Mental Health Routine in NYC

The city has made adding things the default answer to everything. Anxious? Add therapy. Burned out? Add a meditation app. Can't sleep? Add a supplement. There is nothing wrong with any of these things. But none of them is about subtraction.

The most effective mental health routines are built around removal -- removing stimulation, removing performance, removing the phone, removing the loop of planning and reviewing that city life activates.

Heat and cold are two of the most direct nervous system regulators available. They do not require belief, technique, or the right mindset. They just require your body.

The Science

Anxiety and depression are regulatory problems as much as they are thought problems. The amount of time you spend trying to think your way out of an anxious state is time spent using the tool that is causing the problem to solve the problem.

Cortisol -- the stress hormone -- is elevated in anxiety. Chronically elevated cortisol disrupts sleep, impairs memory consolidation, and triggers inflammation in the brain.

Thermal contrast reduces cortisol directly. The sequence of heat followed by cold teaches the nervous system that it can move through stress and out the other side. That experience, repeated, builds what researchers call stress inoculation.

Studies from the University of Eastern Finland found that regular sauna use was associated with a strong decrease in depressive symptoms over time. The mechanism is multiple: cortisol reduction, endorphin release, improved sleep architecture, and social connection as a side effect.

The Protocol

Two to three sessions per week are the threshold at which most research shows meaningful mood benefits. One session per week helps. Two are better. Three is where adaptation begins.

Best timing: morning or midday, when cortisol is naturally highest. The reset rides the natural wave down.

The Infrastructure

Lore Bathing Club, at 676 Broadway in SoHo, is where you make this practice sustainable. A membership means you don't have to decide each time -- you just show up. The ritual is already there.

Heat and cold are not a replacement for therapy or medication. They are a physiological foundation -- the nervous system baseline from which everything else becomes more accessible.

Build the foundation. Lore is where you do it.