There’s a bizarre new influencer morning routine going viral for its intense adherence to ice water face baths. Ashton Hall, an incredibly ripped online fitness coach, has been sharing videos to his 8.7 million Instagram followers where he demonstrates his commitment to dunking his face in a bowl of ice water and lemon slices before his workouts.
The ritual goes like this. Hall wakes up early, grabs a bowl and fills it with a glass of ice before topping it up with a bottle of water and some lemon halves. It’s not just any water, either. This is Saratoga Spring Water, which comes in a deep blue bottle and costs $39.99 (£30.95) for a pack of 12 bottles and promises a “light and creamy” mouthfeel. Then he immerses his entire face in the chilly DIY spa water bath.
In one video detailing “the morning routine that changed my life”, Hall says he wakes up at 3.50 am and does the face-dunking routine twice – once at 5.49am before going to the gym, and again at 9.06am (prepared this time by an off screen assistant) prior to recording a podcast.
He also packs in several other influencer product placements and alleged life hacks, wearing nose strips and mouth tape at night (to force you to breath through your nose in search of better sleep, supposedly), wearing expensive accessories including a £4,200 Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet, and rubbing a banana peel on his face (not scientifically proven to do anything to your skin, but not actively harmful).
So far, so manosphere-adjacent self-improvement content creation. But facial immersion in ice water is actually backed by neuroscience studies and used in therapy settings.
Mammals have two internal systems that make up the automatic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is activated by stress and produces the ‘fight or flight’ response, while the parasympathetic nervous system performs the opposite function, helping you ‘rest and digest’. If you’re feeling stressed or anxious, your sympathetic nervous system is responsible for the elevated heart rate and nausea. Unless you actually need to run away from a situation, it can be unhelpful and unpleasant to experience.
A quick way to activate your parasympathetic nervous system is to activate the mammalian diving reflex. This is something that aquatic mammals such as seals and dolphins share with humans, to a certain extent. When your face and nostrils are immersed in cold water, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in to lower your heart rate and blood pressure, and reduce blood flow to the extremities. Helpful to keep you calm and comfortable swimming through cold water – but also a method that can be harnessed to calm your sympathetic nervous system.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, or DBT, uses various techniques using the acronym TIPP to help people manage distressing emotions in the moment and build resilience. The T in TIPP stands for temperature and encourages people having strong negative emotions to immerse their face in cold water for 20 seconds. This activates the mammalian diving response and your parasympathetic nervous system, slowing your heart rate and producing a relaxing effect. You can also run your wrists under cold water, or apply a cold pack to your chest.
It’s the same principle that is behind the evidence that cold water swimming fosters good mental health. The I in TIPP stands for intense exercise, so combining an icy face bath with a workout is also therapist-approved way of managing your emotions.
So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, immersing your face in ice water (but not so cold it hurts) could genuinely help. But the bottled spring water and fruit slices are entirely unnecessary, so save your money there and stick to tap water.
