In recent years cold water immersion has grown significantly in popularity due to its many health and wellness benefits.
These include physical benefits such as more energy, better sleep and workout recovery. And mental health benefits such as stress reduction, burnout recovery and improved concentration.
'Over time, our relationship with the world we live in has changed. We have become alienated from nature, but the cold is capable of bringing us back to what we once had lost.' Wim Hof
So what are the health benefits?
Cold water exposure has a range of widely known health benefits. Some of our favourites are:
- Boosted energy levels - the moment the cold water hits your body, there is an imediate shock. This raises oxygen intake, increased heart rate, and alertness.
- Improved workout recovery - cold water helps quicken post workout recovery and reduce muscle soreness. This is why many professional athletes regularly take an ice bath.
- Reduced symptoms of depression - natural feel good endorphins released when you face the cold reduce the symptoms of depression and improve well-being.
- Boosted immunity - exposure to cold contributes to the production of white blood cells which protects you against various diseases
There are many more benefits including both physical and mental.
Physcial benefits:
- Better sleep
- Inflammation reduction
- Improved metabolism
- Increased blood flow
- Improved circulation
- Weight loss
- Boosted performance
- Joint pain relief
Mental Benefits:
- Improved mental health
- Stress relieve
- Anxiety relief
- Burnout recovery / prevention
- Increased willpower
- Better concentration
- Elevated mood
Where did this trend start?
The use of cold therapy in medicine is in fact nothing new. Earliest records go as far back as 5,000 years ago to the Egyptians. Physicians such as John Floyer in the 17th Century then proclaimed the health benefits of bathing in cold water. And many more like him over the years.
Of course we are all now aware and take for granted the benefits of the cold for injury management. Ice packs have been an essential part of physiotherpy since we can remember.
Cold water has also been found to help with more critical issues. For example, the American Heart Association now recommends the use of Therapeutic hypothermia for 12 to 24 hrs following resuscitation from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
But it was a Dutch extreme athlete named Wim Hof who more recently gained notoriety and took ice bathing into the mainstream. Using his method of cold water exposure and breathing technique he achieved things previously thought impossible, such as climbing to an altitude of 7,400 metres (24,300 ft) on Mount Everest wearing nothing but shorts and shoes.
Today many people enjoy the benefits of cold water swimming / bathing. And often find a really friendly community with which they can enjoy it.
“I do not persuade my Reader to change those errors of living, without having first done so myself; for by leaving off strong liquors, and all hot diet, teas, coffee and by water-drinking, and bathing at Buxton (a historic spa town in England), I have procured to myself better health, and more hardiness, than I have enjoyed for many years before.”
John Floyer (1649–1734)
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