3 OCT
Vision Stage
Susanna Søberg
A Global Voice in Contrast Therapy and Metabolic Health Susanna Søberg holds a PhD in metabolism from the University of Copenhagen and the Center for Physical Activity at Rigshospitalet. Since 2016, she has conducted pioneering research on how cold and heat exposure affect human metabolism, the nervous system, and stress resilience. Her work has contributed to a new understanding of how simple physical stimuli can improve both mental and physical health.
She is the founder of Thermalist® and the Søberg Institute, where she developed a science-based method for optimizing health through contrast therapy and breathwork. The Thermalist® Method is rooted in her research and targets metabolic and nervous system regulation.
Susanna Søberg’s contrast therapy protocols — including the well-known Søberg Principle — have gained international reach through bestselling books, major podcasts, media coverage, and personal coaching of, among others, Cristiano Ronaldo. Professor Andrew Huberman of Stanford University describes her as: "Based on her scientific research, academic background, and her understanding and application of deliberate cold and heat exposure, Susanna Søberg is considered one of the world’s leading experts in the field."
She published her debut book Winter Swimming (original Danish title Hop i Havet) in 2019, now translated into 14 languages. Her latest book Thermalist is already a bestseller in Denmark. ---- Dr. Susanna Søberg’s mission is bold: to help 1% of the world — more than 80 million people — lower stress and cortisol levels by 20–25% through the science of contrast therapy.
A PhD in metabolism from the University of Copenhagen, Dr. Søberg is the founder of the Søberg Institute and Thermalist®, and one of the world’s leading voices in contrast therapy and metabolic health. In this talk, she unveils how cold and heat exposure, breathwork, and her scientifically proven Søberg Principle® unlock resilience, restore energy, and protect against the cascade of stress-related diseases.
Drawing on over a decade of research and global recognition — from bestselling books to major podcasts and even direct coaching of elite performers like Cristiano Ronaldo — Dr. Søberg makes cutting-edge science accessible, practical, and life-changing.
Audiences will discover:
Why stress is the undercurrent of the world’s top 10 killers
How deliberate cold and heat exposure triggers powerful metabolic and nervous system adaptations
Simple, proven protocols to reduce stress and prevent chronic disease.
ABOUT THE SESSION
Measured in Men, Prescribed to Everyone
3 OCT · Vision Stage · 15:15
Susanne Søberg and Dr Alexander Omel on the metabolic difference science skipped!
Men and women do not run on the same metabolism. We store fat differently, burn fuel differently and respond differently to food, stress, cold and heat. Yet almost everything we teach and treat from was measured in men.
For decades the female body was treated as a complication in research. Hormones fluctuate and the cycle moves, so the cleanest data came from leaving women out. The results were then assumed to apply to everyone. They don't transfer cleanly, and we still can't say with confidence where the line goes.
Susanne Søberg has spent 15 years studying metabolism and how the body responds to temperature. That's where the difference becomes visible. Making heat, holding it and giving it away depends on muscle, blood flow, hormones and brown fat, the tissue that burns energy to keep us warm. In women these factors shift through the life stages, and they sit close to the centre of how the body spends energy.
Dr Alexander Omel is a specialist in anaesthesiology and intensive care medicine, trained to keep people alive when everything else has gone wrong. His real interest lies upstream, long before disease takes hold. He is the founder of the functional medicine practice PrimeLife and author of Kolesterol-Manifestet, and he uses evolutionary biology to question health paradigms most people accept without thinking. Evolution never built one standard human body. So why did science settle for one?
Together they look at what the research supports today, what has been borrowed from studies in men and hoped to apply, and what nobody has measured at all. And they ask what that means for anyone giving advice on fasting, diet, training or cold exposure right now.
If half the population was missing from the evidence, how well do we really understand metabolism?