What Is Cryotherapy?

Carley Millhone
·6 min read

Medically reviewed by Katrina Carter, DPT

Cryotherapy, or cold therapy, cools the body using freezing or near-freezing temperatures to help reduce inflammation. Whole-body cryotherapy is a common form of cryotherapy that involves standing in a freezing, non-medical-grade chamber at a spa or wellness center. Cryotherapy also includes cold-water immersion, ice application, and cryosurgery.

Fans of whole-body cryotherapy boast it helps improve muscle recovery, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic pain, anxiety, and weight loss efforts. But despite cryotherapy chambers popping up across the country, there is limited evidence that non-medical cryotherapy offers legitimate health benefits. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also not approved whole-body cryotherapy chambers as a safe or effective way to treat medical conditions or exercise recovery efforts.

Here's what to know about cryotherapy's uses, benefits, and risks.

How Cryotherapy Works

Cryotherapy—with the exception of cryosurgery—is used to reduce pain and swelling from an injury or inflammation. Since inflammation is often the root of many health issues, cryotherapy may help indirectly alleviate inflammation-related conditions. However, this idea is primarily theoretical.

Cryotherapy generally helps reduce inflammation by reducing blood flow to particular areas. When exposed to cold temperatures, your body constricts your blood vessels (aka vasoconstriction). This allows blood to move to your organs and gain more oxygen. When your body starts to warm up and returns to its normal temperature, your blood vessels expand (aka vasodilation). That oxygen-rich blood then moves to your tissues and helps push out inflammation.

Proponents of whole-body cryotherapy believe cryogenic chambers help kick off the body's cold temperature response in a similar way. However, there isn't enough research to prove cryogenic chambers effectively reduce inflammation like other cold therapy treatments.

Types of Cryotherapy

When people hear cryotherapy, they often think of freezing chambers, but cryotherapy technically includes multiple cold therapies.

Whole-Body Cryotherapy

During a whole-body cryotherapy session, you'll enter a chamber that's cooled to negative -200 to -300 degrees Fahrenheit (-129 to -184 degrees Celsius) for two to four minutes. These chambers are cooled using liquid nitrogen vapors or cool air that circulates around your body. Typically, your head is outside the chamber, while the rest of your body is exposed to supercooling temperatures. Sometimes multiple people enter a fully-enclosed chamber. Either way, you'll enter a cryogenic chamber naked or nearly naked, with gloves, socks, or slippers to help protect your extremities. (Undergarments are optional for women but required for men).

Cold-Water Immersion

Cold-water immersion (aka cold water therapy) includes ice baths, cold water plunges, or cold showers. During cold-water immersion, you'll typically submerge your body below the neck in 50 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 15 degrees Celsius) water for 5-15 minutes. This form of cryotherapy is typically used to help reduce soreness after exercise.

Ice Application

Applying ice packs is a first-line treatment for injuries like sprains, strains, and fractures. Icing is also used to help reduce pain after exercise. After an injury, ice can help reduce pain, swelling, and inflammation. It is typically combined with rest, compression, and elevation as part of the R-I-C-E to help speed healing.

Cryosurgery

Cryoblation, or cryosurgery, is a surgical procedure that uses extreme cold from liquid nitrogen or argon gas to freeze off or destroy abnormal tissue. Performed by a healthcare provider, cryosurgery can remove warts, skin tags, and pre-cancerous skin growths outside the body. In addition, cryosurgery is used externally to remove pre-cancerous skin growths and internally to destroy cancerous cells related to retinoblastoma, skin cancer, early-stage prostate cancer, liver cancer, and bone cancer.

Benefits of Cryotherapy

Cryotherapy is often hyped as a miracle treatment for mental health conditions, muscle recovery, chronic pain, and inflammation-related health conditions. But despite claims, there isn't enough evidence to prove that whole-body cryotherapy is effective. Here are some of the potential benefits of cryotherapy.

Muscle Recovery

Many athletes have popularized cryotherapy as a way to improve muscle recovery after exercise, but research is limited and mixed. A 2022 Chinese study of 12 runners found that whole-body cryotherapy reduced muscle damage and inflammation more effectively than cold-water immersion. Another small study had similar results and found that whole-body cryotherapy decreased muscle pain and inflammation. However, a 2014 review found that whole-body cryotherapy did not significantly reduce muscle soreness.

Chronic Pain Relief

Cryotherapies like ice application and cold-water immersion can temporarily numb the skin, which may reduce pain. However, there is not enough evidence to prove cryotherapy reduces inflammation-related chronic pain. In a 2020 review, researchers found that whole-body cryotherapy and ice application offered short-term pain relief for patients with rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis (inflammatory arthritis that affects the spine). However, the cryotherapy protocols varied, and the effect on long-term pain wasn't explored.

Skin Conditions and Cancer

Cryosurgery is an effective and safe way to destroy cancerous cells and remove skin lesions, moles, and warts. Some old research claims that non-medical cryotherapies may help treat itching and inflammation linked to eczema, but these findings are not well substantiated. Despite these findings, whole-body cryotherapy isn't an effective eczema treatment. The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) also does not recommend whole-body cryotherapy since it can injure your skin.

Sleep

There is not enough evidence that cryotherapy improves your Zzz's. Still, some studies have found links between cryotherapy and sleep quality. Research on muscle recovery in runners found cryotherapy helped improve sleep quality. Whole-body cryotherapy specifically appeared to help runners sleep the best. Another 2019 study found men who did post-workout whole-body cryotherapy slept with less disturbed movement. They also reported better sleep than those who didn't have cryotherapy.

Risks of Cryotherapy

Spending too much time in any freezing condition can injure your skin. However, whole-body cryotherapy has more risks since it puts your body in below-freezing temperatures. In addition, the FDA has not approved any whole-body cryotherapy devices for safety and effectiveness.

Potential risks of whole-body cryotherapy include:

  • Frostbite: People have developed mild frostbite after whole-body cryotherapy froze tissue beneath the skin. In one rare case, severe frostbite resulted in painful blisters, swelling, and third-degree burns.

  • Rash (cold panniculitis): This itchy and painful rash can develop if extreme cold injures the fatty tissue layer of our skin. This rash can look like hard bumps, scaly patches, or deep lumps.

  • Suffocation: While rare, in chambers that use liquid nitrogen, the vapors can reduce oxygen levels in closed rooms and cause people to pass out or suffocate.

Keep in mind that you might feel a bit sore, numb, tingly, and may even experience some pain the first time you try cryotherapy. This is normal, and should go away within 24 hours. Cryotherapy can also worsen health conditions like nerve damage, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Pregnant people should also avoid cryotherapy. If you have any health conditions, talk with your healthcare provider before trying cryotherapy treatments, especially whole-body cryotherapy.

A Quick Review

Cryotherapy includes treatments that use freezing or nearly freezing temperatures to reduce inflammation. Cryosurgery is the only cryotherapy medical procedure proven to remove abnormal skin growths and treat cancer.

Limited research shows that whole-body cryotherapy may help muscle recovery, pain, and sleep. However, we need more evidence to prove it's an effective method for treating health conditions, chronic pain, sleep, and muscle soreness. In addition, the FDA has not approved any whole-body cryotherapy devices to treat these conditions.

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