Why You Need To Add Epsom Salts To Your Ice Bath

Salts have been used for centuries in therapy baths to relax, relieve muscle soreness, and promote general health benefits that come with it but adding Epsom salts to your ice bath has been a common question among ice bath enthusiasts.

To be more specific, Epsom salt, or if you like to use the technical term ‘magnesium sulphate’ has been recently gaining in popularity to add into your regular bath to wind down the day to help alleviate muscle tension and reduce headaches.

Interestingly, it was named after a bitter saline spring in Europe where it was initially discovered. Who would’ve thought!!

Made from sulphur, magnesium, and oxygen, it is often effective in taking the pain and muscle tension away. It is also said to be helpful to people dealing with migraines.

Here are some quick benefits from using Epsom Salts in your Ice Bath:

• Magnesium is an instant serotonin fix and could thus result in increasing relaxation of the brain, decreasing stress overall.
• Magnesium helps reduce pain, especially in the back, shoulders, neck, and joints.
• Epsom salts are also said to be digestion boosters as they promote bowel movement and could potentially lessen the risk of cardiovascular disease.

If you would like to add Epsom Salts to a hot bath, then the ideal quantity to add to a bathtub is 1 to 1.5 cups, about 300 grams. You don’t need to mix it in, it dissolves.

Can You Add Epsom Salt to Ice Baths?

Yes, you can. Adding Epsom salt to your ice bath with the combined benefits of cold water therapy stimulates the release of magnesium within the bones. The free magnesium then in turn enters the mitochondria, the powerhouse that drives cell behaviour of the brown fat cells to engage in a process called thermogensis.

Thermogenesis speeds up the rate at which fat is burned.

An added benefit of adding Epsom salts to your ice bath helps maintain magnesium stores within your body. However, If you want to supercharge your magnesium levels, you can try supplementing magnesium but ensure your product includes the correct balance of Vitamin D and Calcium for optimal absorption.

Benefits of Magnesium For the Body

Magnesium is one of the most important minerals for the human body as it benefits such a wide variety of functions. Offering the same benefits as ice baths do to sleep, mood, exercise performance and recovery, magnesium tips the scales for adding to these benefits.

Benefits of Magnesium include:

1. Magnesium helps improve blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity.¹
2. Magnesium is crucial for maintaining bone formation, density and overall health.²
3. Magnesium helps reduce cortisol, the body’s stress hormone.³
4. Magnesium doubles as a pain reliever and provides relief for migraines and PMS.⁴

One of the other benefits of using Epsom salts to your ice bath is it can alter the freezing point of the temperature. In other words, it can slow down the process of ice melting.

So you don’t necessarily need to plunge in just iced water, if the result you want to achieve is pain relief or help both decrease arthritic joint soreness, and relieve pain associated with migraines, PMS, and delayed muscle onset soreness (DOMs) adding in Epsom salts appears to offer large benefits.

The whole concept of ice baths and recovery is about maintaining the water at a particular degree so it heightens the benefits, so adding salts to keep your ice bath colder for longer is a recommendation.

Another bonus is that Epsom salt comes in a variety of scents – including rose, eucalyptus, and lavender, so depending on what symptom you are looking to fix, you have a ton of options.

Can I Add Table Salt To an Ice Bath?

Table Salt, or what is commonly known as Kitchen Salt, or sodium chloride of most often used to alter the taste of foods. You can use salt in your ice bath because it’s able to lower the temperature of the water faster and delay the melting of ice cubes.

But you do run the risk of table salt being too harsh on your skin and your ice bath so the risks may outweigh the benefit.

Interestingly, the ions in table salts can also disrupt the molecules in water so it makes it harder for the water to freeze, this is sometimes known as ‘freezing point depression‘. This is why salt water freezes at -1 degree Celcius, or 30F.

How Does Cold Water Help Your Muscles?

When your muscles are not performing as they should or perhaps you’re not recovering as fast as you would like, the first thing that comes to mind is doing a warm, relaxing soak.

While this may be many people’s go-to method to wind down the day, it is not as beneficial as cold water therapy, which can greatly speed up your recovery process by reducing the swelling caused by intense exercise or injury and constricting the blood vessels.

In turn, this can slow down the circulation to the affected areas and therefore speed up recovery, especially when you are in pain.

We know that after completing a workout, the idea of immersing your exhausted body in cold water is likely the farthest thing from your thoughts, especially if you are experiencing discomfort from soreness and pains. 

When you do a cold plunge, it causes the surface blood vessels to tighten up. This might seem like a bad thing, but it pushes the blood from deeper tissues to circulate faster. Picture it like a rush hour traffic jam clearing up suddenly. With an ice bath, you get elevated blood circulation throughout the body which helps with tightness and pain. 

Now, what about adding Epsom salt to your cold water soak? Since it is packed with magnesium, the chemical element is great for relaxing muscles, inducing deep sleep, and reducing pain.

So not only are you improving circulation with the cold water, but you might also be getting some extra pain-relief benefits from the magnesium.

How Would an Epsom Salt Ice Bath Help Your Overall Health?

If you have muscle pain, Epsom salt acts like a speeding agent in the healing process. Whether you have tightness, inflammation, or just pushed yourself a bit too hard at the gym, the chemicals in the salt can help you bounce back quicker than ever.

Also, after an intense training session, nothing feels better than sinking into a bath filled with nice-smelling bath salts. It helps your muscles to recover faster so you can hit the gym again sooner.

However, it’s not just about physical benefits—Epsom salt paired with an ice bath can also work wonders for reducing pain from chronic pain brought on by conditions like fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis.

Taking a soak can help melt away stress, calm inflammation, and even boost your mood, increase focus, and help your ability to stay calm in chaotic situations.

Sure, cold therapy does not sound like the most pleasant thing to do in the world – shocking your system with frigid water, who wants that first thing in the morning? With scientific research and countless positive experiences, it has long been proven worth it! It helps ease inflammation, boosts your immune system and metabolism, and even gives your nervous system a kick-start.

When you combine the benefits of an ice bath with the magic of salt, you’ve got yourself a winning combo! You can also pair this with a hot bath, or contrast therapy and establish a routine that works for you to help your mind, muscles, and joints.

1. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/magnesium-powder ↩︎
2. https://www.uhhospitals.org/blog/articles/2022/09/the-surprising-health-benefits-of-magnesium ↩︎
3. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/health-benefits-of-magnesium ↩︎
4. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/magnesium-benefits ↩︎