Your New Worst Enemy Is Inflammation. Your New Best Friend Is Freezing Your Ass Off.

I tried to make an appointment, but was told I could just walk in. This seemed logistically improbable. I had just seen a tabloid photograph of Kate Hudson standing outside, and their entire social media feed is famous athletes stopping by after workouts. Wasn’t this the kind of place with paparazzi outside and a line around the block? The cryotherapy centers I had read about were at elite European spas, or Olympic training centers. Surely we were in for a glamorous experience?

Nope. We tentatively pushed open an underwhelming storefront door on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood, and walked into a room that looked like an over-picked warehouse sale – temporary dressing rooms surrounded two giant black chambers with icy smoke pouring out of them. Wires everywhere, hastily thrown sheets covering unknown eyesores, and white pleather couches in a scattershot configuration. The whole operation reeked of impermanence. A short line of men and women with zero body fat milled about for their turn. The woman in front of us wore her own bikini, knee socks, a face mask, and ear muffs, and walked into and out of the chamber like she does it every day. One guy just took off his delivery uniform, and casually walked right in to the chamber and back out to his van.

One of the form fields on their check-in waiver asked who referred us with a list of publications and web sites, and then “Lebron James.” I entered Lebron James of course, because I don’t know, what if they have a party for him, and he was so charming in Trainwreck.

Chloe sat down next to me and mumbled out of the side of her mouth that the waiver iPads were mistakenly displaying the center’s entire contact list.

“Like who did you see?,” I whispered back.

“Kimora Lee Simmons.”

“Eh, they’ll just have our spam emails.”

“I used my real email,” she groaned. “I don’t have a spam one.”

“Are you 100.”

“I know. My email is in the Ashley Madison dump, from snooping on my boyfriend.”

“Chloe! But also maybe that explains the other women on there?”

They interrupted our budding investigation to usher us into the rickety dressing rooms.

We took everything off except our underwear, and were given minimal protection for frostbite-prone areas: Hanes knee socks, ear muffs, gloves, and surgical masks. My room had these freezer pants I don’t even want to understand, presumably for a more localized treatment:

We covered up in their dingy robes and headed out to the chambers. The young German fellow manning the main room let us into an antechamber together, and we took off the robes. I am pretty brave, which is synonymous with being a chronic under-thinker, so right before we opened the freezer door I remembered I hate being cold more than almost anything. The only thing I hate more than being cold is also being wet.

We couldn’t see much in the chamber, which measured maybe 5×5 and was filled with a thick frosty haze, through which I could make out one of Chloe’s earmuffs. I made that fuzzy oval my focal point, and gritted my teeth as a robotic lady voice counted down in increments of 15 seconds. It felt like standing in a blizzard stark naked, or in a Michigan winter wearing a miniskirt (you state school girls know what I’m talking about). My nostrils immediately stuck together, and the skin on the backs of my thighs and arms burned with cold. Chloe is much thinner than I, and rattled like a marionette until the countdown was over. I was thankful I have a nice layer of padding, and thankful we were together. I would have snuggled with Chloe but she has a thing about being touched and contact would have made it more comfortable, which is beside the point. The point is extreme discomfort, and we certainly achieved that.

When we walked out, the attendant took the temperature of our knees, which were 40 degrees. I don’t totally understand the reason for this flourish, but maybe it’s like showing me the cork of an expensive bottle of wine? Our faces were red for a minute, but otherwise no lasting physical evidence. We crossed the street in a daze afterward, trying to take a moment to recap how we felt different, if at all. I couldn’t separate the strangeness of what had just happened from my actual physical feelings, but as soon as the initial hilarity and mania wore off, we were pummeled by a tidal wave of drowsiness. I wobbled home and sleepwalked through baby dinner and bedtime. Chloe fell asleep on her dog.

I have spent so much of my time since talking about how ridiculous the experience was that it took me three days to realize my hip and wrists don’t hurt. The cost is comparable to what I pay for a session with Charlie, my beloved chiropractor, but he is a handsome and soft-spoken jiu jitsu champion, so cryotherapy is not nearly as pleasant.

Obviously there is no way to tell if one session had any effect on my metabolism, but the pain relief was surprising. After reading more about Cryotherapy’s observed effects on mood and well-being, I’m even more curious about it as a natural upper. Ten sessions are supposedly enough to improve general well-being significantly. With the package prices, it’s a much cheaper method than medication or therapy to flood the body with endorphins, for those who’d rather not resort to (ugh) exercise.

This limited personal experience plus obsessive internet research has taught me that reducing inflammation, whether through diet or… other measures, does seem to keep my body working efficiently, without wasting vital energy on potentially distracting tasks. Kind of like turning off your laptop wifi to focus on important work. However, it remains a mystery to me that paying to stand in a freezing room for two minutes eased chronic pain I’ve had for a year, while seven miniskirted years in northern winters left no discernible mark on my health. Well, it’s a mystery until you factor in my college lifestyle choices, ramen diet, and general disregard for self-care, but ultimately it’s most likely because I wasn’t drinking nearly enough wine.

Priyanka Mattoo is a comedy producer and writer living in Los Angeles.

Illustration by Tara Jacoby.