16 Sep TAKING THE PLUNGE: ICE BATHS, NEUROPLASTICITY, AND ROSH HASHANA

A little over a year
ago, I got an ice bath
and I am proud to say
I hardly miss a day of
spending three
minutes immersed in
45-degree water.
Many studies now show the health benefits
of cold exposure, from cardiovascular to
controlling inflammation, from muscle
recovery to increasing metabolism. When
you get into an ice bath your body goes into
a fight or flight, knows it can’t stay there
forever, and the cold exposure causes a
significant release of epinephrine or
adrenaline and dopamine in the brain and
body. These neurochemicals make us feel
alert, awake, and energized. Each day after
my “plunge,” I feel like I drank three cups
of coffee and can lift a truck. All of that is
nice, but it isn’t what inspired me to buy it
or why I use it.
Science used to believe that our brains were
hard-wired, rigid, fixed, finite. But more
recently, neuroscience has discovered that
the brain is “plastic,” which means that it
can change, it can be molded, and we can
rewire. We aren’t born with specific

personalities, feelings, thoughts,
capabilities, skills, strength, focus, and that
is it, we are fixed and stuck that way. Rather,
we are blessed with the gift of
neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity describes the brain’s ability
to change throughout our lives. According
to Dr. Norman Doidge, a neuroscientist at
Columbia University, in his book, The
Brain that Changes Itself, the brain plasticity
exists from the cradle to the grave. New
neural pathways can open, we can rewire
our brain based on our habits, our behaviors,
our choices, our efforts. Scientifically, a
100-year-old person, like any 10-year-old
or 1-year-old, can still mold their brain, it is
never too late. We can literally be reborn,
we can recreate and rewire if we want to, if
we choose to.
Rosh Hashana corresponds not with the first
day of creation but with the sixth day, not
with when heaven and earth came to be, but
when we, humanity, were introduced to the
world. This is because only then did the
world have meaning and purpose and could
be considered complete. On Rosh Hashana,
we don’t say עולם הרת היה היום, today was
the creation of the world. It isn’t just a

birthday or an anniversary, we aren’t
commemorating a historical event or
something that happened in the past.
Indeed, we aren’t even being judged for
what we have done with our time since our
creation until now; judgement is not for our
past.
new YOUR ,today – ַהַּיֹום ֲֲהַרַת עֹוָלָם ,say We
world is BEING conceived…and therefore,
we ,I and you ,TODAY ַ,הַּיֹום ַי ִ ֲַעֲִמ ּ יד ַּבִּמְּׁשָּׁפּט
will be judged for what we do with the
opportunity to be born again, to restart, to
reset and to reboot. We cannot change the
past, we cannot go back in time and make
different choices. Of course we must take
responsibility for the past, feel remorse and
regret for it. But its real significance is what
we learn from it, how we make changes to
not repeat it, how we create a new future
with our fresh start.
Chazal say (Rosh Hashana 16b) את דנין אין
we ,האדם אלא לפי מעשיו של אותה שעה
aren’t judged for the past, we cannot change
it. We are only responsible for the present,
who we are right now, at this moment. We
are evaluated based on what we do not with
our birthday, the anniversary of our birth,
but our “birth-day,” the day we are reborn,
we get to start again.
Rosh Hashana as a gift of new beginnings,
fresh starts, and clean slates is not only a
metaphysical truth, it is evident in the
physical world, too. We are evaluated not
for what we have done since creation, but
if we are choosing to embrace creation,
the power to create again and again, to
remold, rewire, to shape our brains and
ourselves.
Rosh Hashana we are asked: Are you
fixed or are you growing? Are you a
finished product or a work in progress?
Are you stuck in the past or improving for

the future? Are you neuro-stuck or neuro-
plastic?

Every single time I get into the ice bath I
don’t want to. But I do it anyway and
when I do, I am rewiring and changing
my brain, not metaphorically or
symbolically, but literally. There is a part
of our brain in the cortex that controls

willpower called the Anterior Mid-
Cingulate, the AMC, and it turns out,

when we perform an action or task even
when we don’t want to, the AMC actually
grows in size, it gets bigger and stronger
and becomes more capable of completing
tasks and actions out of our comfort zone.
The challenge is that it only works one
day at a time and needs to be renewed
daily. If you return to your comfort zone,
if you don’t push your limit, the AMC
shrinks and goes back to its original size.

We live in an age of life hacks, shortcuts to
accomplish things. But here is the thing:
there may be hacks in technology and home
improvement, but not in life. The only hack
in life is to do the hard thing and when you
do the hard thing, you become more capable
of doing more hard things. We can sit in
45-degree water for three minutes. We can
rewire ourselves to be selfless instead of
selfish, to be calm instead of angry, to be
patient instead of rushed, to be a giver
instead of a taker, to live the life we have
dreamt of living.
There is someone from another community
who is looked up to for his generosity and
volunteering, but also his religious
commitment and practice. He doesn’t miss
minyan, learns daily and inspires others.
But it wasn’t always that way. In 2014, on
Erev Yom Kippur, he wrote to his children:
My Dear Children,
Yesterday was an important day for me.
For the first time in 25 years, I started to
wear Tzitzis again. That is my commitment
for the New Year. I just wanted you to
know that the three of you were my
inspiration to do it. Each of you in your
own way and at different times made me
think about how I can improve myself.
He then went on to spell out how each of his
children’s growth motivates him.
He concluded: “So, in summary you three
are my inspiration. Mom and I love you
more than anything and wish you all an
easy fast and the most unbelievable year.
We are so proud of you. Words cannot
describe.”
This grown man who hadn’t put on tzitzis in
25 years but he took the plunge and with it
he rewired his brain. He grew his AMC
stronger to add more and more to his life.
This Rosh Hashana should be a
neuroplasticity day. Take some time to
reflect and decide how will you rewire,
what will you reprogram, which challenge
will you take on, which comfort zone will
you breach, will you take a plunge, will you
have a change of mind and allow your mind
to change.