Cold-Water Face Immersion Per Se Elicits Cardiac Parasympathetic Activity
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Cold-water face immersion (FI) is known to produce physiological changes, including bradycardia, by stimulating the parasympathetic system. However, other factors such as sympathetic activity, intrapleural pressures, and changes in chemical mediators may also contribute to these changes. METHODS AND RESULTS: Eight healthy volunteers underwent a series of experiments designed to observe the effects of FI on heart rate and its variability, as detected using wavelet transformation. Each subject was instructed to bend over and put the entire face into an empty basin with and without breathing (protocols 1 and 2, respectively), and then perform FI in warm-water (protocols 3 and 4, respectively) and cold-water (protocols 5 and 6, respectively) while breathing and breath holding. Change in the R-R interval with FI was only significantly greater for protocol 6 than for the control procedure (protocol 1). Also, changes in the natural logarithm of high-frequency power with FI were significantly greater for protocols 5 and 6 than the protocol 1. CONCLUSIONS: Bradycardia associated with cold-water FI is mainly attributed to cardiac vagal activity, which is independent of both the change in body position caused by bending over a basin and breath holding.
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Cold water immersion of the face lowers physiological stress through parasympathetic nervous system activation.
“Additionally, immersing one’s face in cold water reduces physiological stress by activating the parasympathetic nervous system (Kinoshita et al. 2006).”
From CBT-Informed Interventions for Essential Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020) · cites this paper as Kinoshita et al. 2006
The Discussion (page not specified) reports increased high-frequency heart-rate variability during cold-water face immersion and attributes the cardiac response mainly to parasympathetic stimulation. The paper does not report a measure of physiological stress or show that stress was reduced. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Kinoshita, T., Nagata, S., Baba, R., Kohmoto, T., & Iwagaki, S.
- Affiliations
- Nagoya University (JP)
- Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma (Japan) (JP)
- Aichi Medical University (JP)
- Tokai University (JP)
- ORCID
- Baba, Reizo
- Venue
- Circulation Journal
- Publisher
- Japanese Circulation Society
- Published
- 2006
- Volume
- 70
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 773-776
- ISSN
- 1346-9843 (ISSN-L)
- 1347-4820
- OpenAlex
- W2075893513
- Cited by
- 39
- References
- 27
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 0.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Circulation Journal (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Vagus Nerve Stimulation Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Cardiovascular Syncope and Autonomic Disorders
- Keywords
- parasympathetic activity, bradycardia, heart rate variability, high-frequency power, breath-holding, posture, cold water, wavelet analysis
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Bradycardia, Cold Temperature, Face, Female, Heart Rate, Humans, Immersion, Male, Thermosensing, Vagus Nerve, Water
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