Epsom Salts & Morozko Minerals
Epsom salts can enhance your ice bath by softening the ice & allowing magnesium absorption through the skin, helping to boost mood & replenish micronutrients.
Benefits of Epsom Salts
Adding Epsom salts to your ice bath allows for the transdermal absorption of magnesium through the skin, offering improvements in mental health & alleviating depressive symptoms. This supplementation may also help to meet the magnesium demands of cold thermogenesis. As explained in How to Make an Epsom Salt Ice Bath, high blood serum levels of magnesium have also been associated with reduced risks of cancer & improved muscle quality,
amongst others. Magnesium is Critical for Cold Thermogenesis mentions that magnesium offers several other health benefits, with noted improvements in anxiety, insomnia, vertigo, headaches, blood pressure, restless leg, constipation & other ailments. Epsom salts will also break up the hard ice in the ice bath, giving it a slushy-like texture & helping to produce more ice.
Which Type of Salts for Your Ice Bath?
While pure Epsom salt is a good choice for your ice bath, Morozko Minerals improve upon the Epsom by adding zinc, copper & potassium sulfate.
Zinc is an essential mineral for metabolic and immune system health. Adding zinc sulfate salts to stainless steel tubs can boost water clarity & provide some transdermal zinc benefit. Copper is a powerful anti-microbial, anti-fungal, & anti-algae agent, as well as an essential trace mineral.
In a stainless steel tub, copper sulfate will enhance water clarity & provide some transdermal copper supplementation. However, adding a copper sulfate to a zinc galvanized tub will dissolve some of the zinc coating, & deposit a black dusting of copper metal in its place. Also, copper in excessive amounts can be toxic to humans & those taking copper supplements should caution to adding copper to their Morozko, depending upon the total dose. Finally, potassium sulfate is an electrolyte that increases water conductivity and supports mitochondrial ion transport. Transdermal absorption of potassium thru the skin during or following an ice bath likely provides some electrolyte supplement to the bather that supports cold thermogenesis.
How to Add Salts
When adding salts or minerals to your Morozko, start by poring 5lb into the water. Allow it to settle to the bottom, turn the filter to ON and let it dissolve into the water overnight.
Do not use salts that have additives such as essential oils or perfumes. The water treatment system will identify these as contaminants, & the ozone disinfection system will attempt to remove them. Use only pure salts, such as Morozko Minerals or high-grade Epsom salt with a certificate of analysis that shows 99%+ purity. Even USP grade Epsom salt can be contaminated with dirt or that will temporarily turn your ice bath water green. It will take about 24hrs of continuous filtration for the ozone system to eliminate an algal bloom caused by low-grade fertilizer Epsom salt.
When topping up your water, add another 5 ounces (a little more than quarter pound) of salt or Morozko Minerals for every 5 gallons of water you add to your ice bath. Alternatively, add another 5lb of salt or Morozko Minerals whenever you change your water completely.
Salt Safety Precautions
The danger in adding too much salt to your ice bath is the possibility of achieving water temperatures lower than 32F, as adding salt will lower the freezing point of water. This can lead to freezing the water inside your own skin cells, causing frostnip, or in more severe cases, frostbite injury. To minimize this risk, maintain your ice bath at temperatures above 32F. While frostnip is not expected to cause permanent skin damage, it causes soreness & red splotches on the skin that are uncomfortable, counter-productive to the purpose of cold water cryotherapy, & giving up one of the major safety advantages of an ice bath over frigid gas cryotherapy.
Other safety precautions include to never add chlorine, chlorine bleach, or chloride salts of any type to your ice bath, as the results might be unhealthy. Adding chloride salts to your Morozko ice bath will also undermine the efficacy of the ozone disinfection system designed to keep your water safe and crystal clear.