On the thought of that "I accomplished something hard today" feeling, after a cold plunge I also experience a decrease in how hard it is to get myself started on some difficult task I've been dreading doing. Would you say you have the same thing, where you've already done one challenging thing, so the next domino falls more easily?
It’s the opposite of addiction’s dopamine cycle - a small pain the leads to a long-lasting high, rather than a drug’s small high that leaves you in its debt.
I would go the cooler route if I was starting today.
On a side note, I will take a cold shower after workouts and it extends my feeling of ‘magnificence’ and the ‘I worked out today’ sensations.
Example, I have a very destroyed shoulder from a break and dislocation. The cold helps way more with its recovery from exercises that put it through the wringer.
The perfect world is finding a way to get it better but I don’t have the answers (and nor has science/medicine) but from my own experiments my shoulder will respond dramatically better to cold than not.
I also have some Red Light therapy available. Less good.
The best is anti-inflammatories but the significant downside outweighs the ups.
So in a world of compromises I benefit the most from cold exposure.
The other thing is, this my make a a significant enough difference in elite athletes, but for the average person I thing doing it at all is far superior to doing it at the right time but much less often.