Cold Plunges and Unicorns

From Notre Dame Stories by Notre Dame Stories

February 6, 2026 · 18 min

About this episode

This episode explores the lessons from extreme cold on human adaptation and resilience through the research of Cara Ocobock.

What can extreme cold teach us about the human body—and ourselves? In this episode, Director of the Human Energetics Laboratory and anthropologist Cara Ocobock takes listeners inside her research on human adaptation, from subzero fieldwork in Finland with reindeer herders to lab studies on metabolism, cold exposure, and hunting unicorns. She also unpacks popular cold-plunge trends, what science actually says about them, and how lessons from our ancestors can help us understand resilience, wellness, and the remarkable ways humans have survived across time. Show links: Episode page The Winter Olympics, equality in sports, and exercising in the cold ‘Woman the hunter’: Studies aim to correct history Women’s higher resting metabolic rates in cold environments could be thyroid requirements for pregnancy, researcher says

People in this episode

Guest: Cara Ocobock

Topics covered

human adaptation
cold exposure
resilience
wellness
metabolism
extreme cold
research

Keywords

cold plunges
human body
metabolism
resilience
wellness
subzero fieldwork
hunting unicorns

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Human Energetics Laboratory

Books & works: Woman the hunter

Places: Finland