Andy Smith 00:00 
Before we begin, the PEMF podcast does not contain any medical advice, and the content provided is for informational purposes only. If you have any health concerns, please visit a healthcare professional.

Welcome back to the PEMF podcast, and today I'm joined by Laura Fullerton, founder of Monk, the world's first smart ice bath brand that's turning heads across the wellness world. From raising over 2 million investment to working with names like Anthony Joshua and James Watt. Laura's gone from cold avoider to cold evangelist. In this episode, we're diving into the science, the controversy, and the benefits of ice bath. From the muscle growth debate to mental health highs, and what Monk is doing in a very noisy space. So welcome, Laura.

Laura Fullerton 00:43 
Thank you for having me.

Andy Smith 00:44 
Thanks for coming. I want to start by talking about you a little bit and how you got into this space and 50 box, which was one of your other startups. So tell me a little bit about that first.

Laura Fullerton 00:58 
Yeah. So yeah, it was my very first venture. And at the time I had a good stable job working in the world of advertising, but for me, health and fitness was just such a passion. And I don't know what it was like for you starting CELLER8, but I just, I had this idea and it was like a moth to a flame, you know, and you just can't stop thinking about it. And I just decided I had to go out there and do it. But essentially, yeah, it was a subscription box. And this was back in the day, back in 2015, 2016, when some subscription boxes were so popular, you had all the food ones and there were a lot in makeup, but there was nothing that I wanted, which was in health and fitness. So yeah, I decided to create it.

Andy Smith 01:41 
Yeah. And where did monk start? So where did monk fit into this? You know, you went from that to ice bar, so it's a bit of a transition, but obviously in the wellness space.

Laura Fullerton 01:48 
Yeah. I mean, Monk came about years later. I managed to sell Fitty and then I worked on a few other things. I was involved with the Health Optimization Summit, which we've both exhibited at. And I had the idea for Monk, which really came out of pure frustration. So similar to you in the health space, I do all the weird and wonderful health hacks from the normal things like sauna and exercise to the slightly more, I guess, fringe things, whether that's, I don't know, biomarker testing and eating raw frozen liver and all sorts. But I'd never touched cold water therapy because I've always hated being cold. And I just thought it sounded like a terrible idea. Like why would I want to do that? It's just, it will be unpleasant. And I got invited to a breath workshop. Well, it was breath work and ice bath. And honestly, I went along to it thinking I could just avoid the ice bath bit. When people do it, I'll just make an excuse, run to the bathroom or something. But I got pleasantly gas lit into doing it by some friends. And it was only hours afterwards that I just felt so good. I had this really calm energy. And at the time as a stressed out founder, it just felt like I pressed the reset button. So really, I just, I just wanted to do more of it myself. And I'd been buying endless bags of ice to put in my bath at home. I'd used frozen horse water troughs. I'd broken into Hampstead ponds at night during lockdown, which turned out was a terrible idea because it was actually closed, not because of COVID, but because of E. coli at the time. And I got sick. And it just got to the point I was thinking, why is it so hard to do something so good for my health? And you know, some of the ice baths out there, you could either get inflatable blow up ones, which I tried to use, but you know, they break and just goes disgusting when it comes to summer and some were just crazy expensive. And really, I just, I, yeah, wanted to create the products that I wanted.

Andy Smith 03:42 
I think that really resonates with me because I was excited to do this one because ice bath is something that fits into my protocol quite a lot. I really like it. There's reasons why I like it, why I use it, but I've also kind of gone through the navigated, the ice bath market, you know, and like we all do, we try and cut corners. You know, I went for, I've had two inflatable ice baths before I've now installed my monk, so very happy with my new monk. We'll get onto that and the benefits of that one. But really, you know, we talk about this in the podcasts quite a lot in terms of the wellness industry. Like a lot of the time when you buy cheap, you do end up buying twice. And in my case, three times, I've had two inflatable ice baths. And I think it's the way it's evolved too, because, you know, I started with a very small one, no chiller by the side of it. And, you know, it looks really easy to just chuck a bunch of ice in it. People were putting online, you know, what about filling up big bottles with water and putting them in the freezer and then you put that in the ice bath and you try and cool it down and it doesn't really get cold enough and it become a real chore to do it. And that's when something falls out of your routine, I think. Yeah. And that's the biggest thing, especially, you know, we talk about PEMF. If you buy a big, clumpy, old, difficult to use device, we'll fall out of love with it very quickly. And I feel like that's what I did with these small ice baths. And the funny thing is you mentioned getting sick from jumping in that lake as well. I swear this is what made me sick. I was using one of the inflatable ice baths and I'd been using it for maybe a month or two, you know, probably pushing the boundaries. Went on holiday two weeks away, came back. I was like, do you know what? I really need to jump in the ice bath, jumped in it, slipped in it because it was all kind of slimy in the bottom.

Laura Fullerton 05:38 
with algae and... Yeah, exactly.

Andy Smith 05:41 
And it wasn't that that injured me. That night I was really sick. So, you know, I can only imagine what was growing in that water. So it's another thing. It's not just, you know, it's keeping them clean, as well. So, you know, and my experience now of using a monk, a monk is completely different, you know, it's just like the water feels different, the getting in it feels different. It's so much more temperature controlled.

Laura Fullerton 06:13 
Love to hear it.

Andy Smith 06:15 
But yeah, I mean, my experience, it's been great. And I've had to kind of navigate that to get to the right place.

And, you know, we're not saying also, you need to spend so much money on the best industrial ice bath out there. You know, these, I think monks priced really well for what it does, but coming back to your development, because that's what I really want to know a little bit more about in terms of, you know, it took us a number of years to get a accelerator market, you know, way more than I wanted to. And we saw you at the Health Optimization Summit, as you mentioned, in 2023.

Laura Fullerton 06:49 
Mm-hmm.

Andy Smith 06:50 
And I nearly bought one then. I was really like, love this, love the concept, love the look of it. It's great.

I think it was either you or one of your team said, you know, we're looking to start delivering in six months. I was already in the middle of a development myself or just released CELLER8 and I thought, that's not going to happen. So talk to me a bit about the development, you know, where did the idea and why have you changed it so much from an inflatable ice bath?

Laura Fullerton 07:17 
Yeah. So, you know, everyone always says hardware is hard. And at first, I didn't know what they meant. It's just such a pointless thing to say. It's like saying, everyone dies. You're like, yeah, obviously, I know that. Of course, it's going to be hard. But telling someone who does ice bars, well, now for a living, which is inherently hard, just telling you don't do something because it's hard. It doesn't make any sense. Anyway, when we started, we thought we could develop and bring this product to market in nine months. And I remember talking to investors and some of them have experience in hardware and they're like, you're not going to do that. And I'm like, yes, yes, we are. And we didn't. I remember someone saying, however long you think it takes with hardware, triple the timeline and double the cost. And that is exactly what happened to us, like textbook. Yeah, creating something from scratch that hasn't been built before. You know, you have inflatable ice bars and you have chillers, but no one has really created this fully integrated unit where you have all the temperature control and ozone and you can set schedules and everything. And yeah, it's hardware is frustratingly slow and unforgiving. And it's been, yeah, really long journey. We were in product development for three, three and a half years, just to bring our generation one product to market. And that was just the development. Obviously, then you've got manufacturing on top of that. But yeah,

Andy Smith 08:37 
It's been a long road. I got some emails from you guys quite recently, we're in 2025 now, saying we're delivering. That's when I was like, right, I'm getting my order in, I'm doing it. When, where did this ice bath, where did the seed start? What was your first ice bath like? What was your first experience? Because everybody seems to remember their first ice bath experience. Yeah, no one forgets it. No, that's it. And I've been listening to a couple of podcasts where you've been on them, or you actually got your own podcast, which I've been listening to as well. And I say on this podcast quite a lot, I love ice baths. I use it quite often. My wife, she hates it. And the reason I'm thinking now she hates it is because I've been doing it wrong for her, completely wrong in terms of, you know, I warm myself, I call myself down, you know, using it. I did the right protocol, got in amazing, loved the benefits. Then I'm like to my wife, you should try this. This is incredible. You know, and she jumped in an ice bath at three degrees, never wants to get in one again. Yeah, not surprising. So what was, what was your first like? And where have I gone wrong in terms of getting her to hate ice baths?

Laura Fullerton 10:01 
My first ice bath was in one of those really big inflatable ones. I think there must have been about 10, 15 people in there. And it was just a ton of ice and some water. And it wasn't pleasant at all. When you step in and everything in your body is just screaming at you to get out. And it was probably at around three degrees, which I would say is way too cold for your first ice bath. And at an event, it could be great because everyone's going through this shed experience and you're hyping each other up and you don't forget it, it's memorable. But I didn't enjoy the actual experience. It was only a few hours afterwards when I thought, why do I feel so good? And just realize it had quite a profound impact on me physiologically and psychologically as well. But yeah, for people getting started, you see it online all the time. People are hacking into frozen over lakes and just getting into ice water, which is way too cold. It's such a powerful tool, but you've got to use it safely in order for it to be really effective. So for a complete beginner, I would start at 10 to 15 degrees, which sounds warm when you think everyone just talks about three degrees, but actually you get all the benefits at those temperatures. Colder doesn't equal better. You're going to have a much more enjoyable experience. Therefore, you'll probably unlock the benefits and want to do it again.

Andy Smith 11:21 
And in terms of, you know, your development with Monk and you know, we'll come onto the benefits in a minute, but just want to kind of talk about where this started and you know, how it navigates and that sort of thing. We've seen you raise an investment and that's allowed you to be at these events to develop the product. We see on your website, you've got Anthony Joshua and James Watt for anyone who doesn't know is the CEO and co-founder of Brewdog, the beer company. So you've attracted these big players in the industry.

You know, how did it happen with Anthony Joshua? That's, you know, an interesting one for me.

Laura Fullerton 12:00 
Yeah. So we were raising our friends and family around, which was our first investment round. Because going back to your point as to how it started, I realized early on, like, yeah, hard work. This is going to be expensive. We're going to need to raise money. And I've had two businesses before never raise capital, had no idea how we go about the process. But anyway, one of my first investors at the time, he knew of AJ's team. They nearly did a deal together previously. And so he just sent them the deck and just said, hey, guys, working on this now is this of interest? And I think it was really good timing. Firstly, AJ loves ice baths. He's such a believer in cold water therapy. It's part of his routine. Also, not just for physical recovery, but for mindset. He'll often dunk his head before he goes and fights and things like that. So there was that natural alignment there. But also, I think his managers were just sick of buying bags of ice to put into his bath at home. Because there wasn't a product on the market that the look of that he wanted to buy. And so, yeah, he came on board as a silent investor, same terms as everyone else, which I think also says a lot about him. He's not just a world-class athlete to be able to see something that's essentially a concept. There wasn't even a picture of what month looked like. It was just an idea on a piece of paper for him to be able to look at that and think, I believe in that. I want to back that. Yeah, it was huge. I think it's quite rare. I don't think there's a huge amount of athletes that really understand business and investing. And so, I think part of it was just really lucky.

Andy Smith 13:35 
Yeah, it just aligned really well. So I hear you also talking about kind of through lockdown, which I found really interesting is that people making their own ice baths. And the funny thing is I actually, I looked at it myself, but I didn't go down the route where we'll come to, but I looked at getting like one of these pig trough feeder things, you know, like the, you know, the metal ones, because I like a bit of woodwork. And at the time I was building the pallet wall behind me that if you're watching this podcast, you can see, um, but I wanted to build like a little wooden ice bath and put a chiller in it and all that sort of thing. Um, but there's, there was a lot of people and a lot of videos online about doing it out of freezers, fridge freezers. Yes. Um, and funny, you posted a video recently of someone that just upgraded to a monk and funny enough in the video, they had converted fridge freezer, um, that they were using. Um, how did that come about? Do you think, you know, and, and is that safe?

Laura Fullerton 14:39 
Well, it's interesting you mentioned that because I remember stumbling upon this private Facebook group, which, you know, you have to request to join, answer a few questions. And back in lockdown, there were 6,000 people in this group at the time. And this group is just dedicated to making those DIY chest freezers. And that, for me, was an extra lightbulb that went off. I thought, if there's this many people willing to get electrocuted and create this risky product, like surely there's something bigger here. Like, why is there not a product that's meeting their needs? That was really one of the things that made me think I really need to create Monk. And, you know, I was one of those people. But when you're just going through these threads and seeing all these things that people have done in order to create this DIY product, you realize it's pretty risky. And also it's just like a rabbit hole. You know, you don't get this right sealant or you get the wrong sealant and this happens and you get rust. And I just thought it sounds like I'm going to be making something that's so makeshift and dodgy that's probably not going to be helping my health. If the water's, you know, dirty and a lot of the time with with setups like that, you're having to put chlorine in. And I don't want to put chlorine on my skin and be bathing in that every day. So, yeah, I think they can be quite risky. But at the same time, it's a brilliant way to get started. I think you can end up ironically spending a lot of money doing that. But, you know, if it's a way for people to to access it and realize, actually, this is great. It's, you know, something they want to make part of their routine. Like for I think for Munk as a business, it is great because it's an it's almost like an entry level product.

Andy Smith 16:10 
And I think that point we've talked about some good things already, like in terms of you're building something like you can go DIY and you can build something for your health. But if you don't do it correctly, it can also be completely counterintuitive, you know, doing a fridge freezer that may not be electrical safe, you know, is the biggest worry for me. But like you say, even using the wrong sealant and things like that, you can start creating VOCs and breathing ins, all sorts of stuff. It's not great. You know, we see this in all different industries. We're seeing it in the PEMF industry where we get in these cheap products flooding the market. And we've talked about the development and how long that took in terms of the ice bath. You know, it actually took us six years to get celery to market, which was delayed for other reasons. But one of the main things was that you can put copper coil into a mat and create a magnetic field. Pretty much anyone could do that, but it's the magnetic field that it produces. It has to be clean. It has to be the right slew rate. It has to be all these different things to be effective. And that's where it took so long to tweak. Then, you know, people are buying into these modalities and not necessarily seeing the benefits, you know, and they could do that in ice baths. You buy an inflatable ice bath. You don't have a chiller next to it. It's sitting at 19 degrees most of the time. People jump in it and jump out and think, well, what a load of rubbish. That didn't do absolutely anything. And they're not going to see the benefits for it. And I think another thing for me that with the monk is really nice is the whole self-cleaning process. So again, you don't also want something that's going to become a full-time job to maintain. It's like, we're all busy. You know, you want something that when you need it, it's there and it's ready to go. So how do you clean yours? Because I know I used to chuck chlorine in my inflatable ones. And, you know, again, that's not as a big no-no, especially, you know, you don't want to be bathing in chlorine. It's not the best thing to be doing. So how was monk self-cleaning? How's that working?

Laura Fullerton 18:21 
So we use ozone, yeah. And when it came to the development, we were looking between ozone and UV, but just because, mainly because of how often you have to change UV light bulbs, we felt actually ozone is, is by far the best. It's becoming the gold standard for cleaning cold water. Um, you know, some of the Olympic pools are switching to use ozone now, which is brilliant. Um, but yeah, it's got a dual filtration system. So you've got the filter that gets rid of the physical debris, like hair and things like that. And then, yeah, you've got the ozone that's continuously circulating and cleaning the water. And it's, you know, it's the molecule O3. So, you know, how oxygen is O2. You just have an extra molecule and it makes it this super potent, but completely natural cleaner. Um, you know, it's more potent than chlorine and it kills all kinds of algae, even kills Ebola.

Andy Smith 19:12 
That's a new fact. Yeah so actually so let's move on to the benefits and the myths because we met a few years back but we didn't you know we were kind of running on these different paths and you know it's all been quite busy but where we had the best conversation for me was actually in Austin at the health hospitalization summit again so each time we kind of go there we we we connect and we have a good little chat and at the time I hadn't brought my trunk yet I wanted to talk to you about it and there's all this stuff coming out online now so I thought it was all quite new but actually I heard you talking about this like two three years ago but there's more recent studies in terms of like how muscle growth could be stunted from doing ice baths and all sort of thing and I was like right I'm gonna I'm gonna grab Laura and have a chat with there and really figure out whether ice baths are good because you know she'll give me an honest answer and I kind of came away from that conversation thinking I love it even more so I want us to try and have that conversation again and explain to everybody all these different benefits and when is the right time when isn't the right time so let's talk about you know as as someone that you know we're doing this podcast my gym I like to do a lot gym work I'm interested in building muscle looking good or that sort of thing and a study came out saying that ice bathing can you know destroy muscles up to 66% and that sort of thing so what was that all about what was that study trying to prove and is there a way you can avoid that.

Laura Fullerton 20:54 
Yeah. So that study looked at people who strength train for hypertrophy and then jump in the water straight away. And you just don't do that. Like if you want to have muscle gains, you will just wait four to six hours after strength training in order to then ice bath and then get the benefits that help acCELLER8 recovery without blunting any of those gains. So it's all about context. Unfortunately, we live in such a clickbait world where you have a headline like that and everyone's never do ice baths. They're so bad for you. And it's almost like if a study came out that just said caffeine keeps you awake, never drink it, but actually just don't have a triple macchiato before you go to bed. So it's all about timing. We've put together quite a few in-depth blog posts with different protocols on when you should use it. So if you were an athlete or if you were just, yeah, strength training, you want to grow muscles, you want to look good when you should use it. Also, if you were an athlete and you were competing in back-to-back competitions, you'd use it in a really different way. And equally, if you were doing endurance training, like if you were doing an ultra marathon out in the heat, how you could actually use it before for pre-cooling. So again, it's different protocols for different outcomes.

Andy Smith 22:01 
Yeah. So if your main objective and goal is to grow muscle and that's what you're trying to do in gym work or whatever it is, would you say necessarily then that you want to be doing ice baths before training?

Is that the kind of key takeaway or is it more doing it on breast days or even just a few hours after training? Or

Laura Fullerton 22:22 
Yeah, it could be any of those. So I actually have a few friends, one of my physios actually, who again is in fantastic shape. He has a lot of different programs for muscle growth. And he started using it before he works out. And finally, he actually gets much more from a workout. You just need to do a bit of extra mobility before. But equally, if you were to wait four to six hours afterwards, that's a great time to do it. But that's where convenience comes in. Because if you're going to the gym and your gym has a nice bath, you're naturally going to probably either do it before or not at all. You're not going to sit at the gym and then wait four to six hours or go back. It's just not that convenient. Which is also when it's great if you do have a nice bath at home and then naturally it can just fit into your routine a bit better. But equally, I know some people who do save it for a rest day. So yeah, I think it's just so much of it's so personal as well. I think a lot of it comes down to personal preference.

Andy Smith 23:13 
And he talks about the clickbait, which is, which is an interesting thing because one video I see a lot now as well is women getting in and out of ice baths and saying, worst thing they ever did, you know, for the longevity, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, you know, women shouldn't ice bath or this sort of thing. So again, is there any truth to that or is there a time when women should be getting an ice bath compared to when they shouldn't be getting an ice bath?

Laura Fullerton 23:38 
Yeah, I think it's a fantastic tool for women just when used at the right time. So if you're in your menstrual years, you have your infradium rhythm, which is your 28-day cycle, essentially. It's a fantastic time to use it around ovulation, but I would never personally cold plunge during my period. Although saying that I do have a couple of friends who do, but it's a much higher temperature just for a short amount of time because they feel like it really helps with with cramps, I guess, because it's, you know, so anti-inflammatory. But there was a really fascinating pilot study that was done. Dr. Stacy Sims was talking about it, I think on Huberman's podcast. And it was a study where they took, I think it was a small group of females who had severe endometriosis. And they got them plunging for 10 days around ovulation. And within three menstrual cycles, their symptoms were almost completely gone, which is wild. It's a really debilitating condition. But I think again, because it was so anti-inflammatory, but yeah, I think it's a fantastic tool for females. I find personally around ovulation is such a good time, you have a much, you're much more tolerant to the cold. And so if I wanted to do slightly longer or colder plunge, it's like that's the perfect time to do it. I would start to taper off in luteal phase. Yeah, avoid plunging during my period. And then like once you're in folliculars, just start tapering it back in. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy Smith 25:04 
So it's important and it's like using it as and when and yeah the right time for women yeah so again you know when I put my wife in in her first ice bath and she's pretty much never done it since maybe I did that completely at the wrong time of the month yeah maybe it was too cold you know so there's there's protocols we've got to follow and it just makes sense when to do it yeah the other thing we see with ice baths and we see this in the PEMF industry quite a lot too is this notion of like when I talk about PEMF it's like more power better and it kind of the the price dictates the power a lot of the time on a pimp device and so people think more expensive more power you're going to get a better outcome but it doesn't really work like that in terms of low-intensity devices are better suited at home you can use them every day you know there's not all this kind of it doesn't give you this big kick it's whereas like high-intensity devices are much better suited in a professional setting but what we see with ice baths is colder the better you know and some ice bath brands now are kind of like used they're boasting that they can get down as low as like 0.5 degrees and I think that may be a bit counterproductive when we're talking about the benefits of ice bath and I'm also been you know it kind of captured into that notion where you know my ice bath a lot of the time is set to three degrees or five degrees and when doing a lot of research for this podcast everything I was reading was like 10 degrees yeah like and I'm thinking to myself yeah even I've been doing it wrong so yeah is there such thing as too cold.

Laura Fullerton 26:54 
I think there is. And you know, to your point, just there, a lot of the science has been done around eight to 12 degrees seems to be a lot of it. And particularly for women, it's generally accepted that women should plunge at high temperatures. You know, we're much more sensitive to the cold. Like my personal preference is 10 to 12 degrees. That's my sweet spot. You get all the benefits, but it's also a much more pleasant experience. You know, sometimes I'll go lower and I just find that more mentally challenging. It kind of depends what I want to get out of it. But I think the cold is also so personal. I mean, there's a lot of rules out there. People say, oh, you plunge for a degree, a minute per degree. So in theory, if you're plunging at three degrees, you do three minutes. If you're 10 degrees, you do 10 minutes. But if you're a complete beginner and three minutes at three degrees is way too much. So yeah, it's, I think that there is like everything, it's just context. Um, and yeah, it is so personal. I know a couple of people, one guy in particular, Steven, he's insane. He'll plunge at zero degrees and easily do 10 minutes. And he feels amazing and he loves it, but I, I could never do that. I think some people are just, just hardwired differently.

Andy Smith 28:04 
So do you think, again, that's kind of a personal thing, because where I've been doing three degrees for so long now, I feel like if I went to 10 degrees, it wouldn't affect me so much. But, you know, do you think I'd still get the physical mental benefits from doing those temperatures?

Laura Fullerton 28:25 
you definitely get the physical benefits, but it might not be as yet. Like you say, it won't be such a mental challenge. But often if people are plunging at a certain temperature for a long amount of time, if you just have a couple of days break, or if you go on holiday and you come back and it is harder. And I think that's one of the interesting things about ice baths. I mean, I don't know your experience, but it never seems to get easy. You think like, I've got this and, but it's always challenging.

Andy Smith 28:49 
At that 100%, it's like, it's never easy, five degrees, three degrees, whatever. My toes always curl up. It's like, the first minute is a real mental battle to stay in that. Once you've hit that wall, you can kind of sit through it, which is what I always tell people. The first minute to minute half is like the hardest part. You get past that and then you can get through it. Something I heard you talking about is also an alternative is cold showers. And funny, a lot of people say that they can't bear cold showers and it's a lot more difficult for them. I have the opposite actually, because I watched Bim Hoth's documentary and there was a poignant moment in there where he was talking to Patrice Evera. And he said, if you go under the cold shower and you think to yourself that it's not cold, then it almost won't be cold. And that's something that I can do quite well and I can get under my cold shower and I can have a full shower now with my soap and everything, three, five minutes without it really bothering me too much. But I know a lot of people even yourself that say like cold showering is like the worst for them. And is that probably because the water's running off you and it doesn't have that ability to kind of create a barrier around you, which you can get in some ice baths.

Laura Fullerton 30:12 
Yeah, interesting. I've never heard that, like trying to trick yourself into things. I'm going to try that.

Andy Smith 30:17 
power of the mind.

Laura Fullerton 30:18 
Yeah, I, yeah, I personally find them a lot harder and I think it's just because, you know, the waters, it's kind of hitting you everywhere. You're not fully like you get an ice bath and it hits you in the face, right? You're fully submerged. But even if I'm, you know, moving in the ice bath, so you don't get that thermal layer build up, I still just find a cold shower harder. I don't know whether it's because you just have the easy ability just to either like turn it up or just like hop out of it. Yeah. It's like, you know, it's like I'm in the matrix just trying to dodge it every, at every angle.

Andy Smith 30:47 
That's good. And yeah, do you think that's a good thing for people to start cold water therapy?

Laura Fullerton 30:54 
I think it's a fantastic way because it's just so easy to do. It's so accessible. And I remember in the early days, that's how I started trying to get my fix if I wasn't buying loads of ice to put it into my bath at home. And it's funny earlier, actually, when you mentioned how you think it's really accessible, just buy a load of ice and put it in or fill up these huge bottles of water. But a lot of people, you don't have room to fill up huge bottles of water and put them in your freezer. And I remember I actually had a friend, he got those large, I don't know what you would buy lemonade in or those kinds of ones, filled them up with water. He bought a separate freezer to put them in. And then when he put them into his ice bath at home, it was one of those funny round inflatable ones. And he realized with them in, there wasn't room for him in there. So he had to leave it for so long in order for the water to get colder. Yeah.

Andy Smith 31:41 
I actually saw one released quite recently and they're like a chiller or an ice bath type concept, you know, kind of saying they're moving the boundaries and because what they're doing is they're using your actual bath and then you put this little chiller on the side of your bath and you cool it down, which I think seems like a good idea, but again, you're going to have to fill up your bath, you're going to have to put the chiller in there, you're going to have to set it, you're going to have to wait for it to cool down. All of this process, like you say, even just putting some ice in there and waiting for it to cool down, all these sorts of things, putting barriers in the way, you know, there's some PEMF mats on the market that are really heavy. And people said to me, just the process of unraveling this thing where it's so heavy, it's got these stones and things on it, you throw it on the bed, it's just enough to put people off doing it. So for me, you have to have it ready sitting there ready to go. If you're in that mindset to get in cold, you've just got to get in.

Laura Fullerton 32:45 
completely right. It's like, I love cold plunging in nature. That for me would be like the number one. I love doing it out in the wild with friends. It's great. It's not in stagnant lakes. Yeah, just not in stagnant lakes. But saying that, a group of friends and I, we go down to the Serpentine and we plunge there, which is great. And I love doing it, but it's two and a half hours out of my day. I can't do it every day. Maybe like once a week in winter is such a great thing to do, but it's the convenience I need of having an ice bath at home. It's five minutes and I'm rather than two and a half hours before work. It's just, it's not possible.

Andy Smith 33:19 
Yeah, it's just the possibility of doing it, isn't it? So it's just having that accessibility. And that's the thing, we're doing a lot of, you know, we talk about all this biohacking tech and, you know, there is also this notion online now, it's like, you know, why do you need red light? You can just go out in the sun, why do you need pimp? If you can just ground, why do you need cold water? You know, you can just jump in a lake, all these sorts of things. But it's making it accessible, making it quick, easy, accessible. You know, we don't live in caves anymore. We don't live on, you know, we don't, we're not exposed to all the nature that we used to be. So it's kind of just bringing that tech, that nature of kind of transpiring into the home and making it accessible, making it quick, so that we can still do eight hours at work if we need to. But that day we've had a cold plunge, we've exposed ourselves to some red light therapy and got our pimp in. So I think it's really interesting that we're all talking about this and, you know, stacking all these benefits. One thing I think we haven't really covered, which is the biggest thing for me, why I use an ice bath. And I think really it's the main benefit as well, because we talk about a lot of physical benefits with these modalities, but the mental benefits of ice bathing for me are just profound. And I think that's really why I use my ice bath. If I didn't get those mental benefits, I don't think I would use it maybe as much, because if you've got a back injury or something like that, probably my ice bath wouldn't be the first place I went to. But if I've had a shit day at work, like that's one of the, you know, I'm like, I can't wait to get in that fucker. Yeah, yeah, I'm completely the same. I'm ready to go. Yeah. And, you know, that hour after an ice bath or jumping in a cold lake and that sort of thing, that hour was just incredible. There just seems to be some ink going on, which I'm hoping you're going to be able to tell me what's going on. It's why you feel so incredible.

Laura Fullerton 35:17 
Yes, absolutely. And that almost like euphoric high after, it's not placebo, it's not woo-woo, it's chemical.

There's a lot of research out there that it increases dopamine and norepinephrine. The dopamine spike's about 250% and norepinephrine has been shown to be around 200 to 500% increase. And...

Andy Smith 35:40 
And is dope mean what comes from cocaine because we had Pro Green on the podcast, few back, and he's a massive advocate for ice baths. He loves it. He does it every day. It's one of his, you know, we kept asking him what's your top buy hack, hoping he's going to say PEMF. He was like, yo, ice bath, ice bath, ice bath, which is cool. But he was, he said, you know, whether it was a study read or something online, but he was like, you know, it's, it's been compared to doing cocaine now because of the chemicals and releases and actually people that have like super addictive natures tend to gravitate towards ice baths. So is there a link?

Laura Fullerton 36:15 
Yes, there is, there is. And the spike from cocaine is supposed to be about 250%, which is comparative to the dopamine from an ice bath. But unlike cocaine and also exercise, which is a very quick spike, the spike you get from an ice bath, it's sustained over a much longer period of time. But yeah, that is one of the, I guess the key studies that people like to talk about. But as well as those kind of neurotransmitters, you've also, you've released a load of endorphins, which again is that kind of that high, that great mood increase. But it works on a lot of other different pathways as well. It's so anti-inflammatory, which isn't just the physical benefits, but that's also inflammation is really tightly linked to anxiety and to depression as well. So there's so many things going on, which is why, I think, I would just estimate most people today are really doing it for the mental health side of things. Whereas for decades, athletes have used it. So it's always been associated with physical recovery in that side of things. But I think, yeah, the reason it's really exploded over the last half many years, particularly since COVID, when depression, anxiety, and just unfortunately like went through the roof, I think a lot of people have discovered the cold because of that. I'd love your thoughts on this, because the reason I do it is for mental health, but I find when people talk about mental health, we're always talking about depression, anxiety, but we're not really talking about stress. And that for me as a serial founder, is a thing that I've struggled with the most. And I think stress really, it's an epidemic. It's really serious. And it's something that I've definitely struggled a lot with. And for me, one of the things that ice baths, it's what they've really helped with. And there's something called cross-adaption, which is a phenomenon where the stress you're dealing with in an ice bath, you're overcoming, you're overriding your flight or fight. And the tolerance you build throughout that, it can ripple out into other areas of life. Once I've done an ice bath in the morning, it doesn't really matter what hits me throughout the day. I just feel like so much better equipped to handle it. And we hear it from our customers. They say that it's because of ice baths that they have better conversations with their husbands, their wives, their children. They just feel like they show up better in all areas of life, which is incredible. And I think that for me is the reason why I do it.

Andy Smith 38:36 
And I couldn't agree more, like it's the same sort of feeling I have when I go for a run, you know, you kind of just release everything and you, I will go for a run and come back and be in a much better mood than I was before I went and it's the same thing with ice bath and I feel like, because one thing I think you cannot do in an ice bath, especially in that first minute, is think about the balance sheet. Like, impossible, because the only thing you are thinking about in that moment is getting out of that ice bath or getting past that first minute or getting past that first minute and a half. Do you know what I mean? It just, it dulls the noise completely. Like where you go, you know, your body is going into fight or flight. It's like, what's going on? Like, you need to get out of this situation. All these things are taking over. And I think it's super, super important. Like, and that's one of the reasons why it's so good for stress in terms of it just like turns everything else off around you. Yeah. So, the mental health side of things with ice bath and I think, you know, is for me is like one of the biggest key takeaways and, you know, I stack it with other therapies and that's for me the number one priority when I get in my ice bath, if that makes sense. So, you know, forget the kind of what it's doing to your muscles and that sort of thing, as long as you're using it at the right time, but I'm not really getting in that ice bath to bulk up, you know, I'm getting in there to get the right mindset to then get in the gym and do what I need to do. Then I get my pimp from my recovery, then I do my red light. And, you know, so it's for me the kind of key takeaway. Contrast therapy is something else I wanted to kind of touch on because we're seeing this a lot in, if you set up a wellness space, we've seen loads of it, which is great, you know, we've seen all these wellness spaces popping up all over the place, especially in London, they're like every street corner now. I feel like the first place they go is contrast therapy, you get a sauna and you got an ice bath, you tick those two boxes. But again, online you see in all these things where it's really dangerous to get out of the sauna and straight into an ice bath, you know, you're going to have a heart attack. Do you know anything around this area and kind of help us navigate this in terms of contrast therapy and is there a safe way to contrast therapy? Is it safe?

Laura Fullerton 41:05 
Yeah, I think on the whole, absolutely it's safe. But if you are someone that has a pre-existing cardiovascular issue, you don't want to be going from one extreme to the other in terms of temperature. But if you're a healthy person, there's nothing to suggest that it's dangerous. There haven't actually been a huge amount of studies on contrast therapy, but I was listening to Dr. Rhonda Patrick talking about it in her protocol. And she just has a couple of minutes in between the two to acclimatize. And that's how I do it as well. I use the sauna, try and cool down, even if it's just for a minute in between. But equally, I'm not jumping into really, really cold ice baths, which I think also helps. And yeah, to your point, it's amazing. So many more places are opening that have that, you know, the offer contrast. Some of them do have the ice baths set down to some of them were nearly zero degrees, which I just think is irresponsible. If you're a commercial space, you're dealing with people that might not have any prior experience with ice baths. I think places need to really, they have a responsibility. And finally, if you've got multiple ice baths and you have them set at different temperatures, so you have higher ones, as long as you're educating people and guiding them through it, that's great. But yeah, it does worry me when commercial spaces have them sit down to near zero.

Andy Smith 42:27 
Yeah. And that's a good point, actually. I never thought about that because, you know, that might be the first time someone's gone in and used an ice bath. And if you've only got one option of 0.5 or nothing. Yeah. And I've done, you know, I've actually been on the sharp end of a lot of kind of wellness trends in terms of the different modalities. And Josh, my podcast producer who's helping us today, he's seen me go through quite a experience in an ice bath where it was set to 0.5 and maybe the protocol wasn't the best. And I was kind of, it was kind of a bit of me showing off doing what I can do. And also the guy training us, maybe giving us a bit of a bum steer, but we were in there for two minutes, then we were out for two minutes and then we were in for two minutes and then we were out for two minutes and then in for another two minutes. Wow. When we got out, I couldn't stop shivering. I couldn't actually physically talk. And that went on for about half an hour before I could actually speak. And although at the time it was quite funny, you know, we were all sitting down having a cup of tea afterwards. But you just like... I mean, my body had just gone into like shock or what's it called when hypothermia, you know, there was definitely some kind of hypothermic reaction because like I say, I just, he was asking me questions and I just couldn't even get the words out where I was shivering so much. So there is, like you say, there's a degree of responsibility to understand these things. You know, we're seeing hyperbaric oxygen therapy kind of popping up as well, which again, I think it's amazing. It's incredible. But you have to do it right. You have to do, you know, there's ways in which you can do that wrong as well. So, yeah, I mean, cold is definitely not always better knowing the right protocols. And in, you know, in the contrast therapy and that sort of thing, I think it's, we need to change this notion, what we're trying to do with PEMF in terms of like, you don't need to spend too much money. You don't need to get the most powerful device. You don't need to find a nice bar that goes down to 0.5 degrees to get the same benefits. I think is the point. Yeah.

Laura Fullerton 44:49 
an effective dose. It sounds like you pushed it way too far. I've been there too. We were out at the Serpentine and this was back, I can't remember whether we were raising our seed round or our friends and family round, but there was a potential investor there and he was really interested in finding out more about Monk and we were in the water talking and I kept thinking, I really need to get out. It was really cold and I just stayed in because I was like, this is a really valuable conversation. And afterwards, I was trying to hold a cup of tea and my hands were just shaking so much. And similar to you, I think it's how it affects your prefrontal cortex. I couldn't speak properly. And so I did a complete disservice to try to tell him all about Monk. But yeah, I think sometimes maybe you have to find your limits, but yeah, it sounds like we both found ours.

Andy Smith 45:37 
And, you know, I don't want this to put anybody off using ice baths, it's just do the right protocol. And I think the good thing about Monk, and this is a good point we can put in there, is that you've, you know, what is a smart ice bath? It's something we probably haven't touched on yet. And something I think that is really cool with your device is that you have these protocols. And I'd never thought of that, you know, you've got a little phone holder on the front of the Monk, and I thought, what's that for? Maybe like taking videos of myself getting in, that's what I've been using it for. Then I discovered Rap. And it's, you've got these glided protocols, it starts at 15 degrees, you know, it starts there, you go slower. And I didn't realize that the light on the front of the ice bath also flashes with your breathing. Yes. So we did a reel, which was really cool, it had a great reception with the ice baths. And it was like, the point of the reel was don't forget to breathe. And you think, well, you know, it comes second nature, obviously you're going to breathe, but you do forget to breathe, you get in a nice bath to take your breath away, and you forget. So having your little guided sessions on there, I almost can't do it without it now. I think it's great, you know, so you get in, it tells you to breathe, it's got a little light that you breathe with. And again, this is a safe way of doing it, you know, with making ice baths as safe as possible, and as easy to understand as possible, and as accessible, I think. So yeah, what was, why did you think about that? Where did that come from? Why was that missing from other ice baths?

Laura Fullerton 47:17 
It came fairly early on, but do you know what? When, when I was first coming up with the concept of monk, I was just thinking about it in terms of the hardware, just having a, you know, beautiful device that has certain functionality that wasn't in others, but it was then, you know, when I was just getting more and more into, I realized that so many people just don't know how to use it safely or effectively, you know, they are just jumping in at three degrees. And I was looking at other products like Peloton, you know, it's almost like comparing a stationary bike to a Peloton, you know, when you have the instructors and the music, and it's just a really different immersive experience. And that's what I wanted to create with monk. So not only you telling people, you know, guiding them, like what temperature and how long they could be staying in, but it was the, the, you know, the soundscapes and the voiceover and everything you've got talking people through it, because I think as, if you're a complete beginner and you've got a voice that's saying, look, you're 30 seconds in, this is what's happening in your body, it just gives you so much more confidence and from leading, you know, thousands of people through ice baths. That's what we found people really needed. They just need that almost reassurance that they're, they're doing it right. Um, so yeah, the first program we created was the acclimatization program. The one you mentioned, you start at 15 degrees and slowly go all the way down over like a number of, of sessions, increasing like time and temperature using both of those as, as levers. And then, yeah, we created other ones. There's like a morning awakening. There's a stress reset. And I think it's a little bit like going to the gym. You know, some people want heavy rock music and want to be shouted out. Other people want to really like, you know, uplifting experience and you can just create so many different experiences using, you know, different style of music and voiceovers and things like that. I think we're just really scratching the surface now as to those kinds of experiences we can create. Um, yeah.

Andy Smith 49:04 
gives you a focal point as well to just zone in on because you know those those three five minutes in an ice bath like they're not the most pleasant bearable experience a lot of the time so it's like if you're not thinking about the app breathing listening to it and tuning in and trying to get to the end of that piece you've got a timer on it as well so you know when it's you know you know how much you got left I feel like now that I'm kind of like honed in on that and it's getting me through the process a lot easier so it's rather than just sitting there thinking I want to get out I want to get out I want to get out you know it's it's giving you something else to focus on so I think that's a really good concept

Laura Fullerton 49:46 
Amazing. I'm so glad to hear it. And then, yeah, we haven't talked about the, I guess the wearable integration side of it, um, you know, I use aura and whoop and, you know, ton of people in our spacious love data, and I just thought, well, what if we can just prove how it affects, um, HRV and sleep and some of those important metrics? Um, so, you know, we integrate with, I believe it's 18 different wearables at the moment, and we'll be increasing that. And at the moment we're only focusing on those few metrics, but actually in the backend, if we can then see, if we would integrate with, you know, a menstrual tracking app, for example, and actually we can see how people respond during different phases and just, you know, tons of other different data points and see what the correlations are and then how we can kind of play that back to people and, you know, we're, we're in the very early stages of that at the moment, um, but yeah, I think where it can go is, is really exciting.

Andy Smith 50:34 
So say, for example, with the whoop, what's it looking at? So if I get in the ice bath with my whoop on under, I actually don't wear it at the moment. I used to wear a whoop, get on with data. What is it telling me that is going to be interesting, if that makes sense? So what am I getting out of that trackable?

Laura Fullerton 50:55 
Yeah. So at the moment, because we integrate with Weeboor and a ton of others, we're just pulling through or we're just showing to the customers, HRV, sleep and resting heart rate. Yeah, more coming in future, but that's what we're focusing on to start with.

Andy Smith 51:10 
Yeah. So will I know like, um, my sleep was better that night because of the ice bath I did, or it's been affected by that or, um, and the HIV, cause some HIV is something I'm like trying to increase. You know, I'm trying to figure out ways in which really affects my HIV. Um, so we will that be able to tell us like, if my ice bath that day that's affected my HIV and if I don't, you know,

Laura Fullerton 51:36 
Yeah, you'll definitely be able to start seeing those correlations. I mean, the thing that's difficult is you can't isolate it just to the monk because you could do other things. You could be doing a pimp. You could be doing XYZ. You could have had a terrible night's sleep or an amazing night's sleep and see all these things add up. But yeah, over time, you'll definitely be able to see, actually, this is starting to impact me in a really positive way. Yeah.

Andy Smith 51:58 
So talking about pimp and ice bath, so I wanted to kind of touch on that in terms of like the protocols and that sort of thing. So I found a really good study, which are cool, which I'll read out in a minute. But obviously, people listening to podcasts, most of these people have a pimp mat, and they want to look at other modalities add into it. And they're thinking like, how does a ice bath fit into, you know, I can't put my pimp in the ice bath or this sort of thing. So it's what's the protocol around this? When's the best time to be doing PEMF and ice bath? I mean, because of this, I want to do it justice. So I've found this article, I'll read this out. It says, combining PEMF and ice baths can yield excellent results for recovery, information, energy, overall resilience. However, the order and timing matter and depends on your goals. So the recommended protocol that I found was pimp first, then ice bath. The reason for this is PEMF will prime the body enhances circulation, reducing inflammation, promoting cellular energy, which is the ATP production, which we talk about quite a lot on this podcast. Doing it before an ice bath can help the body handle the cold stress better, optimize tissue repair, and reduce the risk of excessive vasoconstriction, which I thought was quite interesting because we talk about how hemp helps with vasodilation. So it's opening up the blood sort of thing. One risk of ice bath thing is vasoconstriction, which is where people talk about problems at the heart and that sort of thing. So not only the benefits of pimp before and after an ice bath, it's also almost making it safer in effect. So something that I found, which I found really interesting and wanted to share. So the other alternative is you can do ice bath before pimp after. The reason we would do that is more for deep recovery and enhanced anti-inflammation. So if you do pimp after the ice bath, it's going to acCELLER8 the rewarming and circulation. So again, with the vasodilation opening up the blood vessels, you're going to help warm the body a bit better. It's going to ease any cold induced muscle stiffness and faster tissue regeneration. So what this article was sort of saying, which was really interesting, was like for the everyday user, if you're using pimp every day, it's generally better to do pimp than ice bath. If you're an athlete and you want like quick recovery and all that sort of thing, then it's generally better to do the ice bath than the pimp. So yeah, found that really interesting. You've started using pimp now.

Laura Fullerton 54:34 
Yes, I have, I have, it's been a few weeks. And do you know, I was away last week on holiday and I really missed it. I was so excited to come back and do it that evening before bed.

Andy Smith 54:44 
So we should have taken it with you. I know one of the modalities you can put in your suitcase.

Laura Fullerton 54:48 
Oh, what? There's control.

Andy Smith 54:51 
And, and the mat you can, yeah. Oh, my suitcase was packed.

I can imagine. Um, so you, you're doing it, um, with red light, I believe. Yes, I am indeed. So you're doing your red light and your pimp for getting that in the morning. Yeah. Have you figured out your little protocol in terms of if you're going to do pimp, red light and ice bath in one day, how does that look for you?

Laura Fullerton 55:13 
Yeah. So I haven't paired it with ice bath yet. So I've been really excited since we've both been researching like, what's the best way to use it? Um, so I, I'm going to try both ways, but I interestingly read something else as well. Sorry, I might need to cut this bit. Yes. I think when I was researching it and it was saying using ice baths before PEMF is really good because the ice bath lowers all the inflammation and then PEMF recharges cells. So you're almost like resetting and also, you know, it, the ice bath, it eventually puts you into the parasympathetic state, which also, um, you know, PEMF does really well. So then it kind of continues that. So I think if I was looking to use it particularly in the evening, I think I would try doing cold first, but also I believe it's better to do red light after you've done an ice bath. Um, I can't remember why off the top of my head. I think it maybe penetrates your cells deeper or something, but it's beneficial to do cold first. So if I, because I stack, uh, PEMF and red light together, it just, yeah, it seems to make sense to me.

Andy Smith 56:13 
Yeah. And I think actually the ultimate protocol would be PEMF ice bath red light. I think that would be, you know, if you've got time to do it and, and you know, you think that's going to take you all day, but really pimp is 10, 15 minutes. Ice bath is five minutes, red light, another 10, 15 minutes. So, you know, you put in that in like a 40, 45 minute protocol then because I've, I'm the same. I actually prefer to do ice bath first and then get on the full body because I've got, which I use every day is my PEMF and my red light and it's a full body setup. So, the full body red light, it's got a really nice warming effect. Yeah. So I almost want to get in the ice bath, get out of the ice bath, lay under my red light and be like, Oh yeah, that's the one, you know, and it kind of warms you back up. You still get all those benefits of the endorphins and stuff in the ice bath, but kind of just get warmed up a bit nicer or naturally. But yeah, I think the ultimate protocol would be PEMF ice bath red light.

Laura Fullerton 57:18 
Yeah, I'm going to test it over the next month or so trying boats. Let's check it in like a month's time and see how we're both doing with it.

Andy Smith 57:25 
And you can check your deliverables on your whoop and your oaring because there's no issue wearing both.

Laura Fullerton 57:30 
Yes, I am a massive data geek, yeah, I just I love WOOP for workouts and like all the days during the day. And I just I prefer Aura at night because you know, it's got the airplane modes, you can turn off the EMFs.

If WOOP could bring out some sort of airplane mode or way to turn off EMFs, that would be dream.

Andy Smith 57:50 
That's why I've tried mentioning it to him a few times, tried tagging him in a few posts. You've got to get an airplane mode on there. But no, I'll talk about this using my route before, because it really has changed my approach with alcohol. Because I've never had a problem with alcohol, but I can see what it does to me the next day when you have even just one glass of wine or whatever it is. You can really see your body battery just go through the floor and deplete when you get up the next day after. It's crazy, isn't it?

Laura Fullerton 58:21 
me one or two glasses of something. Completely trashes sleep and recovery.

Andy Smith 58:26 
Yeah, 100%. What's next for Monk? What's the future look like for Monk? Have you got more plans with the app? I think you kind of touched on if you've got more kind of brand ambassadors you're looking to get involved. You've just kind of, as I say, you've been in development for a long time. You've just started delivering. Is there changes you want to make to the Monk? Ice bath as it is. What's the future look like?

Laura Fullerton 58:53 
Yeah. It's going to be a huge year for us because this is the first year where we're fully in market.

We delivered all of our pre-orders at the beginning of the year, and we are going to be expanding to the Middle East at the end of this year, which is really exciting. Are you guys out there?

Andy Smith 59:10 
We're not, so we'll have a conversation afterwards.

Laura Fullerton 59:13 
The biohacking and generally the health and wellness market is growing 21% year on year there, where everywhere else in the world, it's still at like a solid 4%, 5%, but it is just booming. I think, yeah, let's talk about that later. I think that will be a really interesting market. So yeah, international expansion. And yeah, there's a lot that we're going to be doing on the app. I can't say what at the moment, but we're definitely going to be utilizing AI a little more.

Andy Smith 59:40 
No, an app is another thing that we're also looking at, because we don't want the app to communicate with our device, but we want the app to give you a more of a user experience, a bit like what you're doing with the Guided Breath work and stuff within. Oh, interesting. Yeah, lots of things we can do. That would be exciting.

Laura Fullerton 59:59 
Yeah. Because when I use, um, my pen for that, I do it in front of the red light, but I also do some sort of breath work or meditation or something when I'm on there. So if you had an app that it did that.

Andy Smith 01:00:11 
a hundred percent so we don't want to give away too much just in case someone beats us to the post. But no, a hundred percent like pimp, red light and oxygen are the three, you know, three real core pillars when you want to kind of stack those benefits all in one hit and you don't necessarily have to throw yourself in an oxygen chamber, you don't have to put something up your nose to inhale, you know, breath work is so powerful.

So if you can sit or lay in a pimp mat in front of a red light underneath a red light and do breath work, the benefits are absolutely profound. So yeah, we're definitely trying to tap into that too.

Laura Fullerton 01:00:45 
Interesting. Am I right in thinking that you'll get more out of PEMF if you're well hydrated?

Andy Smith 01:00:50 
Yeah, there's, there's a lot in that because it helps with the detoxification before and after PEMF. So I mean, hydration in essence with anything, it helps, you know, it's similar to what we say with PEMF. If you do PEMF therapy before an oxygen therapy chamber, if you do it before an ice bath, if you do it before red light, you're not only going to get the benefits from those modalities, but you're going to expand those benefits because you've kind of like prepared the body for them. So same sort of thing with water. If you're well hydrated again, you know, you're going to get the benefits. So hydrate, PEMF, red light, oxygen, yeah, carry yourself in a nice bath afterwards. Dream, dream morning.

Laura Fullerton 01:01:31 
do having just down as a glass of molecular hydrogen water so maybe there's some extra brownie points there.

Andy Smith 01:01:36 
Exactly. Yeah. So, hydrogen water is another thing, isn't it, that's kind of coming through the ranks at the moment. It's really taking off. I know Gary Breck has talked about it. They've just launched their own kind of hydrogen tablets, which seems a lot more easily and readily accessible than these kind of hydrogen taps that have been more the norm until now. I've definitely tried the hydrogen tablet route at the moment, and I'm seeing its benefits.

Laura Fullerton 01:02:02 
and we were in Austin. I think I came back with three bottles of them.

Andy Smith 01:02:06 
Yeah, exactly. Because they're actually quite difficult to get hold of in the UK at the moment, especially Gary Brekker's brand or his son's brand, because it's a hype. And it's like, you know, in the UK, we're always the last to get it. So yeah. Yeah. So Laura, we could talk for hours on Ice Bath. I know we did at the last Health Optimization Summit. I took quite a lot of your time. And that's why I really wanted to get you on the podcast, because, you know, we're seeing so much amazing benefits with cold water. And it's not just, you know, throwing yourself in some cold immersion. There's so much more to it. So really wanted to get you on, talk through the benefits, talk through some of these myths and everything that's going on in line or this clickbait at the moment, you know, that really doesn't have a lot of substance. But you know, we can we can tell when the best time to do these things. But you know, anybody listening to this podcast, we want to get more guests on like Laura in the specialist in their field. And we can't do that without your subscriptions without your if you like and follow us, you know, we can get more and more amazing guests and we can provide for this podcast. So thank you so much for joining us today, Laura. And you know, I'm sure there's so much more we can cover. So we might have to do a part two at some point.

Laura Fullerton 01:03:15 
Sounds great. Thank you so much for having me.