4 Anti-Aging Benefits of Cryotherapy

Cryotherapy has a number of uses. It is most widely known for injury recovery and reducing inflammation for pain management. It is also beneficial to boost your mood by producing endorphins. But cryotherapy can also help reduce signs of aging and help your skin look fresh and young. There are a number of anti-aging benefits to cryotherapy. If you’re looking for more youthful, healthy looking skin, here are a few things to consider.

Cryotherapy Triggers Collagen Production

Collagen is the protein that gives your skin its healthy glow and plump nature. It is also found in bones, cartilage, ligaments, and tendons. As you age, your body’s collagen production slows down, causing skin to loosen and lose its luster. The sub-zero temperatures of cryotherapy trigger the body’s response to produce more collagen. When more collagen is produced, your skin looks tighter and fresher, returning the healthy glow of your youth. Additional collagen can also make a different in the health of your hair.

Cryotherapy Reduces Inflammation

When we think of the effect of cryotherapy on inflammation, we typically think of the way it helps to manage and reduce pain or how cryotherapy patients can recover from injury. But inflammation can also have a visible element causing a red or puffy appearance on your skin. This can make you look older than your years, and certainly worn down. By reducing inflammation, cryotherapy won’t just help you feel better — it can alleviate the symptoms of inflammation from your skin to help you look better too.

Cryotherapy Gets Your Blood Pumping

Good circulation is important for...well, just about everything when it comes to your body and your health. Your skin is no exception. If you have poor circulation, there may be parts of your body and your skin that aren’t getting the attention they need, and your skin could suffer. Three minutes in a cryotherapy chamber will get your blood pumping and boost your circulation, so that you’ll be able to enjoy the health benefits of optimized circulation. And when you’re healthier internally, that will reflect in your external appearance.

Cryotherapy Boosts the Lymphatic System

Every day, we come into contact with a number of external pollutants that affect our skin like bacteria, gases, and smoke. Over time, exposure to these factors can slow our metabolism causing inflammation, worry lines, and wrinkles. Cryotherapy not only boosts your metabolism, but also aids your lymphatic system This works to flush these harmful toxins from your system and slow the signs of aging to help you to lower the stress that tends to affect the skin.

Looking for a whole-body cryotherapy session to slow and reverse the signs of aging in your skin? CRYO850 can help! No appointment necessary. Stop by today to learn more about the anti-aging benefits of cryotherapy and experience the coolest spot in Destin!

Everything You Need to Know Before Your First Cryotherapy Session

You’ve heard all about cryotherapy from your friends and social media posts from celebrity athletes, or even read stories about benefits online. Now you’re curious to learn more and maybe even try it out for yourself; however, you probably have questions first. And even if you don’t and you are ready to go, there are still things you’ll want to consider before your first session. With any new experience, it’s important to be prepared. In today’s blog, we’ll discuss what a cryotherapy session is, the benefits and uses, and a few other things you may need to know beforehand.

What are the Benefits of Cryotherapy?

Cryotherapy was originally developed for addressing arthritic pain. The sub-zero temperatures calm the pain receptors and flush inflammation. Athletes later discovered the process also helped flush lactic acid build up which eliminated muscle pain and soreness and increased endurance. Cryotherapy is a great option for those who have an active lifestyle. Because Whole Body Cryotherapy triggers endorphins, additional benefits include better sleep and a boost to your mood and focus. Science shows cryotherapy increases metabolism and burns calories which helps with weight loss as well as boosts collagen for healthier skin and hair. Moreover, the whole body flush helps eliminate toxic cells helping boost immunity and keeping the body healthy.

What Do You Need for a Cryotherapy Session?

All you need is gym shorts and a sports bra and/or tank top. Everything else is provided. Because the therapy elicits vasoconstriction to bring blood towards the heart, we want to make sure your extremities are covered. We’ll provide head covering, gloves, socks and slippers and a medical grade mask to avoid breathing in the cold air. You’ll need to leave your cellphone and electronic accessories outside so they don’t crash in the cold, but you can certainly use wireless headphones if they are covered. We suggest removal of exposed metal jewelry as it can get pretty cold! Our chamber allows for up to three people at a time, but you’re always welcome to go at it alone for your own personal space and time.

What Happens Upon Arrival for your First Cryotherapy Session?

You’ll be asked to complete a general waiver and an Intake Questionnaire for a quick assessment on any injuries, medical conditions and overall health. There a few absolute contraindications including pregnancy and some severe heart conditions, but mostly just general discussion to give you a chance to ask any questions and feel secure about the experience. Dressing rooms are provided for changing. If you are cold or aren’t comfortable walking around the center in gym attire, we have robes available. We’ll outfit you for the experience and set music of your choice. To allow your body time to acclimate to the cold, we start new customers at 2:30 for the first session, increase to 2:45 the second, and settle on 3:00 for repeat visits. That’s all it takes to cool your body, increase metabolism, flush inflammation, produce endorphins and boost collagen.

Localized Cryotherapy is also available for any one particular site of pain. Because capillaries are opened during whole body cryotherapy session, the application of Localized Cryotherapy provides exponential healing (400x more per science) to any one site of pain when used immediately after the cryotherapy session. For those that don’t wish to use whole body cryotherapy, Localized Cryotherapy is beneficial as an individual application similar to an extreme ice pack

Try a Day Pass to experience red light therapy, whole body cryotherapy, localized cryo, vibration therapy and compression therapy. From Fort Walton Beach to 30A to Panama City and all along the Emerald Coat, come experience pain relief and wellness treatments at CRYO850. Contact us today for more information.

Can Cryotherapy Truly Help You Sleep?

There are a number of benefits to cryotherapy and some of them are still being discovered. A few minutes in a cryochamber can help to reduce chronic pain condition or pain from an injury. The cold exposure therapy can help to reduce stress, relax your body, and even help you feel more motivated and focused so you can go about your daily life despite your injury or chronic pain condition. One of the benefits most touted by cryotherapy users is the that cryotherapy helps them sleep better at night. But what’s the science behind this? Can cryotherapy truly help you sleep? The answer is yes, cryotherapy can help you sleep — and some of the reasons are actually clear when you consider the other benefits of cryotherapy. Let’s break that down in today’s blog.

Disrupted Sleep and Secondary Insomnia

Secondary insomnia refers to a type of insomnia that appears as a symptom for something else, such as chronic pain. Muscle pain can make it very difficult to fall asleep. For many chronic pain sufferers, even when they fall asleep, they’re likely to wake throughout the night due to their pain. Cryotherapy can be used to help reduce the occurrences of disrupted sleep and lessen secondary insomnia by addressing the root of the issue: the pain.

Reduces Inflammation

One of the major benefits of exposing your body to extreme cold in short bursts is that it reduces inflammation at the site of pain. Anyone who has suffered pain for an extended period of time knows inflammation can make it hard to fall asleep. After cryotherapy, you can say goodbye to nights of tossing and turning trying to get comfortable.

Positive Hormone Responses

Cryotherapy treatments also produce positive hormone responses that help to relax your body. This is excellent for pain management, as positive hormone responses like endorphins give your body more energy and clear your mind for better focus. It can also help to relax so you sleep more easily and with less interruption. And being able to focus and be more productive during the day will even help to ensure that you are tired by the end of the day, making it that much easier to fall asleep.

By helping to lessen the physical symptoms of pain — and even easing some of the mental and emotional symptoms of pain, cryotherapy can help you sleep better at night and wake more refreshed in the morning. This is just one of the many benefits of cryotherapy. Want to learn more about how cryotherapy can help you? Set up an appointment and try it for yourself. Contact CRYO850 today for more information or questions about scheduling an appointment.

3 Therapeutic Treatments to Reduce Stress

Stress can affect every part of your life. It effects your emotional and mental well-being and can physically exhaust you. Stress can exacerbate pain, make it difficult to focus, and difficult to relax and sleep at night. CRYO850, we offer a variety of therapeutic treatments to help reduce and manage stress. From red light therapy to massages, you’re bound to find something that works for you. Here are a few therapeutic treatments to reduce stress:

Whole Body Cryotherapy

Stress is often exacerbated by pain and sometimes exacerbates pain in turn. It can be a vicious cycle. When you are in pain, your patience is shortened to handle other issues. When you are stressed, your body is tense and the site of pain is more likely to be inflamed. Whole body cryotherapy can potentially help with both issues. Cryotherapy uses extreme cold temperatures to elicit a vasoconstriction/vasodilation response to increase blood flow to the site of pain and reduce inflammation and pain symptoms. It also creates positive hormone responses, such as endorphins, which can help to give you the energy boost and stress reduction that you need.

Red Light Therapy

Red light therapy uses red and near infrared light to boost blood flow, cell regeneration, and oxygen throughout the body. All of the benefits of the sun without harmful UV rays. Red light therapy is often used to reduce pain and inflammation, but it has also been shown to improve patients’ mood and cognitive function, as well as reduce stress. Red light therapy has been used to treat major depressive disorders and provides wavelengths needed to combat seasonal affective disorder during the time of year when the sun is out the least.

Infrared Sauna

Sometimes when you are stressed, you want nothing more than a spa day to relax your body. At CRYO850, we offer the latest sauna technology. Rather than heating the air in the room, infrared saunas use infrared light to heat your body before heating the room. This process serves to detox your body of harmful overload such as lead and mercury. In the same way short bursts of cold can help to energize your body, heat therapy can relax the muscles and reduce pain by increasing blood circulation. It eases muscle soreness and relaxes the mind so that you can go about your day without a buildup of stress.

Taking time to decompress is imperative to keep stress from building and weighing you down. Self-care treatments are important to give yourself time to take a break, clear your head and relax your mind. Need help managing your stress? CRYO850 is happy to assist. Contact us today to learn more about our stress-reducing treatments and routines.

Pain Management: Does Red Light Therapy Work?

Different people respond to different pain management treatments, which is why CRYO850 offers more than just cryotherapy and massage. One treatment offered is whole body red light therapy. This treatment offers a combination of both red and nearly infrared light that penetrates the tissues offering all of the benefits of natural sunlight — without the risk of harmful UV rays.

But just how effective is it when it comes to pain management? Scientific studies prove it’s very effective. Here are some of the ways red light therapy can help with your pain management.

Increased Blood Flow

One of the most important elements to pain management is proper blood flow. Good circulation helps to ensure your body gets the nutrients and oxygen it needs to recover and manage sites of pain. This is one way that red light therapy can help boost your pain management. Red light therapy helps to boost cell regeneration which, in turn, increase healthy blood flow and restores your body as a whole.

Reduced Inflammation

Inflammation is the key source of chronic pain conditions. With chronic pain, activity results in inflammation which creates a bad flare up that can ruin your day. People who live with arthritis or fibromyalgia experience this as a constant part of life. By boosting blood circulation through your system and increasing the flow of oxygen and nutrients to your body, red light therapy helps to reduce inflammation and decrease pain.

Faster Wound Healing

Since red light therapy creates cellular rejuvenation, it expedites the body’s natural healing process and allows your body a faster recovery from injury.  By stimulating blood circulation, your body receives the nutrients it needs to rest and recover. This is especially beneficial for people with active lifestyles such as athletes and dancers.

Improved Mood and Focus

If you live with pain, you know it often goes beyond just the physical. When you are struck with a bad flare, the pain can also impact your emotional state. It is hard to feel motivated to be productive or to do the activities you enjoy when you’re in pain. By helping to manage your pain, red light therapy also helps boost your emotional state. Cellular rejuvenation of the brain also improves mood, clears the mind and aids with focus. Red light therapy is currently being tested on Alzheimer’s patients as a means to stop and even reverse brain dysfunction associated with the disease.

CRYO850 is proud to offer safe, effective whole body red light therapy to our customers in need of better pain management. These are just some of the benefits. Others include clearer skin, skin damage recovery, increased testosterone in men, and restoration of ocular health against blue light. Contact us today to learn more or to sign up or come in the center to experience whole body red light therapy.

How Cryotherapy Can Help Your Performance Recovery

For active people such as athletes and dancers, an injury can mean more than just pain. It can also hold you back from the activity you love. Injury recovery takes time and adds time to the process of building up muscle and performance fitness. Fortunately, cryotherapy can help. Cryotherapy involves short sessions inside a colCryotherapy d chamber to cool your body and address areas of pain and inflammation. Here are a few ways cryotherapy can help your performance and recovery.

Shortened Downtime

Cryotherapy shortens the time you taken away from the sport or activity you love. Athletes know periods of inactivity can affect their recovery progress and their overall performance. Short whole body cryotherapy sessions can help accelerate the recovery period which means less time away from training.

Muscle Repair

One key element of performance is the recovery of your muscles. With injury, muscles can tear or become inflamed. During the period of inactivity that follows an injury, you can lose muscle mass. Healthy blood flow provides the right nutrients to your muscles for repair. The short bursts of cold temperatures during whole body cryotherapy sessions boosts circulation and helps with post injury muscle repair.

Boosted Endurance

Cryotherapy not only assists with injury recovery. It also helps you to withstand more and prevent future injuries. Because cryotherapy helps to optimize blood circulation, the process helps provide your body with the nutrients needed for endurance. Long distance marathon runners and endurance athletes often incorporate whole body cryotherapy into their training regimen to withstand longer periods of activity to finish the race.

Increased Energy

Think about showers. When you want to relax after a hard day, we often take a long, warm shower. On the other hand, cold water provides energy and springs the body into action. If you need to wake up quickly to face the day, a cold shower is the answer. Cryotherapy has a similar effect. The cold serves as a jumpstart to your blood flow and your body as a whole. Cryotherapy helps to boost your energy to provide the motivation to increase performance and get back in he game.

Need help recovering from a sports or dancing injury? Cryotherapy is an effective and efficient way to boost your performance recovery. Whether you’re missing regular trips to the gym or the stage at the ballet, cryotherapy can help get you there faster. Contact CRYO850 today to learn more about whole body cryotherapy and the myriad of additional performance and recovery services we offer.

Pain Management for Athletes

Pain can put your life on pause, or at least significantly slow you down, which is a problem for athletes who are often in constant motion. Many athletes feel that they don’t have time for pain, but injuries can happen in high activity situations, and chronic pain conditions can happen to anyone. As an athlete, it’s more important than ever to manage your pain and to know how tfor Athleteso take care of yourself so that your body can recover.

Here are some tips when it comes to pain management in athletes:

Take Enough Time Off

For many athletes, it’s not the injury itself that hurts, but the time that they have to take away from their beloved sport. You might be impatient to get back out to the court or field, but it’s crucial to take a sufficient amount of time to heal so that you return fully healed. For a simple sprained ankle, this could be no more than a week. Calf strains can take between two weeks and three months to heal, depending on the severity. Neck strains such as whiplash can take between two and six weeks. Severe injuries, like ACL tears, can take six months to heal. Trying to return to the game too soon can only exacerbate your injury and make you vulnerable to other injuries.

Pain Management That Works

Pain affects different athletes in a variety of ways, depending on the sport and the person. That said, there are a few tried and true methods that work for most athletes trying to recover from an injury or manage their pain. These include:

How to Prevent Injuries

Of course, as an athlete, you want to avoid pain whenever possible. While you can’t wrap yourself in a bubble in the middle of a game to ward off any impact, you can take steps to prepare and protect your body. These include stretching before and after the game to loosen your muscles and range of motion, wearing the appropriate protective gear, and sticking to a healthy diet and sleep schedule. As an athlete, you constantly push your body to its limits. Staying in shape is key to ensuring that you don’t snap in doing so.

We know how important it is for athletes to take care of themselves, whether it’s after an injury when living with chronic pain, or merely trying to avoid an injury in the future.

CRYO850 can help with whole-body cryotherapy, isolated cryotherapy, red-light therapy, bodywork and massages, and much more. Need help managing your pain so you can get back out there and give your game your best? Contact CRYO850 today for more information or to book an appointment.

How Exercise Can Help Pain Management

When you’re in pain, the last thing you want to do is to move around- especially for a workout. However, movement is likely the exact thing you need. Staying sedentary results in stiffer joints and limbs, thus increasing pain and making it more difficult to recover. It can be a vicious cycle. Gentle exercise like stretching or therapeutic yoga can help keep your joints moving so your body can heal. Here are a few benefits of mild exercise as it relates to pain management:

Helps Circulation

Waking up stiff or in pain, the first few movements are always the hardest, but if you can get your body moving and get your blood pumping, you will inevitably start to feel better. Moving your joints and limbs encourages blood circulation, which can ease pain related inflammation and help expedite the healing process.

Strengthens Muscles

Strengthening your muscles will not only help to speed along recovery but also help prevent injury. Since muscles take much of the load off your bones and spine when it comes to supporting your weight, strengthening muscles helps to cushion hard movements. The stronger your muscles are, the more you’ll be able to withstand.

Releases Endorphins

Exercise releases endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers. Science shows an increases your endorphin levels helps reduce pain levels and also improves mental health.

Reduces Weight Gain

If you’re recovering from an injury or set back with a recent chronic pain condition, you’re likely less active than usual. A reduction of activity can cause weight gain weight, which can sometimes exacerbate inflammation. Exercise can help prevent weight gain and limit inflammation.

Exercise is commonly recommended as a natural treatment for pain. Be gentle with yourself and don’t push too hard, but stay moving when you can. During these trying times, make sure to take the time for self-care. There are thousands of resources on the internet for free home workouts. Email us if you would like resources based on your specific needs at [email protected]

How Cryotherapy Can Help You Manage Arthritis

It can be hard to explain to someone on the outside, but when you suffer from osteo- or rheumatoid arthritis, it’s more than just aches and inflammation. It impacts your quality of life most days. You’re not able to be as active as you might like to be, and it can even have a severe negative impact on your mood, making you more stressed, anxious, or depressed. Finding pain relief that makes this manageable is essential to making osteo- or rheumatoid arthritis livable, and many people living with arthritis are finding relief through whole body cryotherapy.

Why?

The Next Level of Cold Therapy

The Arthritis Foundation has long recommended cold therapy for acute pain when it comes to arthritis. For some, this means applying ice packs or even a bag of frozen peas if you’re in a pinch. It slows blood flow to a particular area of your body, thus reducing the inflammation and swelling that cause your pain to flare. It also temporarily slows nerve activity on the site of pain, so that essentially, your body fails to remind itself to be in pain. Cryotherapy takes cold therapy to the next level, using extremely cold temperatures for a couple of minutes to refresh your whole body.

Flight-or-Fight Response

The effects of arthritis are more than just physical pain. Constant pain from inflammation can also cause stress to build up, which can, in turn, worsen your inflammation. It’s a vicious cycle. Cryotherapy can help this, too, by activating your body’s “flight-or-fight” response. In doing so, it activates endorphins and other positive hormones, releasing them through your nervous system. These hormones have been proven to reduce stress and boost your mood. They can even help you to have more energy throughout the day so that you can focus on what you love rather than your pain.

Improves Your Mobility

When it comes to arthritis, it’s essential to keep moving, to reduce swelling, improve joint function, and keep your pain at a low. This can seem like a bit of an oxymoron sometimes, especially when you wake up with stiff, swollen joints that hurt to move. This is perhaps the most common challenge that arthritis sufferers face. When you have cryotherapy treatments, your inflammation will be reduced, and your body will feel refreshed. Combine that with the lower stress and boosted mood, and you’ll find that you want to move. And the more you’re able to move; the more manageable your arthritis will be.

Arthritis can be a challenge to live with. The important thing is to keep your pain at a manageable level so you can live your life. Cryotherapy can help with proven effects of cold therapy now applied to your whole body. At CRYO850, we offer cryotherapy in comfortable cryo chambers with electric, nitrogen-free treatments to avoid nitrogen burns. Contact us today for more information or to set up an appointment.

 

The Health Benefits of Cryotherapy Amid COVID-19

In the past month, everyone’s life has been impacted in some way by COVID-19, more commonly known as the coronavirus. It may be that you’ve had to adjust to working from home, or that you’re a business owner experiencing a loss of income. You may know someone who’s sick, or you may be worried about getting sick yourself — or passing it onto someone you love. You may be missing your much needed social interactions due to social distancing.

In a time where high anxiety runs rampant, it’s more important than ever to practice self-care. Fortunately, cryotherapy has a number of health benefits that are perfectly suited to caring for yourself and even helping to protect yourself from the coronavirus and other illnesses.

Boosts Your Immune System

You’ve probably seen the word “immunocompromised” float around your social media feeds in the past few weeks. The truth is, for most of the population, the coronavirus proposes little if any threat at all. Many people won’t show any symptoms at all, and for some, it will be little more than the typical flu symptoms that we are used to seeing. However, those with lower immune systems are at higher risk, which can be a scary position. Studies have shown that exposure to cold boosts the immune system by increasing the body’s stock of immune cells. Essentially, cryotherapy allows you to build a firewall (or ice-wall) with your immune system to help protect you from the coronavirus and other diseases.

Reduces Stress

A glance at Facebook or Twitter will show that almost everyone is stressed right now. You may be shouldering quite a bit of stress yourself. Stress can be unpleasant to live with, and it can also impact your physical health as well as your emotional health. Cryotherapy is used as a stress relief for patients going about their daily lives, and it can offer stress relief during this trying, chaotic time as well.

A Solo Comfort

Health experts and government officials alike are all recommending social distancing to slow the spread of the coronavirus, so that hospitals aren’t overwhelmed, and the disease can be beaten thoroughly. Cryotherapy, however, remains a safe and wonderful place to escape from all the chaos of the outside world for a bit. Your time in the cryo chamber is a solo activity, and Cryo850 meets and exceeds all cleanliness and hygienic standards to keep our clients safe while they’re in this space.