...and why I love it so much
What even is it?
Cold water swimming, also sometimes known as wild swimming, has gained popularity in recent years.
Just type ‘cold water swimming’ into the old Google and it will come up with 297 MILLION results! Is that not just mind blowing?!
I guess not all wild swimming is cold swimming but pretty much all cold swimming is wild swimming…
Ok, let me explain. Maybe I’ll start with a couple of definitions of these terms so we are all on the same page. (Full disclosure, these are just my own versions/opinions of these phrases.)
I think the reason I see wild swimming and cold water swimming as one and the same is that I live in Canada…and before that I lived in Scotland. So by definition, any natural body of water is pretty cold!
Wild Swimming
Swimming/submerging/dipping oneself into a natural body of water such as a lake, river, ocean or loch.
Cold water swimming
Swimming/submerging/dipping oneself into water that is not warm! Simples!
I do not think the water has be a certain temperature or there has to be ice. The way that I measure it is that when I step into the water it usually takes my breath away, makes me yelp or laugh or think ‘why am I doing this?!’.
So now that we have the technicalities out of the way, I guess I’ll start with how I got into cold water swimming. And why on earth I like to do it!! Maybe I’ll even inspire you to give it a go!
My H2O Story...
...and why I want to be a real life mermaid
I’ve always had a deep love of the ocean. I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa and believe it or not the ocean there is pretty darn cold! But of course when you’re a kid that never stops you! So why is it that when we become adults we are less inclined to go swimming if the water is cold?
University
Fast forward a few years to living in the UK and moving up to Scotland for University. Here I lived on the ocean, a 5-10 minute walk away from the beach at any point. I would sometimes go swimming but with no real regularity.
In my last couple of years I met a group of like minded (i.e. wonderfully crazy) individuals who formed a group called the ‘St Andrews Breast-strokers’ and they would go for sunrise swims, cliff jumping and general ocean frolicking at any time of day or day of the year. Afterwards we would often hang out and drink tea. It was a real mood booster!! And it is certainly a lot easier to run into the frigid North Sea when you are surrounded by smiling shrieking faces who are doing it with you.
The YesTribe
Also whilst at University I came to know a UK wide group called ‘The YesTribe’ who were an awesome collection of humans adventuring and living their lives on their own terms and being generally positive and happy. So I put out on open invite for them to come to my mom’s house in Scotland to celebrate New Years one year. There were over 20 of us and probably 1/4 of those I had never met before!! Of course on New Year’s morning we had to drive down to the local beach and run into the ocean. Bear in mind this was Scotland and January..it was cold. But it was invigorating and wonderful and everyone was buzzing, it was just contagious! But again, I was surrounded by people so how could I NOT go in the water?
The real challenge comes when you decide to jump into cold water by yourself. With no one to egg you on or help you to take that leap of faith.
Great Slave Lake
More recently, just last year in fact, my husband and I went up to the Northwest Territories in Canada for a remote film job. This was the second year we were here and we were based out of an extremely remote fishing lodge on Great Slave Lake. We were there to drive boats and there from August until November (2019). We left in November as the lake began to freeze, which just gives you an idea of how cold it was.
When we arrived I decided to set myself a challenge to jump into the lake every morning for 30 days. It was the end of Summer so although the water was already pretty cold, the air temperature was reasonable. My husband Steve had no interest in joining me on my icy plunges but was often there to film them or document my madness in some way. (You’ll often hear in the videos ‘my hand is getting cold’ as I am standing there in my flip flops and bathing suit! Haha)
The challenge went well, every morning without fail I would wake up and take myself out to the lake and jump off the dock. It was the most refreshing and invigorating way to start the day!! I actually loved doing it so much that I wanted to keep doing it until they turned the water off. (Once the temperatures got too cold they would turn the water off in the individual rooms and we would have a couple of communal showers for about 30 of us. They ended up turning the water off at about day 57 of my plunges so I knew I had to keep going to make it to 60. Because I like even, round numbers. (Just ask Steve haha)
I did it! 60 days of jumping into the very cold Great Slave Lake! Some days it was raining and howling a gale, other days it was snowing, a lot of days it was still dark and I plunged into the water beneath a million stars. It was magical, it was a challenge and I am so glad that I kept it up.
After that I did a few more jumps, including the last day before we left where I had to wade in with shoes on and break the ice as I went. I couldn’t stop laughing!! It was ridiculous and wonderful at the same time!!
Home in Squamish, BC
When we got back to Squamish I decided on a couple of things. I was going to keep up my cold water swims but have a more realistic goal as I had a habit of setting really high goals and getting annoyed at myself when I didn’t meet them. So instead I decided to do 20 swims in 2020 with the aim of doing 1 or 2 swims every month for the whole year. I started with Christmas Day, New Years Day and then I began to introduce some of my friends to it and I now have regulars who join me in my dips!
I recently even went on my first ‘Social Distancing’ swim! Very strange to not hug or high five afterwards that’s for sure but still just as smile inducing!
‘But why?!’ I hear you ask…
My Top 3 Reasons why:
1. Self Belief
Tony Robbins talks about cold water swimming and how it’s about more than the cold. It’s the mindset. It is using your mind to overcome something that your body doesn’t want to do; therefore teaching you will power, strength and an enormous amount of self belief. If I can jump into this cold water, if I can get undressed in the snow and put my body into what can only be described as discomfort, well what else can I achieve? What else is my mind trying to tell me I can’t do and how can I overcome that?
2. Endorphin Rush
It is a total mood booster! A mood shifter and a mood enhancer. The number of times I have woken up on the wrong side of the bed so to speak and plunged my body into icy cold water, coming out feeling like I’m on top of the world. Or if I’ve been in a funk and nothing seems to lift me out, I walk down to the river and go for a swim and it is like a reflex, I just break out into a massive grin! This has been SO important during these recent times of the global pandemic that is COVID-19 and self isolation and ‘quarantine’. I have found myself kind of floating along, drifting above my body, panicking about the future and rehashing the past.
There is something extremely therapeutic about dragging myself down to the river or lake or ocean and walking into the water; feeling the tingle in my toes, the apprehension. One foot in front of the other. Literally, that is all I have to do in this very moment, just keep on walking. Taking a breath and submerging my head below the surface it’s like wiping the slate clean, clearing my brain and bringing myself back into my body in an instant. My head breaks the surface as I gasp for air, the thrill of the cold and the rush of endorphins is like nothing else.
Sometimes that’s all I need or all I can handle and I quickly wade back out. Other times I have a little swim or I walk out and re-enter again. Feeling the sensations on my body and how they differ now that I have been exposed to it already once. I open my eyes underwater, seeing blurry green all around me and just feeling held, buoyed up and ready to take on my next challenge.
3. Body Confidence
It’s funny, I didn’t think too much about this aspect of cold water swimming, but recently I listened to a podcast about a UK female climber who got into cold water swimming and she talked about the effect it had on her body image and self love and it made me think about my own experience. And I realised, it DOES have an impact.
I have never had much self confidence and have always struggled with my body; constantly comparing myself to others and talking myself down. Sometimes I still do it when I look back at video footage and all I see is cellulite and rolls.
But in the moment, I am not thinking of those things. I am stripping down to my swimming costume, sometimes my underwear, and some glorious times right down to my bare naked skin. And I am not thinking about how bloated my tummy is or how much my legs wobble or my cellulite ripples, I am simply thinking about the water. About what it will feel like when it touches different parts of my body; my feet, my thighs, my belly button, my face.
At that moment I do not care or even think about my body and if it is ‘good enough’, I am so unbelievably present and proud of what I am doing that I am thankful to my body. To my feet for walking me to the river’s edge, to my lungs for breathing deeply and calmly, to my mind for overcoming my body’s desires to work against me. I am so deep in gratitude that I do not judge myself.
And for me, even if it is just for five minutes of inner peace, it is totally and utterly worth it.
There are so many other benefits that people boast from cold water swimming such as boosting your immune system, enhancing circulation, reducing stress and even increasing libido! Others speak of increasing mental fortitude, an enhanced metabolism and an increased ability to tolerate pain!
There are so many positive effects on both mental and physical health I could go on forever, but for me personally these three are at the top of my list. And to be honest, it makes you smile, forget about what’s going on in the world and literally laugh out loud! Do you really need any more reason than that to give it a go?!
Go on, you know you want to…
