etween June and September,
I swim in the sea as often as
I can. But quite apart from the
pleasures of doing exercise in the
great outdoors, what are the health
benefits, if any, to be had from a dip
in the ocean or a cold river?
A few years ago I made a film with
Wim Hof, also known as ‘The Ice Man’.
Wim assured me that cold water can
lead to a “cascade of health benefits”,
including fat loss, a strengthened
immune system and the production
of mood-boosting endorphins.
There is evidence that cold water
encourages the development of brown
fat (which burns calories) and clearly,
if you do a lot of swimming in cold
water then you are going to burn your
way through a lot of calories. But I
suspect most of us will not stay in long
enough for this to have a significant
impact on our body mass.
As for boosting your immune
system, the jury is still out. There
have been plenty of animal studies,
but few randomised human trials.
One Dutch study published in 2016 in
the journal PLOS One recruited 3,018
people and randomly allocated them
to having a cold shower every morning
for a month, or to a control group.
By chance, while the experiment
was going on, there was an outbreak
of flu and it turned out that those
people having cold showers were 30
per cent less likely to take time off
for sickness than those in a control
group. Even better, a 30-second blastof cold water gave the same benefits
as sticking to it for longer.
But what about improving mood?
Again, there’s not a huge amount
of research or randomised trials,
but there was a rather brutal study
from 2000 where scientists looked
at the impact of keeping young
men in a tank of chilly water (14°C)
for up to an hour. Among other things
they found that being in cold water
increased their metabolic rate by
350 per cent and boosted levels of
dopamine (a ‘feel-good chemical’) by
250 per cent.M I C H A E L
MOSLEY
Michael is a writer
and broadcaster,
who presents Trust
Me, I’m A Doctor. His
latest book is The
Fast 800 (£8.99,
Short Books).Cold water could have
benefits – if you can pluck
up the courage to dive inTAKING THE
PLUNGE
COMMENTCOMMENT
There have, however, been some
intriguing individual stories linking
cold water swimming to improvements
in mental health, like one published
recently in the British Medical Journal.
It looked at the case of a 24-year-old
woman called Sarah who had been
taking antidepressants since the age
of 17. A couple of years ago she began
a programme of weekly cold water
swimming, which led to an instant
improvement in her mood and in time
she was able to come off medication.
If you plan to go cold water
swimming, be cautious and don’t
do it alone. If you are not used to the
temperature of the water, your first,
involuntary reaction to jumping in
will be to take a gasp of air, and if you
are underwater at the time this can
be fatal. And as I discovered recently
it can also wipe your memory, albeit
temporarily, through a condition
called ‘transient global amnesia’. But
that’s another story...“Being in cold water
increased their
metabolic rate
and boosted levels
of dopamine”
PORTRAIT: KATE COPELAND ILLUSTRATION: PEPE SERRAB
etween June and September,
I swim in the sea as often as
I can. But quite apart from the
pleasures of doing exercise in the
great outdoors, what are the health
benefits, if any, to be had from a dip
in the ocean or a cold river?
A few years ago I made a film with
Wim Hof, also known as ‘The Ice Man’.
Wim assured me that cold water can
lead to a “cascade of health benefits”,
including fat loss, a strengthened
immune system and the production
of mood-boosting endorphins.
There is evidence that cold water
encourages the development of brown
fat (which burns calories) and clearly,
if you do a lot of swimming in cold
water then you are going to burn your
way through a lot of calories. But I
suspect most of us will not stay in long
enough for this to have a significant
impact on our body mass.
As for boosting your immune
system, the jury is still out. There
have been plenty of animal studies,
but few randomised human trials.
One Dutch study published in 2016 in
the journalPLOS Onerecruited 3,018
people and randomly allocated them
to having a cold shower every morning
for a month, or to a control group.
By chance, while the experiment
was going on, there was an outbreak
of flu and it turned out that those
people having cold showers were 30
per cent less likely to take time off
for sickness than those in a control
group. Even better, a 30-second blastof cold water gave the same benefits
as sticking to it for longer.
But what about improving mood?
Again, there’s not a huge amount
of research or randomised trials,
but there was a rather brutal study
from 2000 where scientists looked
at the impact of keeping young
men in a tank of chilly water (14°C)
for up to an hour. Among other things
they found that being in cold water
increased their metabolic rate by
350 per cent and boosted levels of
dopamine (a ‘feel-good chemical’) by
250 per cent.M I C H A E L
MOSLEY
Michael is a writer
and broadcaster,
who presentsTrust
Me, I’m A Doctor.His
latest book isThe
Fast 800(£8.99,
Short Books).Cold water could have
benefits – if you can pluck
up the courage to dive inTAKING THE
PLUNGE
COMMENT
There have, however, been some
intriguing individual stories linking
cold water swimming to improvements
in mental health, like one published
recently in theBritish Medical Journal.
It looked at the case of a 24-year-old
woman called Sarah who had been
taking antidepressants since the age
of 17. A couple of years ago she began
a programme of weekly cold water
swimming, which led to an instant
improvement in her mood and in time
she was able to come off medication.
If you plan to go cold water
swimming, be cautious and don’t
do it alone. If you are not used to the
temperature of the water, your first,
involuntary reaction to jumping in
will be to take a gasp of air, and if you
are underwater at the time this can
be fatal. And as I discovered recently
it can also wipe your memory, albeit
temporarily, through a condition
called ‘transient global amnesia’. But
that’s another story...“Being in cold water
increased their
metabolic rate
and boosted levels
of dopamine”
PORTRAIT: KATE COPELAND ILLUSTRATION: PEPE SERRA
B