rust seeping out of the seams. I thought I had just destroyed a $600 chest freezer.

As the chest freezer drained, I realized that the first problem I needed to solve was how to get this thing to hold water without destroying it or preventing it from cooling correctly. The next problem I discovered was that the water started getting dirty after being used for less than a week. Nobody wants to get sick from sitting in a soup of bacteria.

It could be drained and refilled as needed, however, since it took four days in central Texas to chill the water to my target temperature, I knew this would not help me keep a regular practice.

In some cases my solution to a problem ended up creating a bigger problem- and being expensive. My second to last setup involved external plumbing with a hot tub grade pump, filter, and ozone generator, and a building a deck. It looked great, but I failed to take into consideration the ambient heat in Central Texas and the chest freezer couldn’t get my water any colder than 48°F, which did not produce the same results for me.

I went through a lot of trial and error figuring out these issues and many others. I also discovered that while a few people on the main Wim Hof method Facebook group were talking about chest freezers, they were not providing many- or any- details.

Searching and reading through groups and forums I learned a lot from others who were using chest freezers for food storage and other purposes and discovered that some of the problems were typical across the board.

I started talking to technicians, engineers, plumbers, electricians, and other people in the construction trades – anyone who had any kind of possible expertise that might somehow relate.

I found a lot of solutions for the myriad problems that worked short-term but failed long-term. I knew there had to be a way to do it right the first time. One big issue I ran into was that that many of these people thought I was crazy. I wished I had like-minded people I could talk and brainstorm with.

Gerald, one of the admins on the main Wim Hof page, was approachable and friendly. I asked him what he thought of me starting a separate Facebook group about using chest freezers as cold plunges. He liked the idea and said it be okay to put a post about it in the main group.

I started posting about my experiences and answering questions. I had already been taking pictures and documenting most of what I had done along the way, but had never set out to start a group, write a book, or start a business.

I thought “If I can help just one person save a time and money by not making the mistakes I made – it would be totally worth it.”

The group started growing and I noticed quickly that people were asking the same types of questions, and making the same mistakes so I wrote an FAQ which easily turned into about eight pages. However, I realized that in-depth answers would need more space, and brought up additional questions and concerns that needed to be addressed.

At that point I realized that I needed to write a book. Over the next several months it came together and was published in 2017. I’ve made updates since then anytime there is information that’s relevant or we learn new ideas from the group.

For the first few years I spent several hours a day in the group, answering questions. I answered emails, private messages, and phone calls. I even helped build more than a dozen chest freezer cold plunges in Central Texas.

In March 2024, the Facebook group reached 50,000 people from 100 countries. That’s a lot of people who are interested in and who have built cold plunges – and has become a wealth of knowledge.

The book guides anyone – whether they are handy or not- through the process step-by-step so they don’t have to go about it the hard way.

Readers of my book avoid making costly mistakes (financial, emotional, and time).

They learn how to use principles to select or find the best products and the questions to ask to go about the process. Readers can take an easy-to-follow step-by-step approach and end up with a home-made cold plunge.

The great thing is that there are many different ways to go about it. Each person has different values, preferences and budgets. Reading my book helps people figure out what is most important to them and how to go from there.

How how cold water immersion changed my life?

In addition to resolving the insomnia problem, I find that I’m more calm, centered, and grounded. My tolerance to cold has improved dramatically. As long as it’s warmer than 45°F outside, I’m fine wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I’m a better person- and definitely a better father because of it.

In May of 2023 I attended the Sauna Days event in Duluth, MN. I addition to great food, thoughtful conversation, meeting new and existing friends, and having nine different saunas to use for two days, the cold plunge was Lake Superior. The ambient temperature was 30°F/-1.1°C with the wind chill. The water temperature was 35°F/1.6°C. It was amazing!

The cold plunge area is only about 14″ deep, and with the waves crashing in, it was difficult to keep myself upright. Before I met Wim Hof I never would have imagined doing this.

As of 2024 I still have my original chest freezer cold plunge, and having a cold water immersion practice is part of my life.

Beyond that, regular cold-water immersion is changing people’s lives. The stories I am hear from people improving their mental and physical health are inspiring. If you think you can benefit from a regular cold water immersion practice, and don’t have it in your budget to buy a commercially made system, or just love the idea of a great DIY project, a chest freezer cold plunge is something to look into.

You can download my book instantly from my website at Chest Freezer Cold Plunge.

Find my Facebook Group.

I’d love to see pics and find out the details about your cold plunge setup.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions let me know.

Happy cold plunging!