The Mental Reset: How Heat & Cold Therapy Rewires Your Anxious Brain

Almost every Suelta guest says some version of the same thing: "I don't know what it is, but I always leave feeling completely different." Lighter. Clearer. Like the noise in their head has been turned down. They came in carrying the weight of the week, and they floated out.

That's not placebo. It's biology. And some of the world's leading neuroscientists are now mapping exactly what's happening in the brain during a heat-and-cold therapy session — and the findings are remarkable.

The sauna and depression: clinical breakthroughs

Dr. Rhonda Patrick has highlighted emerging clinical research showing that raising core body temperature — as a sauna does — may be one of the most underexplored treatments for clinical depression. A 2024 study investigated whole-body hyperthermia in adults with major depressive disorder. The findings were striking: mood improvements were measurable after a single session, and those benefits predicted longer-term outcomes.

Researchers believe the mechanism involves interleukin-6 (IL-6), an anti-inflammatory signalling molecule released in response to heat stress. IL-6 appears to have potent mood-stabilising effects, and its sustained elevation after sauna use may partly explain why regular sauna users report lower rates of depression and anxiety.

Studies cited by Dr. Patrick also show that frequent sauna use is associated with a 51% reduction in psychosis risk, independent of fitness levels — possibly due to sauna's effects on cortisol, inflammation and oxidative stress.

Cold exposure and the nervous system reset

Andrew Huberman's work on cold exposure adds a complementary picture. When you enter the ice bath, your sympathetic nervous system fires hard, flooding your bloodstream with adrenaline and norepinephrine. The practice of staying calm in that moment — breathing slowly, not thrashing — trains your prefrontal cortex to regulate panic more effectively.

Over time, this translates into a measurably more resilient nervous system. People who practice deliberate cold exposure regularly report lower baseline anxiety, faster recovery from stressful events and a greater capacity to stay composed under pressure.

The neurochemical cocktail of a full session

When you combine heat and cold in an alternating session — the Suelta experience — you trigger one of the most extraordinary natural neurochemical cascades available to a human being:

Beta-endorphins released by the heat produce a natural opiate-like effect, reducing pain and producing euphoria. Dynorphins (also released in heat) temporarily cause discomfort but upregulate your opioid receptors, making subsequent dopamine hits more powerful. Norepinephrine spikes dramatically with the cold, sharpening attention and reducing inflammation. And dopamine rises through the cold exposure and sustains for hours afterward.

Sleep — the often-overlooked benefit

Both Peter Attia and Rhonda Patrick flag sleep improvement as one of the most consistent real-world benefits their followers report from regular sauna use. The mechanism is elegant: the large temperature drop after leaving a hot sauna mimics and accelerates the natural temperature decline your body undergoes as it prepares for deep sleep. An evening session at Suelta doesn't just leave you relaxed — it physiologically primes your nervous system for the best night's sleep you've had in weeks.

This is why people come back

The mental health benefits of regular heat and cold therapy are not subtle. They're the kind of shift that changes how you show up in your relationships, your work, your own head. At Suelta in Turramurra, that experience is available to you Wednesday to Sunday.

Sources & Further Reading

→ Rhonda Patrick — Sauna & Brain Health: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/topics/sauna

→ Huberman Lab — Cold Plunges & Mental Resilience: https://www.hubermanlab.com/topics/cold-plunges-and-deliberate-cooling

→ Peter Attia — Sauna, Sleep & Mental Health: https://peterattiamd.com/ama42/