I am not a medical person, so my reading of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4034215/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4034215/ should n

I am not a medical person, so my reading of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4034215/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4034215/ should not carry much weight. One thing I noticed was it was meant to show that people who followed Hof's training had several measurable differences to those who did not. What it doesn't do resolve if all three parts of Hof's training ("meditation, exposure to cold, and breathing techniques") were essential. The article in The Guardian seems to suggest that these aren't all needed, albeit only because two of them weren't mentioned. [1] I also noticed that the nine people who did the training also went to Poland, while the control group did not. That means the study cannot exclude the possibility that air travel, the food they ate, or other shared factors had an effect on the result. [1] I came across https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965229921001242 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096522992... - "A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effect of whole body cryotherapy on mental health problems" - which suggests the benefits primarily come from the temperature. It ends as you suggested: "Results indicate preliminary evidence for WBC as efficacious add-on intervention for mental health problems, especially depressive symptoms. Further research in the form of RCTs with larger numbers of participants is needed." :)