Three Years of the Thermalist Method® — and Thirteen Years in the Making
From hypothesis to proven practice
I’ve been asked versions of the same question many times over the past few years — by instructors, studio owners, and practitioners.
This piece is my attempt to answer it properly.
Most people don’t struggle to try contrast therapy. They struggle to understand why it works at all - why it works sometimes — and not others.
Over the last 3 years our work with Thermalist has answered that and more questions:
Why does some contrast therapy feel shallow?
Why do you feel good once, but not fundamentally changed over time?
Why does intensity seem powerful at first, yet stop working after a while?
We found that these are not questions of discipline or mindset, but questions of structure.
What many people experience today is not a lack of effort, but a system built around:
intensity without structure
experiences without progression
stimulation without adaptation
This gap has become increasingly clear over the past decade — and impossible to ignore over the last three years. It is also the reason the Thermalist Method® exists.
A few quick facts:
Practiced today by 200+ Certified Thermalist® Instructors
Delivered across 25+ countries
Refined through real-world workshops and tests
Built on 10+ years of research and applied practice
Supported by 18+ hours of video education, with tests and quizzes to ensure reflection, understanding, and confidence
Developed into a structured, repeatable protocol now used in studio memberships worldwide
Grounded in four pillars: cold exposure, heat exposure, breathwork, and meditation
This month marks three years since the Thermalist Method® officially started as an education, then became a method, and now a lived practice in the world. But the story started much earlier.
A Brief Timeline: How Thermalist® Came to Be
2012–2020
Years of academic research, experimentation, and observation. Not just in laboratories, but in real human bodies in clinical trials. Cold water. Sauna heat. Breath. Recovery. This period laid the physiological foundation that everything else rests on today.
2021–2022
The realization came quietly but clearly: contrast therapy needed more than courage or intensity. It needed structure, progression, safety, and meaning. This is when the idea of a method began to take shape.
2023
The Thermalist Method® education was produced. The first workshops were delivered. The first instructors were certified. What existed in theory and practice finally became something others could learn, teach, and repeat with confidence.
2023–2026
Three years of refinement through reality. The method was practiced, questioned, improved, and reworked across cultures, studios, climates, and communities. Not by changing the science, but by strengthening how it is taught, guided, and integrated.
Why the Method Works
The most important improvements over these three years were structural.
The program became layered and repeatable, designed to be used again and again within studio memberships. A clear protocol was added, built on four interconnected pillars: cold, heat, breathwork, and meditation. Not as isolated tools, but as a coherent system that works with the body’s adaptive mechanisms.
This is also why the training matters so much. The 18+ hours of training, reflection, tests, and quizzes are there to get all our instructors confident in the method and understanding our ways of working with contrast therapy. The training exist to ensure that instructors truly understand what they are guiding people through. Confidence comes from comprehension, not performance.
You can read more about the program here:
What Three Years Have Taught Us
The strongest validation has not come from marketing or claims. It has come from instructors and participants who return week after week. The structure is layered and repeatable.
Across the global Thermalist® network, we hear the same thing:
This is not a one-off experience. It deepens with repetition.
Instructors report higher trust from participants. Studios see stronger retention. Participants describe a real shift in how their bodies respond to stress, recovery, and presence. Not because the method pushes harder, but because it is designed to support adaptation safely and progressively.
This is why the Thermalist Method® is not just a certification. It is a learning framework, a guided system, and a premium program for studios that want to offer something scientifically grounded, structured, and lasting for their members.
Three years ago, the method stepped into the world.
Thirteen years ago, the work began.
Thank you to every instructor, studio owners, and participant who has helped shape the Thermalist Method® through lived practice. It is what it is today because it has been tested, trusted, and used — again and again.
—
Susanna & the Thermalist Method® Team
The Thermalist Method® is practiced exclusively by Certified Thermalist® Instructors and delivered in accordance with official methodology and brand standards to ensure safety, quality, and consistency.
