I’ve just finished reading Chill – The cold water swimming cure by Mark Harper. It was a book recommended to me by a fellow Oxygen Advantage coach. I was curious about learning so much more around the physiological and mental health benefits of cold water swimming, for both my own benefit and adding to my coaching. It felt apposite to read at the moment as the sea’s temperature has dropped over the last week – the cold of winter taking hold. It felt around 5 degrees on a couple of occasions this week (which wouldn’t have been a surprise as the air temperature dropped to below zero for several days in a row).
I’ve been a big fan of cold water exposure for the last few years. When I was living in London this would take the form of daily cold showers. Now I’ve moved to the coast I’ve transitioned to sea swimming as regularly as possible, work & tide times being the only things that get in the way. One thing I am curious about is the difference (as we understand it) between the way that you expose yourself to cold water. A little like the difference in exercise modalities (lifting weights, running, golf). Whilst it’s better to be doing some regular exercise – as I believe it’s better to be doing some regular cold exposure – if you are what are the differences in the way that you expose yourself to the cold.
From a personal experience the affect of achievement stands for any sort of cold water exposure. Getting in is hard & challenging, regardless of whether that’s a shower or the sea. However what differences may there be aside from this. The powerful thing about Chill, the cold water swim cure is it’s written from the perspective of sea swimming. Whilst there are few comparison points with cold water exposure in general (you do get the impression that the author is in favour of any cold water at the expense of only sea swimming, which I found reassuring) the focus is very much on sea swimming.
There are 3 main benefits that Harper describes as an outcome of cold dipping – Reorientation, transformation and community. All three definitely benefits I recognise.
Reorientation centres around the demand for presence cold water has. Getting in the sea devours your attention – anything that may have been nagging at you, making you worried or over excited is forced out of mind once the cold hits. An immediate physiological stress response kicks in once you feel the cold, this takes precedence over anything else as our body wants to survive. Thus you are jolted out of rumination into the here and now – or reorientated into the present and where you are. I see this as a very similar outcome form reaching flow (which I do gardening, where my attention becomes solely on the activity I am carrying out). The beauty of the sea & the cold is that it happens every time – no matter how many times I go in, I know what to expect, I’m more inured to it, yet it always snaps me into the presence of where I am.
Transformation is where Harper focuses on the transformative health powers of cold water swimming. He gives examples of how peoples lives have been totally transformed by recoveries from ailments, allowing them to live lives that where a pipe dream prior to getting in the water.
Community – This one’s a bit like owning a dog. Once you own a dog & take your dog for walks you meet a whole new community of people that you never knew before. I remember when I owned Peggy, back in 2009, I was in a low dark place off the back of an awful relationship breakup. Walking Peggy was transformative via community. I met many, many other people at 6:30AM, walking theirs dogs and happily chatting away with me – in a way that would never, ever happen if I had just gone for a walk at 6:30am. Cold water swimming has that same impact. It’s an unusual thing to do – and due to it’s challenge and difficulty brings together those who do it – alongside which it always sparks conversation with passersby (You’re mad I was told yesterday, to which I replied they were mad for not getting in the sea, all good natured). For many people they have lost that sense of connection, community, purpose. Having a group of likeminded individuals sharing an experience in this way is incredibly life affirming. Again this is something that I’ve noticed in Westgate. This time last year, whenever we got in the water we’d meet other swimmers. A year later all these disperate swimmers have made friends & created a WhatsApp group to arrange the daily swim. Whilst I don’t use WhatsApp, Jenny does. Even in the last couple of weeks the group has grown from 7 people to over 17. We had one swim in the cold last week with 13 of us. What I have loved about this group is just how different they are in so many different ways. I’m almost certain most of these guys I would ever have come into contact with, without the swimming, yet I’m now glad that there’s this small growing group of people swimming together. All spontaneously organised, no ulterior motives, no manipulation, just a non judgemental supportive group of people coming together to swim in freezing cold water.
So I definitely attest to Harper’s three outcomes from cold water swimming – and see them as something that you won’t get from daily cold showers.
The book ends with a variety of cases where individuals health has been vastly improved by getting in cold water. Stretching from soothing chronic pain, migraines, fibromyalgia, autoimmune diseases, post traumatic stress, mental health problems and depression. All as an alternative to mainstream medication.
For a doctor to write about alternative healing modalities makes it all the more powerful. Medicine does work, there clearly is a place for it, however to me it feels like either a sledgehammer to crack a nut (with the resultant side effects) or a place of last resort when you have nothing else to try. By using cold water as a cure, that in many, many cases seems far more effective than medicine we are granting people better outcomes, better lives and s better sense of self.
An enjoyable read – I’m now looking forward to seeing how it is complemented by Susanna Soberg’s Winter Swimming book.
BreatheToMove 