Beat Stress Like a Pro Athlete
Shohei Ohtani is baseball’s once-in-a-century unicorn, a 31-year-old Japanese superstar who does two jobs at once in Major League Baseball. He fires 100-mile-per-hour pitches and also crushes game-winning hits. He is like a soccer player who is simultaneously the league’s top striker and its best goalkeeper; that is the level of rarity and skill Ohtani brings.
Picture this: A packed stadium, bottom of the ninth. Shohei Ohtani eats a 100-mile-per-hour fastball to the shoulder. The crowd roars, teammates surge to the rail, ready to brawl. Ohtani raises one gloved hand, waves them off, and jogs to first. No glare, no trash talk, just a quiet nod that says, “I’m good.”
That tiny gesture is a masterclass in non-reactivity. In a fraction of a second, a jolt of pain and adrenaline tried to hijack his biology. Ohtani stayed captain of his own ship. He felt the spike but refused to let it write the next chapter.
I replay that scene because it mirrors what we practice at Contrast every week. Our training ground is a cedar sauna humming at two-hundred degrees and a plunge so cold it steals your breath. The threat looks different, but the nervous system does not care whether it is a baseball or icy water. The circuitry is the same, which is why this story belongs in a thermal-contrast blog.
Why pressure scrambles the mind
The brain’s first job is survival, not flawless judgment. Under threat it releases cortisol for focus and adrenaline for speed. Helpful when you are dodging a tiger, less helpful when you are negotiating a contract. Meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex that handles big-picture thinking starts to dim and older, faster circuits grab the wheel. People later say, “I couldn’t think straight.” Neurologically, that is correct.
The two-second superpower
Every wisdom tradition teaches “pause before you act.” Science now confirms it. A 2025 Scientific Reports study found that inserting a one-second wait before making a choice boosted accuracy while lowering mental workload. Even a single deliberate breath can calm the stress response and switch the thinking brain back online.
Ohtani bought those two seconds by lifting his hand. In the sauna we buy them by returning attention to the breath while sweat rolls down the spine. In the plunge we buy them by relaxing into difficult sensations that are showing up as pain. Each deliberate pause carves a neural path that gets easier to find.
Heat and cold as teachers
Why train with extremes? They give crystal-clear feedback. No debate about whether you are outside your comfort zone; the body shouts its verdict.
Inside the sauna, heart rate climbs and the limbic system whispers, “Get out.” A facilitator invites you to lean into sensation, lengthen the exhale, and watch the wave crest then settle. You learn that discomfort is data, not destiny.
Then comes the plunge. The first seconds sound an alarm. Stay with breath awareness and the shock shifts to alert calm. Studies show that few minutes of head-out cold-water immersion lifts mood and reorganizes emotion-regulation networks in the brain, while norepinephrine and dopamine rise, sharpening focus.
Round after round the lesson sinks in. Sensation + awareness = choice. Choice repeated builds resilience.
Transferring the skill to real life
During one of the ending integrations, a participant told us about a dreaded last-minute work assignment that landed near the end of her workday before she arrived at Contrast. After that session, the guided practice helped her realize that the pressure she felt at work was showing up as physical sensations in her body. With an amplified level of dopamine, she had more clarity to observe these sensations and see their impermanence. She became capable of handling a high-stress role with more spaciousness and insight. No magic. She simply trained her body to stay online while emotions spiked, bringing awareness to a dysregulated nervous system. One technique we frequently practice during guided sessions is slow, deep breathing. A 2018 systematic review showed that six breaths per minute raise heart-rate variability and increase prefrontal activation, two biomarkers of flexible self-control. In effect, we are training the autonomic nervous system to maintain steady breathing under stress, allowing the mind to adopt that same pattern automatically and without effort.
Why we love doing this together
Everything is easier in community. When you feel the person beside you soften into the plunge, mirror-neuron circuits in your own brain fire and prime the same ease. Together we create a shared container for practice, and it is hard to reach the same depth when people nearby are chatting instead of holding silence; the collective energy shifts. After class, stories flow: one person shares a personal win, another talks about being kinder at work. Presence followed by reflection completes the learning loop.
An open invitation
Whether you are pursuing a personal best, building leadership composure, or simply curious about what lies beyond discomfort, we would love to welcome you. Bring two towels, an open mind, and maybe a friend. We will supply the heat, the cold, and the coaching.
Pressure is inevitable; panic is optional. Train the gap between the two and you will meet life’s fastballs with the same quiet confidence Ohtani carried to first base.
We’d love to see you. Come practice — Reserve your spot.
Same small groups, deeper practice, new insights every session.
Credit where it’s due: We first came across this story in Hassan Khan’s Instagram post. Hassan is the inspiring founder of Limitless Humans, and his breakdown of Shohei Ohtani’s non-reactivity lit the spark for this piece.
