It’s the last day before your long-awaited summer vacation starts. The first one you’ve booked this year and you can almost feel it.
The sun on your face, a fruity cocktail cupped lazily in your palm as you melt into your poolside lounge-chair. But, first: how do you go from locked-in to logged-off?
Because as soon as I close the lid shut on my work laptop, I want to go to one of my favourite third places in London: 1Rebel.
What makes 1Rebel a third place?
It’s a boutique fitness studio with 11 central studios and 5 classes. I’ve tried their version of spin (they very coolly call it “Ride”) and it’s one of the most fun post-work anti-pub personal experiences you could have in this city.
The last Ride class I took was One Direction themed.
Sometimes, “community” feels like sweating in a darkly-lit studio room full of other millennial women, walls thumping with the voices of our teenage celebrity crushes. It bonds you because you aren’t just pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to be left alone.
Your shared resilience is what leads to some of the most meaningful friendships you’ll find as an adult.
The sauna + cold plunge ritual
I hadn’t tried sauna or cold plunge before.
But 1Rebel’s sauna experience is science-backed. Combined with a cold plunge, it’s based on the idea of contrast therapy — moving quickly from hot to cold — can lower stress, boost metabolism, and enhance overall well-being.
If anything could shock me out of almost two years of not being on a sun holiday, this had to be it.
Just being at the reception at 1Rebel’s Holborn branch calms me down.
The front desk is covered in hammered metal, which should read as cold and industrial. But, to me, it has a liquid-like appearance that glistens under the light. It tells me: “We know what we’re doing. Trust us.”
An attendant behind the desk, beaming, hands me a terry cloth robe. He also helpfully piles a towel and a metal flask with ice cold water into my already-full arms.
After changing into my swimsuit and wrapping myself in the robe, I head back down to the sauna room genuinely excited.
Stillness, stamina, and the social capital of staying submerged
Behind a heavy wooden door is exactly what I expect: 1Rebel’s take on a traditional wellness space.
The cabin has dark wood panelling with infrared heating panels on each side. The lights are warm, glowing. It’s moody and minimalist. Nothing like the intergenerational health and wellbeing hubs you see at major gym chains.
In its designer gloom, it feels like a safe space for someone like me: someone who believes meditation does not have to mean fluorescent lights and forced eye contact.
Robes off, everyone in my 6-person group picks a spot in the cabin. I choose a lower bench. Then, seeing that I’m the only one to do so, quickly change my mind, and settle down just one step higher.
I don’t feel anything at first but then, slowly, it feels like the steam has enveloped me. I’m sweating, Not frantically but fully.
I imagined it would feel like a fever. It doesn’t. It feels like a gentle warmth radiating from somewhere inside you. The feeling you have after a long Saturday morning run at your favourite park — just without the knee pain.
Twenty minutes in and it’s time: cold plunge. I take a quick rinse in the shower. “Keep it short,” one of the other women in the cabin warns me. “Too long and you could talk yourself out of it.”
Then, looking at the clock in front of me, I lower into the cold plunge bath, a wooden barrel that looks like it may have rolled out of a medieval wine cellar.
Immediately, my toes curl upward and I wince. I didn’t think I’d be so immediately uncomfortable. Everything in my body’s screaming: THIS ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPENING TO US. GET OUT. I try to remember the research on contrast therapy but my mind’s gone blank.
That’s when I get it: that’s exactly the point of this whole experience. I manage to stay submerged for 20 seconds.
Back in the sauna cabin, the heat is almost soothing. I go a step higher and lean against the backboards and the next 20 minutes go by much quicker.
I don’t want to get back in the cold plunge cauldron. I do it anyway. I aim for 30 seconds this time. I make it.
I’m so proud until I’m back in the sauna cabin and look through the glass door to see one of my Reset companions has stayed submerged for over a minute and a half. The social capital in this particular place is based on stillness, stamina, and how long you can endure bone-chilling pain.
I close my eyes. In my third and last sauna interval, I feel like sitting up is terribly and offensively inconvenient. I lie down and notice everyone else in the room has done the same.
With the sauna session finally done, we walk up to the locker room together, softly sighing about how the seconds in the cold plunge never seem to get easier. Other than that, there isn’t much conversation to be had, even after an hour of silence together. But there are quiet smiles and eyes that seem more present.
A third place where inner monologues die
Rinsing off the ritual in the shower, I feel every drop trickle down my forehead to the bridge of my nose and drip off my chin.
Is this what it’s like to feel “centred”? I’m not sure.
But it’s nice to know there’s a place you can go where your inner monologue can be silenced. Not just for a night. I feel that way the whole weekend.
So, if you’re looking for a new way to wind-down before a big event or a long trip away or just fancy a new way to quiet down your spiralling thoughts, this is the (third) place to be.
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