Both cold and warm footbaths are both beneficial for our health, so it’s best for athletes to incorporate them into their daily routine.

Cold foot soaks are good in stimulating blood flow to the feet alongside reducing damage and pain to the muscles. On the other hand, a warm foot soak is good for mental health by improving sleep quality and reducing anxiety, with an excellent bonus of reducing blood pressure.

Benefits of cold footbaths

The water temperature that is used in cold water therapy is ideally ice-cold water, but any temperature that can be perceived as cold can be used, but the effects might be mild.

According to William Bierman in his article published in the Journal of American Medical Association, the term cold is defined as a temperature between 12.8 and 18.3 °C (55 and 65 °F). Very cold is then defined as a temperature lower than 12.8 °C (55 °F).

There are numerous ways of getting the feet cold, and they can involve three forms of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. An example for solid is ice, for liquid is water, and for gas is alcohol which then evaporates quickly.

In short, the benefit of a cold footbath is that it stimulates blood flow, burns calories, reduces muscle damage, and reduces muscle pain.

1. Stimulates blood flow

This sounds counterintuitive, but soaking the feet in cold water actually increases blood flow to the feet. At least, not immediately.

In a process called the Lewis hunting reaction, an extremity exposed to cold will cycle between vasocontraction and vasodilation. For context, vasoconstriction is when blood vessels become narrower to limit blood flow, and vasodilation is when blood vessels become wider to allow more blood flow.

When we expose our feet to cold water, the blood vessels in our feet vasoconstrict to limit blood flow. It’s the wise thing to do because our body does not want to lose heat.

But after about 10 minutes, the feet are starting to get a little bit too cold, so the body vasodilates the blood vessels to deliver more warm blood to the feet.

The cycle then continues as long as the feet are immersed in cold water.

2. Burn more calories

Another added benefit for exposing the foot to cold water is that it burns more calories.

When the foot is submerged in cold water, the body shivers. This response is called shivering thermogenesis, which literally means the production of head through shivering.

The shivering is cause by repeated contractions of muscles in our body. Muscle contractions produce heat that our body uses to warm us up.

Contractions require energy, and the body obtains this through breaking down the food that we eat. In other words, shivering burns calories!

So, if you have just finished a long run, or even an intense football match, and you’re out of energy but still want to burn a few more calories, soaking the feet in cold water is just the thing.

It’s a much lesser version of cold-immersion therapy (CWI) where people dip their whole body into cold water. But who has a tub full of ice-cold water lying around, anyways?

Preparing a small basin with 5-6 liters of water and a small ice pack is much easier and economical.

3. Reduce muscle damage

Soaking the feet in cold water after a session of exercise can reduce damage.

In a study published in the Journal of Sport Sciences, they conducted research on female student volunteers by having them do eight sets of five elbow contractions. Then, they submerged their arms into cold water of about 15°C for 15 minutes immediately after the exercise, and for every 12 hours for 3 whole days.

The researchers then measured the amount of muscle damage through various parameters such as creatine kinase levels, elbow flexor strength, and muscle tenderness.

The results were promising because cold water managed to reduce the degree of shortening of the muscle or the connective tissue after exercise, and even to an extent reduce the damage to the muscles altogether.

The implication of this research is that by reducing the damage to the muscles, this lowers the risk of muscle rupture and allows for faster re-use of these muscles.

These findings would benefit runners and athletes in the sense that they can reduce the risk of injuries to their lower extremities and improve recovery time just by soaking their feet in water for 15 minutes.

A faster recovery time would mean that you can get back to running much quicker than usual and increase your training frequency.

4. Reduce muscle pain

Another advantage of an ice-cold foot soak is reducing muscle pain. You might have already experienced the effects of cold as a pain-reliever one way or another.

For example, when you hold an ice cube too long, you will feel the cold penetrating through your skin and after a while, your fingers will start feeling numb.

The method of using ice to relieve pain is called cryo-compression therapy.

Cryo-compression therapy has been widely researched as a good method for relieve acute pain, or pain in the short term. It even has medical applications especially in preventing relieving pain in patients undergoing medical procedures.

In a study published in the National Library of Medicine, cryo-compression therapy was used alongside other painkillers to relieve pain from patients who underwent spine surgery.

The results were that patients who used cryo-compression therapy with painkillers recovered faster than those who used painkillers only.

Here is a list of other medical procedures in which cold compression managed to reduce pain in patients:

Type of Procedure	Research Reference
Local anaesthetic injection	Ice Reduces Needle-Stick Pain Associated With Local Anesthetic Injection
Intravenous catheter placement	Cryotherapeutic Topical Analgesics for Pediatric Intravenous Catheter Placement Ice Versus Vapocoolant Spray
Arterial puncture	Randomized Controlled Trial of Cryoanalgesia (Ice Bag) to Reduce Pain Associated With Arterial Puncture

If cold is an effective tool in relieving pain in medical procedures, then they sure would help with muscle pain and stiffness after exercise.

There is widely known acronym in the world of sports medicine: RICE.

RICE stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. It’s used for initial treatment for acute soft tissue injuries such as sprains and strains. As you can see, ice is used for its ability to reduce inflammation and control pain.

There are a few proposed theories on how ice-cold water can help reduce pain.

One of them, as highlighted in an article published in the journal Pain Physician, is that low temperatures decrease the activation of nociceptors or nerve cells responsible in signaling pain, and also slows the speed of these signals.

Moreover, cold water also reduces inflammation, muscles spasms and edema.

To conclude, reduction in pain after exercise not only would enhance recovery of the muscles, but also gives a better quality of life for an athlete. If you’re tossing and turning in bed after an evening run, it would definitely destroy your sleep quality and recovery in the long run.

Immersing your tired and worn-out feet in cold water for just 15 minutes after exercise not only would get rid of pain but also helps you sleep better at night.

Benefits of warm footbaths

Soaking your feet in hot water is a combination of thermotherapy and hydrotherapy. Thermotherapy is any method in which we can apply heat to our body. Hydrotherapy on the other hand is the usage of water for therapeutic purposes.

An ideal hot water footbath temperature above 38 °C (100.4 °F). The benefit of a warm footbath includes decreasing blood pressure, reducing anxiety, and improving sleep quality.

1. Decrease blood pressure

High blood pressure, or hypertension is a serious health condition that falls under the category of non-communicable diseases. These diseases are not caused by infection, but more towards a poor lifestyle. Other diseases in this category are obesity, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

Ultimately, the aim of a hot footbath is to improve our health in some way. A well-researched benefit of a hot water foot soak is that it decreases the blood pressure.

In research conducted by the Institute of Health Science Tamalatea, they had stage 1 hypertension patients soak their foot in warm water either once, twice, or three times a week. The water used was about 38 to 40°C (100.4 to 104 °F), and soaking duration was between 20 to 30 minutes.

Their blood pressures before the experiment were compared to the results after the experiment. The results show that a foot soak with warm water was effective in decreasing blood pressure when done at least three times a week.

Decreasing blood pressure is a huge benefit especially for athletes. This is because elite athletes who undergo intense training for years can develop left ventricular hypertrophy, or an enlarging heart. They develop this because of the high demand of energy and oxygen needed to participate in high intensity sports.

An enlarged heart in athletes will increase blood pressure causing hypertension, as mentioned in a research article. Therefore, soaking the feet in hot water is not only is effective when done on a regular basis, but also is much cheaper and sustainable compared to medication.

However, it is important to not overdo this because you can bring your blood pressure too low until you become hypotensive, which is also harmful. When hypotensive, you become light-headed, less blood is delivered to your organs especially your brain, and you can fall easily because of dizziness.

2. Reduce anxiety

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health issues worldwide. It can affect a wide range of people, from young to old. Mental clarity and sharpness are sought after by athletes, as both a health mind and body are crucial to their performance.

Warm footbaths are proven to provide the benefit of relaxing one’s mind and reducing anxiety. There was research was done by Iran University of Medical Sciences in which they used warm footbaths to reduce anxiety among pregnant women in active phase of labor. What’s more stressful than that?

What they discovered was that anxiety scores of the mothers significantly dropped after having gone through only a 10-minute warm footbath, compared to mothers who only went through routine labor care.

Another study published in the Iranian Rehabilitation Journal, which was conducted among patients with acute stroke, also proved that a warm foot soak is a safe, inexpensive, and simple method that effectively reduces anxiety.

3. Improve sleep quality

Sleep is an important component of recovery, and recovery is an important component of training. A lack of sleep can negatively affect your training and prevent you from reaching your goals.

There are multiple studies that have shown that a warm foot bath can improve quality of sleep. Most of the studies involve elderly people, but I believe that nothing is preventing youngsters from doing the same.

For example, in a systemic review published in GMC Geriatrics, they analyzed 9 research articles about warm foot baths of a temperature above 40 °C (104 °F). They found that, and I quote:

“…foot baths with warm water can be used as an easy, simple, and safe nursing intervention to improve sleep quality.”

Nasiri, K., Shriniy, M., Pashaki, N.J. et al. The effect of foot bath on sleep quality in the elderly: a systematic review. BMC Geriatr 24, 191 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-04590-x

Form their analysis, to maximize the effect of improving sleep quality, a foot bath with warm water lasting between 10 to 30 minutes, two hours before sleep time is recommended.

A proposed theory for how this simple method works is that there is a relationship between the onset of sleep and core body temperature.

On the onset of sleep, the body decreases its core temperature by widening the blood vessels of the hands and feet, thus delivering more blood and heat to those body parts.

So, it is now believed that sleep can be passively initiated by heating up the hands and feet with a footbath, causing dilation of blood vessels. This will cause more blood to be delivered to the feet and achieving the effect of decreasing core temperature. Finally, the body will feel drowsy because of the low core temperature caused by this warm footbath.

What’s the best for you?

Now that we have listed all the evidence-based benefits of cold and warm foot soaks, a question arises: which one should you pick?

Both of these methods have immense benefits, so it’s not wise for a person to choose one and completely neglect the other. For your best interest, I would suggest a combination of both cold and warm footbaths.

A few other questions that would come to mind is:

• What temperature should I use?
• How long should the foot soak be?
• How many times should I soak my feet per week?
• When should I soak my feet?

To answer these questions, here’s a compact list on what you need to do:

Cold footbath routine

When: Immediately after an exercise. Then, do this every 12 hours for 3 days if you’re not exercising. If you’re again within the next 3 days, then reset the cycle and soak the feet immediately after each exercise.

Duration: Soak the feet for at least 15 minutes.

Temperature: Ice-cold water measuring less than 18 °C (64.4 °F). You can use a digital thermometer or a dial thermometer, whichever you prefer. Although you can use normal ice cubes, but it’s much easier to use a reusable ice pack. Just put these ice packs in the freezer overnight, and they’re ready for the next day.

How: Fill up a basin or bucket of water with the mentioned temperature, up until the ankles. Soak the feet for 20 to 30 minutes. You can use any basin lying around, but a footbath basin is preferred because your feet can perfectly fit inside, unlike a normal roundish basin.

Warm footbath routine

When: Two hours before sleep, at least three times a week. Avoid a warm footbath immediately after exercise as this can worsen inflammation to the feet.

Duration: Soak the feet for 20 to 30 minutes.

Temperature: Above 38 °C (100.4 °F). You can use a digital thermometer or a dial thermometer, whichever you prefer.

How: Fill up a basin or bucket of water with the mentioned temperature, up until the ankles. You can use any basin lying around, but a footbath basin is preferred because your feet can perfectly fit inside, unlike a normal roundish basin.

If you’re feeling a bit fancy, a remote-controlled foot massager spa is good too. This particular one allows you to adjust the temperature precisely between 35 to 47 °C (95 -118 °F). It also has a built-in foot massager, among other things.