Come in, ladies, the water’s f ine!
Healthy wild swimming all the rage for women
IT could be the most beneficial health craze ever – and the coldest.
Wild swimming has taken off in Scotland and it is mostly women donning their costumes and plunging into ice-cold water.
Research and anecdotal evidence credit the practice with improving conditions such as depression, high blood pressure, chronic pain, allergies, menopause and migraine.
Many women are already talking of its healing impact on post-natal anxiety and depression, hip replacement, back and muscle pain and everyday stress.
Consultant anaesthetist Dr Mark Harper last week told the Edinburgh Science Festival about the positive effects of cold water and sea swimming on inflammation.
About to conduct a major study in the field, he has compared the high of sea swimming, which stimulates the body’s happy hormones or endorphins, to that of cocaine use.
He said: ‘It’s the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline as a result of cold shock that delivers an immediate high. However, in terms of long-term improvements to mental health, we think that it’s the adaptation to cold that is key.’
A wild swimmer himself for 13 years, the Brighton-based doctor highlighted the impact of cold water on systemic inflammation, using depression as an example.
He said: ‘Depression and inflammation are linked. You can treat depression to a certain extent by giving anti-inflammatory drugs. But all drugs have side effects. We know that cold water adaptation reduces inflammation. Putting just your face in cold water stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and that has an anti-inflammatory effect as well.
‘So you have all these things, without major side-effects, which could treat the inflammation and therefore treat the depression.’ A report in the British Medical Journal on open water swimming as a treatment for major depressive disorder saw Dr Harper and Dr Christoffer van Tulleken, from the BBC’s The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs, follow the case of a 24-yearold woman who had serious depression and anxiety.
She improved immediately with weekly cold water swims and eventually quit her medication. Similar studies have also looked at the impact of extreme cold on pain.
Dutchman Wim Hof, known as The Iceman for his ability to withstand extreme cold, takes people on excursions to freezing water to reduce their core temperature.
Allan Brownlee, a Wim Hof Method teacher living in Portobello, Edinburgh, had one client with a ten-year history of rheumatoid arthritis who was able to start hillwalking after three days of swimming and breath practice at Loch Tay, Perthshire. Mr Brownlee said: ‘In March and April, the waters in Portobello certainly provide a workout for your cardiovascular system.
‘A lot of people get this kind of shock as they enter the water and start to breathe more shallowly – but if you stay in longer you start to breathe deeper. As the water gets colder the workout is more intense.’
Jo Tennant is a wild sea swimmer who rehabilitated herself after a hip replacement at the age of 35.
She said: ‘A physiotherapist recommended it. She knew I liked swimming and said it was the best thing. I was in the sea about two weeks after the operation.
‘I could not walk without crutches and a friend helped me across the sand. I had this immediate sense of freedom. It helped me feel more mobile, confident and alive again.’
‘Cold shock delivers an immediate high’