Rewiring Anxiety: The Nervous System, Breathwork, and Ice Baths w/ Rachel Lee

This week on Further Forward, Ashley sits down with Rachel Lee, founder of Ice Bath Boston, for a conversation about anxiety, burnout, nervous system regulation, recovery, high performance, grief, and what it actually means to feel safe in your own body again.

Together, they explore:

•  why so many women are operating in chronic overload 
•  the connection between breath, stress, and emotional patterns 
•  how nervous system regulation differs from “just relaxing” 
•  why recovery doesn’t have to mean doing less 
•  the role of cold exposure and breathwork in healing 
•  inherited patterns, trauma responses, and rewiring behavior 
•  micro-moments of recovery that actually fit into real life 
•  the difference between coping and true regulation 

Rachel also shares the deeply personal story that led her to this work after years of anxiety, medication, and grief — and why she believes nervous system regulation is a skill anyone can learn.

This conversation is science-backed, honest, thoughtful, and deeply human.

Connect with Rachel: 

https://icebathboston.com/

https://www.instagram.com/icebathboston/

About Rachel: 

Rachel is the founder of Ice Bath Boston & Breath, where she helps professionals and parents break free from anxiety, breathlessness, and pain by rewiring the nervous system through breathwork, ice baths, and interoceptive awareness. She finds where stress hides in the body and delivers actionable tools to make the body tell the mind it's safe. A published academic breathing specialist with 5+ certifications from leading programs around the world, Rachel is deeply committed to the science of helping people feel safe in their bodies and live with greater calm, focus, and confidence. She believes nervous system regulation is a foundational life skill that everyone deserves to learn.

Further Forward: Honest Conversations on the Art of Becoming, is hosted by Ashley Mitchell. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Rachel Lee, welcome to the Further Forward Podcast. Thank you so much, Ashley. It's so good to be here with you. It is so nice to get to have this conversation, especially at this time. I think that so many people are wondering about the kind of work that you do, if it's for them, especially women. So I think this is very timely and I'm so excited. Yes. And I feel like there is so much going on in our world, in our lovely chaotic world right now. Amen. And I've I've I've been having a lot of interesting conversations with people this week, all my clients. And so I am also very excited to share kind of like what has been coming through in the client world and what might be applicable to listeners as well. Yes. Okay, we love it. I start every podcast episode the same way. Who are you and how are you? So my I am the founder of Ice Bath Boston and Breath, which is a one-to-one nervous system regulation studio. Um, and I specialize in helping individuals who are struggling with anxiety, sleeplessness, panic attacks, um, ADHD, uh, nervous system dysregulation that shows up in a myriad of ways. Um, learning somatic tools that complement existing therapeutic medicinal approaches to be able to live their most joyful lives. Um, I work with high performers as well, um, people who have been going, going, going, who don't know how to hit the brake, um, and to really learn how to use your body. And specifically, we use breath work and cold water immersion to be able to teach these tools in a skill-based way. Uh, nervous system regulation to me is like driving a car, and it's a skill that you learn exactly the same way. You learn it once, it takes a little bit of, it's terrifying, it takes a ton of energy. And then once you practice it over and over, it gets easier. Um, same thing with everything that I do. So we work with a wide variety of people in a long-term in-depth capacity to help them lead the lives that they really want to be, to move them from uh dysregulation into safety and then into joys. And I also am a researcher. I spend um two days a week studying uh breathing mechanics and uh developing cold water immersion protocols for all of those things above, but also I'm really interested in how cold water immersion can be used for um menopausal symptoms, for PMDD, for endometriosis, particularly women's health. Um, I just think there's a large on-tap land there. So that is a a good overview of who I am in terms of how how I'm doing, right? My response is my my two responses I carry forward a lot are fine and dandy. Fine and dandy. Um and then the other is blessed and trying not to be stressed. I mm-hmm, yep. Totally. I I my similar like adjacent to that is uh blessed and stressed. I just fully I love that fully own it, thriving and surviving. You know, I'm just I'm in the messy middle and just just owning that. Yeah. You know, I think they're there, we as humans, there was a beautiful meme I saw the other day. It was like when you let people be human, it gets messy. And so I think when people, when we really are living our authentic lives, I I I argue that there's nothing but the messy metal. Right. I know. That's so true, actually. You know, when is it not? Or like one area will be really fine and beautiful, and then another area is just like, you know, almost like I think about I think about my house right now. Like what you see in this recording is just like this nice one corner of my couch. And then when I look out over the landscape, yeah, yeah, you know, it doesn't look like this. And I feel like that is how I'm my my life is sometimes. It's like sometimes I'm just shoving a bunch of shit in a closet and it's messy, and other times things are just, you know, other wonderful. Yeah. Yes, exactly. And I feel like you and I both work so much in habit change with people, right? And you can't wait for the entire everything to be lined up. It ain't never coming together. Yes. And and I think, I mean, a lot of the biggest thing that I feel like that does really hold people back from joy is that waiting. And and that's why it's like if we can get someone's nervous system to say, okay, now is a good enough time to do the the thing that's scary, to take that leap, then then what does the future hold in terms of potential? Right. And we do, I mean, you and I are both athletes, and we we do this all the time. You know, you're always leaving a workout. It's good enough where it is. You can't go back, but still you grow, you learn. There is an adaptation that happens every time, regardless of whether you had an amazing session, an okay session, just the showing up and going through it and getting to the end, that is the sauce. It is the juice, right? And everything comes from the habitry of just showing up. Yes, yes, a hundred, a hundred million percent. And the really fascinating thing is that I feel like when it comes to allostatic load, the total variety, the number of stressors and the intensity that women carry in their lives, I think the society, society at large pressures women to overshow up, right? Um and when we're constantly expected to take on so much allostatic load and and not have the scaffolding is what I like to call it in place for adequate recovery, adequate rest. I mean, that's when we see so, so much negative symptomology. Yes, yes, yes. But it's uh it's hard. It's hard to convince people that you can do less. I mean, and people like hello, I am people, right? But you know, it's even when you see it, when you feel it. I have so many examples of how I felt better with rest, or I've lived it and still I have to convince myself you've done enough, you've given enough. You can sit down, you can read a book, you can read a book end to end, bitch. Like that, like that is your right and your joy, right? I to the thing that I come back to is what am I doing it for, or who am I doing it for, or where am I trying to receive validation? Because there is sometimes for me this guilt that comes up only because I'm thinking about what other people might be thinking about me, or what society would say about what I'm doing, and not necessarily because I'm following my own internal compass. 100%. 100 million percent. And what's so fascinating is that I work with a lot of high performers. I work with a wide variety of CEOs, entrepreneurs, C suite executives, and whatnot. And it's sometimes it's sometimes it's not about doing less. Sometimes it is just being about intentional and strategic with recovery. I talk so much about like, you're not gonna take a professional athlete and expect them to just be playing basketball at that level all day long with no micro break, right? That is just insane. Same thing with elite military units. Um, and so it's it's how can we be super strategic with recovery? And that's that's a big fear I actually allay in people is oftentimes it's not about doing less. It's how can we be exceptionally strategic, be exceptionally um understanding of our own body, our own loads at different times of the day. And how can we take that awareness, use it as information, and be able to have a better plan throughout the day, um, which is which I call life logistics. Um that's what I feel like um it is. Um so it's it's sometimes, it's often not about really, really doing less. Um, there was something else that you made me think of that I can't remember and it'll come back to me. Okay, yeah, it might come back, it might filter back in. I I'm thinking of well, one, I was listening to, oh gosh. Um, dude, he talks about excellence, Brad something on the Ready State podcast. Yeah. Yeah. And he was also talking about, you know, everyone's gotten so into recovery, but sometimes you're not working hard enough to warrant the recovery that you're seeking. And that was a really interesting thought for me because we're constantly toggling. And what you said kind of reminded me of that your body, your life logistics, what you're doing, and a lot of what we see in the health and wellness landscape, can it's sometimes overgeneralized. Everybody should be doing this, everybody should be doing that. And it's like, no, everyone should not. But I also realized that given the state of healthcare and financial privilege and education and all kinds of stuff, like people don't always know or have access to personalized resources, or maybe they don't know how to listen to their bodies, or you know, so it it's it's this interesting, like, yeah, recovery itself, it's it's very much in my head space right now. Yes, dosing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is is exactly what I call it. And I see two a couple general misconceptions along those lines of of first, are you working hard enough, right? Um I think that oftentimes people use exercise as output rather than as a channel. Um I work with a lot of people with ADHD. And uh ADHD meant for me, I just had to find a way to reorganize how my brain used energy, even with medicine, right? Um and so like exercise for for me personally is a necessary, essential daily output for ADHD. I I I cannot access the depths of critical thinking in my brain without adequate exercise. And I was thinking about this because I was talking to someone the other day, and that was like, for me, that means like a half hour of like high intensity stuff at least, um, or or an hour of slower state stuff. So I think one misconception is like, okay, in terms of output, like, how are you viewing the the avenues in which you think you are letting out energy or expending energy, right? Or thought, right? Because mental energy, a lot of problem solving does take take a high degree. Yeah. The second misconception that I really do see though, is that recovery has to be long. And that couldn't be further from the truth. Yeah. One of the things that I talk about is called recovery sprinkles. And a lot of people dis might disagree with me, but I count breath work as any time someone does three intentional breaths of any type throughout the day. I mean, I have to I have to agree with that. And when I am presenting, I will tell people take three fucking deep breaths. Right? Like it is literally enough to change your state. Period. I'm with you. So yeah, go. And one of the things, I mean, on my intake form, the uh the question I asked was like, okay, how much time do you have a day? And I'm like, do you have three breaths anywhere? Or do you have like two sprinkles of three minutes? Right. Or do you prefer to do like one little 10-minute thing during at the end of your day? Um, and so I think that as we're talking about how can people live a healthier, happier life, you don't have to reinvent your own wheel.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Like you, you take a look at your life as it is. Where do you need more micro points of recovery? Can you do a couple things in the elevator as you're going up from the ground floor to your office? Yes. Most of my breath work I do is walking to the bathroom back and forth a day. Like I I have I have found a breath that I do in the hallway, and that's those are my microinterventions once every couple of hours. So, how can you allow yourself, and and this is the convincing part that you were just talking about? How can you convince yourself to take these micro breaks throughout your day? And the why, 99% of the people that come to me, it's not for them. It's for the people that they love. And when you're showing up for your people as as best as you want, then you have that trade-off of time versus the love of your people. Yeah. And those that three breaths, those three minutes, that 10 minutes, whatever, feels so doable, right? Um, but it's about how can we make that trade-off be so seamlessly easy. Um the uh one one very fascinating example is I have a I have a CEO who I who I who I work with who came to me, and it wasn't because of them. It's because this person's adult children were like, we're scared you're gonna die. Wow. Like we're scared about your lifespan because you're fine, you have high energy all day, even though you wake up every hour and a half, um and at night, every sleep cycle. Wow. And your performance is is higher than ever, athleticism higher than ever, energy higher than ever, like joy in life, like all the outputs looked good, but it was really about showing up for the people that you love. So how can we make that trade-off seamless? Literally, so many things. I mean, we like what what has it been? What it's it's been 15 minutes of like so my brain is going like fireworks everywhere. Okay. Thank you. So the homepage of your website says rewire anxiety and stress with science-backed breath work and ice baths. Rewire is a strong word. It is a bold claim. When I read that, as someone who, after my dad died, um, I carried an emergency prescription of Xanax in my purse for like 15 years. My doctor was like, if you take it, great. But some people just feel comfortable knowing that an intervention is there if they need it. Right. And so when I think about interventions that go beyond relief in the moment, that could literally translate to relief long term, I have to pause and be like, okay, this is a big deal. So tell me more about how that works, why that works. Is it the cold? Is it the breath? Is it the combination of the cold and the breath? I love it. I love it. And I I mean, you've built your own website, right? I sat on that headline for about I played with that wording, with that one particular word, rewire, for two weeks. I believe my designer was furious. They were like, I needed the word. I was like, The reason why I chose that particular word is because we use a combination of foundational breathing mechanics. So the way that you breathe 21,000 times per day can convey to your mind that you are in an emergency, or it can convey to your mind that you are on a beach in in the the Dominican Republic because there's a there's a bi-directional mind-body relationship. So we use foundational breathing mechanics as one. How can we help you be able to take a 360-degree diaphragmatic breath whenever you want, and to make your general breathing convey more calm to your brain all day long? Okay. That's one. That's kind of your found your 24-7 foundation. From there, we also get to know people and based on their psychophysiology, um, whether someone is really triggered by intentional hyperventilation, or they have so much energy, and that's a great tool for them. Whether breath holds make someone absolutely freak out and lose their shit, or whether a breath hold is like, oh my goodness, this is such a great moment of stillness. Wow. We use, I get to know people and then develop their toolbox of acute interventions, the relief stuff, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

And what I that's why I love using life logistics to say, okay, how can these tools fit into your exact life? And I have some people that I've worked with that it might I might have create a more schedule-based protocol for them, or I have people that I they for I've we've gotten to know every different emotion in their body that comes up regularly these days. We've gotten to know every body sensation associated with every emotion, and we have a different breathing tool for every emotion. And that's that person's hyper-personalized toolkit. From there, we use personalized cold water immersion. We curate the temperature, the degree of body immersion. I start some people sitting on the edge with scuba booties and how long someone is in to be able to practice calming down your nervous system down. And um I'm patenting a technology to be able to um investigate that phenomena and what how it correlates with other symptomology, the degree of anxiety, the degree of metapausal symptoms, right? Um, I'm very, very curious about that. And that's where I want to spend a lot of a lot of my time on research. So when we have this really cool system of foundational breathing mechanics, acute tools to call upon, and practice using them in a non-emergent state, but that still triggers the same reaction. And then we can titrate that dosage of stress up as someone gets more acclimated to be able to better regulate. Then what we see is as I'm checking in with people's mood, patience, sleep, headaches, digestion, um, attitude, anxiety, stress, every single week, we're able to see what's working, what's not. But oftentimes within a matter of weeks, a couple of months, if I'm working with someone weekly, we'll see that repatterning because someone is spending time telling their brain, brain, we do not have to walk the path of an emergency making me flip out. Right. But when you practice somatic tools and awareness, just really getting to know your own body and how you react, then you're able to it's like carving a new path in a forest, is what I say. And so every single time you practice those tools via neuroplasticity, that wiring gets a little bit easier for your brain to find that path. And then you start to messily, because we're human, messily start to walk that path a little bit more and to be able to call upon those tools. So that's when I say, when I say rewire, I really use the metaphor of driving often. Diaphragmatic reading feels so clunky. It takes so much focus when I first teach it to someone. But a big sign of progress is oh yeah, it was thoughtless. I did it on my way to work today. Right? That's rewiring. Right. That is changing your tendency of how you're going to respond based on your awareness and understanding of your own body. And when I when People tell me that they've been able to change something like that. I'm like, you just changed your whole world. And that is so powerful. Wow. I'm thinking of two things immediately. One that quote, you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. And it sounds like Yeah. It's it's right. You have to, well, one, create a system, which it sounds like that's kind of what you're doing. Yeah. But also, you know, kind of whatever you practice is what's going to be. Whatever the default network or pathway or whatever, like that's when shit hits the fan, that's what you're going back to. Not what you aspire to be, but what you've practiced over and over again. So true. I'm like, let me get on my soapbox real quick. No. And real fast. And I just like I just wanted to sit with that for a moment because the I talk about the level of emotional arousal that that people are at. And when someone is already I I don't want it to ten, ten being highest, right? Ten is panic attack. Okay. If someone's riding a day to day at four, your tendency to default to old patterns is more likely, the higher you get. And I've I do I I am a trauma-informed practitioner. Um, I I take trauma, developmental trauma, attachment trauma, generational trauma, like incredibly seriously. Because yes, it's about it is about rewiring, but it's also about reframing a lot. Come on. Come on. Yes, like let's go. Yes, let's go. And it is so fascinating. And this is why the people that I work with where I see the fastest progress, I'm one of a team, right? I'm one of a team, and the person's already doing a tremendous amount of work and is is in is invested in talk therapy, or they've done a lot, they've done as far as they can go in that, and and they're like, I there's still something here, right? But I bring that up because when you're talking about reframing those deep seated attitudes, reactions, energy, you can't just breathe over it, bro. Like, yeah, yeah, it doesn't work that way. You have to take that not, and part of part of, and this is why the rewiring is is reframing, is because it's like, okay, I know that this thought makes me activated, right? People have to find the container that they feel safe enough to ask why. Why is that how my mother reacted? Is that how is did our family like um did our family have some interaction in that my great grandparents, like right? Like, why? Where did it come from? Because all it's just all inherited reactions, and so as we're saying that, it's like it is a mind-body system that needs to practice under pressure. Yes, and so that's why sometimes I even have had people for a lighter example, I've had people in an ice bath, like I've had singers, and I've been like, you're singing your solo in 49 degree water, up to your neck. Yeah. Right. And it's how close can we get to the real thing and and and have you react. So I I really I tailor my coaching in a in a plunge too, to be to I will put someone, I will put a CEO at a board table and I'll be like, here's the emergency you just reacted to last week. Let's run that back. And I want, I'm gonna track your, I'm gonna track you as as we're going back through this. And I want to see how you react. And I want to see if we can change how you react with that, with either that same or or highly modified thought pattern, right? A lot of what I do with people is patience. And a patience protocol anyone can use because I have yet to see this, I have yet to see this one fail, but I call it one, two, three. It's when you notice yourself going, and when I notice myself going, I feel like a bull with horns. Like I can feel the horns growing out of my traps. And the one, two, three is one breath. Okay. Two body sensations. So where do you feel yourself reacting? Mine is always my forehead, and it's always my traps with impatience. And then tell yourself these three words not a tiger. Because the thing in front of you is not a saber-toothed tiger, but you have to repattern that to yourself. Right. So I so hear you as as we're as we're as we're diving into this. Like we are deeply wired creatures. And um that's why in the field of of who's how can we make all these tools more accessible to people? I think yes, we as practitioners need to have a depth of knowledge in our particular fields, especially in wellness. Right. But we need breadth of communication with other practitioners to say, I need to hand this area of this person off to you. Yes. Right. Yes, for sure. We do kind of need to be talking to each other a little bit more because it kind of feels like there's science-y stuff happening over here, and there's like fitness-y stuff happening over here, and nutrition over there. And then, you know, a lot of us are interested in all of the things. And sometimes it's our scope of practice, and sometimes it's not our scope of practice. And we we need to have people in our network that we trust to be like, you know, I'm outside of my depth here. Like this person needs this, or can we collaborate on a workshop so that my people can learn what you have and vice versa, whatever. It's a lot of information, and there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation competing with it. So, yeah, we need each other a lot. We really do. And a massive thing that I'm seeing in, I mean, you can even talk about the develop in the trauma landscape too. Like, there's just a really incredible paper kind of dissecting and and very rightfully challenging polyvagal theory, which is the the founding horizon of what a lot of trauma work rests on. Right. And um these it was, I think there's like 30 authors on that, that on this incredible paper, and they they kind of pick it apart, this theory. And even if people, the listeners, you don't know what it is, the the point I'm getting at is like I think even even when an individual is not like I'm not obviously I don't I I I know nothing. I'm I take on Socrates like like view in this world. Like I know nothing. Um I I and so when we know that, okay, we're trying to be a uh evidence-based practitioner, great. But even in peer review literature, like there you go. The peer review process is such a mess where it really depends on who you have as reviewers. There's not a great way to write commentary back unless you're writing in like a counter article and you can get it published in the same journal, right? Um, but I I think what really just what perplexed me, especially with this uh with the drama unfolding around Polybagel theory, is like I I I'm astounded that it has been such a it has gotten so much attention despite its like gaping holes in in this theory. And even though these authors were trying their best, right, like it's when it comes to evidence-based practice, it's kind of like who's first to the mic. And I like I I'm excited in this age of of collaboration where we can be doing more digitally and whatnot. But the other interesting thing about AI too is is I mean, if someone's trying to be an evidence-based practitioner and they want to say, hey, what papers? AI hallucinates papers all the time. All the time. I've caught so many. I'm like, that doesn't exist because I know that author's work and they never wrote a paper on that. And I will be like, hey, sorry. Yeah, yeah. So it's people are trying their best out there, but yeah, there is no substitute for like high quality human-based practice. That's it. Yeah. Fully agree. Fully agree. Besides people telling you how they feel, how else are you kind of tracking progress over time? And then with that, what's an ideal amount of time to work with you one-on-one? So when it comes to how else I'm tracking progress, um, Dr. Belisa Vranich is a brilliant um psychologist who created the breathing IQ. And it's it, we published this in Frontiers and Physiology last year. It's an anthropometic index of uh your ability to take a diaphromatic breath. So I'm it's really cool I'm able to see uh people's progress in being able to take that breath at rest. Wow. Okay. Just super, super, super cool. And I'm excited to do um to explore that more in more pilot pilot studies to explore correlations between your ability to take a good breath and anxiety. Because I I've seen it time and time again. It is that was a massive unlock in my own journey as well. Um and it has been beautiful to see people then have breath awareness and report stories throughout their week back to me to say, hey, wow, I was in that meeting and someone said something that like really attacked my work. And I noticed, I noticed myself hold my breath. So I I took a big breath, right? It so part of that is awareness. The second thing, too, is when people tell me about their consistency of interventions throughout the week. Okay. Um, that is amazing. Like I'll have someone be like, I actually did like a 60-second body scan every day during lunch this week, and and I can see it in them in how they're talking to me about their week. They have more acute awareness. Um I am also there's a lot more we need to learn about um uh CO2 sensitivity. Uh so I don't I don't uh like to make tons of broad-based claims about that, but I that's something that I like to explore and just kind of watch within people um to explore CO2 sensitivity. Um CO2 sensitivity mean. So basically there are some people that if you hold their, if they hold their breath or they they it triggers a massive five alarm fire in their brain to say, oh my gosh, we're suffocating, even though we've been holding our breath for three minutes. Okay. Um so some people have a lot of difficulty exhaling. They can't slow exhale. So sometimes for my, I say fast breath, fast mind. So if someone is, if I'm seeing someone be more able to slow their breath down without taking in a higher breath volume, that's a big sign of progress to me as well. Um, and then if I see someone's down regulation capacity increase throughout the week, uh in in in the in the tub, then that's a I have yet to hear that not correlate with other improvements in their life.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

And then the final thing, too, is um there's a protocol that I created for working with individuals with panic attacks. And it is a mix of foundational breathing mechanics, acute breathing tools, and cold water immersion, but also a super microtitrated protocol of intent of intentional hyperventilation. Because usually these individuals are very sensitive to erasing heart or shortness of breath. And when you can desensitize someone from the somatic sensation, it doesn't matter what the trigger is, that sensation doesn't freak them out as much. So if I, for example, with these individuals, if if I see their progress, like I have started with people that that could not take one deep fast breath. It freaked them out. When we weeks later are up to a minute and they're totally unbothered, um, I've seen some really cool turnarounds from from work like that. Wow. And then so how long should someone work with you before they're, dare I say, rewired to bring that word back into it? Yeah. I think just like physical therapy, it depends on how much you are able to do your homework day to day. And when I say homework, the reason that I like working one-to-one with people is getting to know how what capacity do you have, right? So I never go beyond three things, but if someone does their one thing every day, like awesome, great. If they do nothing, then we're not we're not getting where we need to be. Right. Um I I mean, I start at at minimum with eight-week packages. Um eight session packages, um, which actually someone can use, has six months to use, but I really do prefer to get like a once-a-week head start for like four weeks at least. And then some people like to space it out. Um, but it's really interesting because I call life this fuel, and we are each a tea kettle, and we call in the process of of working together, we often get to know like how often do you need to let off steam and how much steam and and kind of when. And so I do have people that have been working with me for once a week for like two years. Wow. Um, because it it just ends up that we get to a point where their mechanics are great, they're not bothered by anything anymore, they're doing great at regulating in a tub, but they end up just using our container as their weekly steam let off. Okay. And it's interesting. I'll sometimes someone will go away for three weeks and then they'll have a clear flare-up of chronic pain, or they'll lose all their habits and they'll be like, Rachel, you went on the like, I went on vacation, and my therapist went on vacation, and you went on vacation. So they lost all the structure. Yeah. So short answer, that was the long answer. Short answer, I would say about one and a half to two months. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. If you have the awareness that this might be something that you want to try, two months feels like it's a very doable investment. Right. You're not saying a year. Exactly. Like, and my whole goal is like confident, independent regulation. I mean, if you if if I I want people to live their lives, I don't want them to be tied to me, like use me as a resource. Right. Um, but like you don't want to be stuck with a driving instructor for your whole life. Yeah, yeah. If you want to go take a drive, take a drive, man. Um where did this come from for you? Yeah. So I took my first ice bath when I was living in Tulume, Mexico. I had just moved there, and on my second day there, I was invited to take an ice bath. Prior to this, uh, I grew up in Boston. I went to school and college at Villanova in Philly. I uh uh took a teaching major uh and I taught for the first three years at an international school in Amon, Jordan for three years, teaching high school chemistry and biology. And then I moved to Philly uh and taught in uh Philadelphia Public School District for another three years, burned out during COVID. Then had started a company as a uh strength trainer and nutrition coach teaching women online. Um, and uh it was through that um that I found myself in Mexico. So day two, Mexico, invited to take a cis ice bath, really not keen on doing it because I had just super intentionally moved from Boston, Mexico, to never be cold again. Right. And but the problem was I didn't have any friends, so I had to say yes. Yes. So I say yes, and I go up to this ice bath a couple days later, and I was guided how to breathe, what to think. And during that first experience, I stayed in for six minutes, but more importantly, I felt this really dramatic shift where I felt this overwhelming calm in my body. I felt this like deep relaxation. I felt this inner warmth towards myself. I felt like just almost like confidence and like self, a lot of self-compassion and love. And I got out of that thing feeling like the Hulk mentally and physically. And it felt like I could do anything, right? And what really perplexed me was that I had been looking for those sensations for the last 10 years. Because a decade before that, um, six days after I graduated high school, I witnessed the tragic death of my high school boyfriend in a car accident. I'm so sorry. Yeah, and um the output of that was uh anxiety and depression that really altered the trajectory of my life throughout college and as a young adult. And to numb that pain, the doctors, the therapists, the whole kit and caboodle uh put me on four meds trazidone to sleep, Ritalin for ADHD, and Selexa and Wellbutrin as mood stabilizers. So for 10 years, I was on one pill to fall asleep and three to keep me stable during the day. And so for that stupid bucket of water to have given me everything I had been looking for that no medication, no therapist, no doctor, not even my career as a strength trader and nutrition coach could give me, I was like, I gotta learn more about this. So I did a little experiment on myself, and for the next hundred days, I took an ice bath every day and did breath work as well. And I started to feel really good. And after about a month, I reached out to my doctor and I was like, hey, can we get off some of this stuff? Yeah. And she said, Yeah. So we gradually over the next five months weaned down from four medications to one. And ever since then, um, I have dedicated my life to studying breath work and cold water immersion. Um, I've gotten, I've taken every cert I can get my hands on um, and continue to try to create an evidence-based approach to this. Um, right, it started with just pop-ups and group workshops and Tulum. Um, goodness, when I finally moved back to Boston, I was like blowing up tubs in parks and I had flyers up and I was like, hey, wants to come, didn't have a car, was door dashing ice, hooking up the hose to dog water spigots in the park. Um, when it got cold, my husband was gonna kill me. Uh, because I was like, I still love this community that we're building. And so when I moved in, I moved in with an ice bath that sat in front of our TV. Because it was what I needed every single day. And so for these workshops, when it got cold, the flyer still said just like sign up here. And after someone signed up, I would like to do a loose Google of them. And if I didn't think they were gonna be a serial killer, I was like, here's our address, come come this way. Um and then after that, we started after the group workshops. Um, I did one at um uh physics PT in in Needham and um Jay Lee and I connected and I started uh seeing one-to-one clients there. Uh eventually he was uh on an hourly basis, and eventually he was like, You want to move in to the office? And I was like, Yeah, that'd be great. So I have a this is this is my this is my home office, um, but the work office is a is a like a 10 by 10, 10 10 by 12 room uh that my clients call the Zenden. Um and it's has tubs in it, uh, it has a big fluffy rug, it has blankets, it has pillows, it has eye masks and And um and I see about 27 clients a week there. Um and it it's I am so grateful for every single person that I get to interact with every day because if there's anything I've learned, if there's anything I've learned, it's that we all have our shit. We all have our shit. And how we make sense of that, how we deal with it, how we cope with it, kind of full circle moment here is messy. And everyone is just trying their best. I wholeheartedly believe that. And people just want to show up their best for the people that they love. And so I I am just deeply, deeply, deeply grateful that I get to share tools that have worked for me, um, that have have that I'm trying to put more weight behind with evidence, with research behind, um, that that they've been able to work for a lot of other people too. That's just incredible. Thank you for sharing that. Of course. Is there a phrase or word or piece of advice that you could live your life by that you could give to us as a parting gift? I am safe. Wow. Those are the three words that anytime I notice myself drifting, it's it's I am safe. And sometimes a follow-up to that is I can do hard shit. And how we I think that's part of rewiring. It's not only about changing your body response, it's about changing your internal monologue. Right. And being able to not only convince yourself that you're safe, but to be able to like yourself, to be able to love yourself, to be able to curate the life that you know you deserve. That is the art of living, in my opinion. Yes. Fully agree. No notes. Can you please tell everyone where they can find you, how they can stay in touch, book an appointment, anything that we would need to know to be connected to you? Yeah, of course. So our website is icebathboston.com. And you can just click the book now button and it'll take you to our contact form uh where you'll just put in a couple things about yourself. If you select the I'm a client, I I want to work with Rachel as a client, you'll immediately be sent a form um to select a uh time to for a quick consult call just so you understand um what I do so I can make sure I'm I'm an appropriate fit for you. Um and then from there, uh people uh come in for an initial 90-minute evaluation where we take a look at your breathing mechanics, we take do some breath work, you get in the tub, you see if if you enjoy if if this approach is a right fit for you. Um and also uh I have a retreat coming up at Krapallu with my mentor, Samuel Whiting, which I'm super excited about in April. So if you can't do if if you live far from Needham, Massachusetts, or you don't have time on your hands, if you want to come to the retreat, you're more than welcome. And uh we do um I try to host uh uh workshops um on a monthly or quarterly, quarterly basis. So you can also find all of those on the website too. And um, feel free to follow us on Instagram. I'm trying to post more uh in educational tools and whatnot on there. The handle is just ice bath Boston. Amazing. Thank you so much for being a guest on this podcast. Thank you for saying yes and for sharing everything you did. I feel like I needed more time to just like just like shoot the shit and like talk about all the things. I'm like, no, but I have so much more to say. Which is a good sign. Long told what this is part of why, like, I remember I'd used my initial visits used to be 60 minutes and they were 90. And my mom was like, Rachel, you have a gift and it's like it's a blessing and a curse. Your curse, it's it's talking. Yeah, man. When I when I am enjoying it, when I'm not enjoying it, I'm like, okay, thank you. Bye. Like when I am, I'm like, no, we need all day. We need all day. But but we're busy, we have stuff to do. So thank you. Um, everybody, go follow ice bath Boston. Keep in touch with Rachel. Thank you for talking about you, bye, everybody.