White nitrogen gas swirls around my body. I’m standing up, naked, in a cryogenic chamber smaller than a phone booth. Rubber booties and gloves keep my feet and hands tolerably warm while the rest of my skin prickles with goosebumps.
I feel like I’ve stepped outside in zero-degree weather. In reality, it’s more like -250 Fahrenheit.
There’s a crackly quality to this deep, dry cold. My skin goes frosty-pale. It occurs to me that if I were to flick a nipple, it might shatter.
Brittney Scarlett-Torres is at the chamber’s controls, reassuring me with bubbly small talk. As co-owner/operator of Glacé Cryotherapy, which she and her brother opened in The Carmel Barnyard a few months ago, she’s convinced the benefits are broad and deep.
The Carmel High grads – Brittney was class of 2003; younger brother Skyler Scarlett was 2008 – are both bright-eyed, chatty and quick to smile. During an interview they pass the conversational ball back and forth, explaining how they decided to go in on cryotherapy together. Skyler’s the researcher/technician of the team, while Brittney masterminds the nuts and bolts.
Like any siblings, they had their squabbles as kids. But now, if someone gets snappy, they just hop in the cryosauna. “It mellows us out,” Skyler says.
The idea germinated a couple of years ago, when Brittney’s husband asked Skyler, then an exercise physiology major at Chico State, if he’d heard of whole-body cryotherapy. Among the claimed benefits: pain reduction, calorie burn, endorphin release, mood enhancement, anti-aging effects, even a libido boost.
He was skeptical. What can be done in three minutes? he remembers thinking.
But research made him a believer. To convince potential clients, he posted 14 peer-reviewed clinical studies on the Glacé website.
What the science says: Cold stimulates the body to fight inflammation, a major culprit in both soreness (post-workout or injury) and chronic illness (like heart disease and arthritis). Exposure to low temperatures prompts the blood vessels to shrink, which reduces pain and accelerates healing – like an ice pack on a swollen muscle, but at a more intense, whole-body scale.
Other perks, according to Skyler: The cold stimulates collagen production, which is good for the skin. The sudden drop in skin temperature sends a surge of blood to the body’s core; when the session ends, that nutrient-rich blood flows back to the extremities. That warming-up process also kicks up metabolism. Brittney says a single session causes the body to burn an extra 500-800 calories throughout the day. For some clients, it also triggers an endorphin release she calls “the cryo-rush.”
Skyler shows me a photo collage of his topless torso, which progresses from doughy to sculpted six-pack over six months. Other than cryotherapy sessions once or twice a day, he says, all else was equal: biweekly workouts, clean eating.
Carmel Valley resident Chaz Bomio says he’s seen a definite improvement in his healing from post-bike-accident knee surgery after four cryo sessions. He also describes “an energy boost and a sense of well-being” that lasts for hours.
“The first time, wow, I wasn’t sure quite what I experienced. Then I got an idea what was going on,” he says. “It was an invigorating feeling.”
He signed up for a package of future sessions, convinced regular cryotherapy will improve his joints over the long term.
The siblings are stoked to be on the forefront of what they see as the next U.S. health trend. New spas are opening in San Diego and Las Vegas. Chiropractors and physicians are adding cryosaunas to their practices.
Not that whole-body cryotherapy is new. Dr. Toshiro Yamauchi invented it in Japan in the late 1970s. From there it reportedly migrated to Europe, where athletes and the general public picked up the trend. But the Scarlett siblings say it didn’t reach the U.S. until 2010, when a cryosauna opened in Texas. The Dallas Mavericks pro basketball team famously used cryogenic therapy on their way to the 2011 championship.
Before opening Glacé’s barn door Oct. 15, Brittney did a U.S. cryosauna tour, including Viking CryoTherapy in Los Gatos; four cryotherapy spas in SoCal (where, it’s rumored, certain celebrities freeze regularly); and one in Dallas.
Glacé’s books are already penciling out, Brittney says, despite a $60,000 investment in the American-made Impact Cryosauna and a liquid nitrogen bill topping $1,000 per month. People in cryotherapy circles are watching to see how it performs in little Carmel, she says.
Glacé customers get the best value in packages. The Scarletts say it takes a few visits to really feel the benefits, so I commit to three sessions. I’m a little nervous at first, especially filling out the waiver that spells out what I’m getting into: 3 minutes or less exposed to temperatures of -238 to -274 Fahrenheit.
I go into a small room, undress and put on the provided gloves, socks, rubber booties and bathrobe. The goal is to make sure nothing’s sweaty, because moisture makes the cold worse. Men are advised to leave their underwear on so they don’t get chilblains – the inflammation of small blood vessels when skin suddenly goes from cold to hot.
I step into the glowing blue chamber, where the operator (Brittney for my first session, Skyler for the next two) folds a plastic frame over my shoulders, leaving my head poking out on top. That’s so customers don’t inhale the pure nitrogen gas, which could make them pass out.
I slip off the robe and hand it over – they assure me they can’t see below the neck – and with a soft mechanical exhale, the white vapors snake around me.
We chit-chat while the timer runs. I rest my eyes on the mounted flatscreen, where there’s a picture of a desert. Think warm thoughts, I tell myself.
But the sudden chill is primal. My nerve receptors start sending increasingly urgent text messages to my brain:
Brrrrr.
No, seriously. BRRR.
GET OUT OR YOU WILL DIE.
That first visit, I called uncle at two minutes sharp. Brittney says that’s fine: You get all the health benefits if you make it at least 120 seconds. More than 180 and you get into frostbite territory.
The next visit, I push it two and a half minutes. Skyler uses a laser to read the surface temperature of my calf as I step out: 44 degrees.
At my third session, I finally get through the full 3 minutes, though the last few seconds bring a new tingle that borders on burning.
Afterward, it’s hard to put a finger on what I feel. It’s not the euphoric “cryo-rush” Brittney had described. My chronically sore neck and shoulders seem a little less achy, but the change is subtle enough that it could be a placebo effect.
But I’m not exactly feeling normal, either. I’m better than normal. Renewed. Rejuvenated. My steps are springy, like coils of energy are curling out from my core. My skin feels like soil thawed after a winter frost, spongy and warm in the sweet Carmel sunshine.