The Art of Manliness - The Cold Water Swim Cure

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast have you ever

00:00:11.240 driven along the coastline or walked by a local pond or lake and thought about taking a dip but

00:00:15.500 felt hesitant about swimming in what you know is cold water my guest today who argues that cold

00:00:19.600 water swimming is one of the very best things you can do for your mental and physical health

00:00:22.840 will inspire you to finally take the plunge his name is dr mark harper he's an anesthesiologist

00:00:27.500 and the author of chill the cold water swim cure we began our conversation with how mark's research

00:00:31.880 and the prevention of hypothermia during surgery led him to investigate the benefits of cold water

00:00:36.340 exposure and managing the body's overall stress response we discussed the effect cold water has

00:00:40.800 on the body and the potential mental and physical benefits this effect can have from reducing

00:00:44.760 inflammation to reducing depression caused by inflammation to improving conditions from diabetes

00:00:49.000 to migraines we get into how long you need to be in the water to get these benefits the temperature

00:00:53.320 the water needs to be which may not be as cold as you think and potentially makes depending on where

00:00:57.480 you live cold water swimming viable as a year-round practice mark also explains how to get started

00:01:02.360 with cold water swimming and do it safely and effectively including why you should start out

00:01:06.000 in the summer and how to best prepare your body before you get in the water and how to recover after

00:01:09.880 you get out we end our conversation with whether or not you can get the same benefits of cold water

00:01:13.600 swimming from taking an ice bath or cold shower after the show's over check out our show notes at

00:01:17.380 aom.is slash cold swim

00:01:19.160 mark harper welcome to the show thank you very much thank you for having me it's a great privilege to be here

00:01:35.240 yeah i've followed the art of manliness since i came across your roadmap to manhood in 2014 it's been a great

00:01:42.340 inspiration for me okay so that's that's a big blast from the past that was a really long article

00:01:47.540 that we wrote so thanks for reading that and also thanks for listening to the podcast all these years

00:01:51.500 i i really appreciate that i'm excited to have you on the podcast today you are an anesthesiologist

00:01:57.260 but you've written a book called chill the cold water swim cure how did you get started with cold water

00:02:04.800 swimming really it was by accident i mean i've always swum in a swimming pool thanks to my mum

00:02:11.340 who used to drag me along as a reluctant teenager but ever since then i've swum maybe three four times

00:02:16.900 a week in the swimming pool training with the club but one summer i moved back to brighton in my mid-30s

00:02:23.700 and the pool closed for two weeks and i was complaining about this to a friend that i'd known since my

00:02:29.020 those teenage days and he said oh go and join the sea swimming section i didn't even know the club

00:02:34.060 had the sea swimming section and so i thought i'll just go have a quick swim around the pier

00:02:39.980 and do that for two weeks and i went around the pier i had a nice time and nearly 20 years later i'm

00:02:48.060 still swimming around the pier in brighton and and wherever i can get my cold water fix so you started

00:02:54.940 off doing this just as recreation something to do because you enjoyed it it's good for your health

00:03:00.260 you enjoyed the people but then you started making these connections that maybe there were some

00:03:06.020 real health benefits to swimming outside in cold water when did you start making those connections

00:03:11.440 well in a way it was that that first swim that gave me an inkling but i was only kind of to know

00:03:17.160 that later because i remember getting out of the water yeah having just gone for a swim and walking up

00:03:22.080 the beach thinking god yeah i feel really good yeah something i just didn't expect and that was

00:03:28.140 what kept me going back for more and that's why i continue to do it to this day but the other thing

00:03:34.840 that got me into it was my research at the time so my phd is in something called the prevention of

00:03:42.280 perioperative hypothermia basically what this means is when you have an operation if you get cold it's bad

00:03:48.240 for you and in fact this is a really important point because hypothermia is bad for you at any

00:03:53.520 time exposing yourself to cold what i'm gonna talk about today is potentially very good for you but if

00:04:00.320 you stay in the water too long and you become cold that's actually bad for you so i was researching this

00:04:07.180 and the thing is when you have an operation you have a real stress response you may not feel it because

00:04:11.960 you have a an anesthesiologist like myself stopping you from feeling that pain but it generates a stress

00:04:18.100 response in the body and if you get cold it increases that stress response so around this

00:04:24.680 time i started reading articles about the effect of cold water on the body and these effects this this

00:04:32.260 was a stress response as well and this stress response was exactly the same as the stress response

00:04:37.380 you get to surgery and then more than that i started reading about how you can adapt to cold and if you

00:04:44.540 adapt to cold it reduces that stress response and that reduction in the stress response would

00:04:49.960 potentially reduce the complications following surgery okay so you so you were this is a connection

00:04:56.220 to your work you thought okay as an anesthesiologist one of our jobs is to keep people warm during

00:05:02.560 surgery because their body temperature goes down so that's why you have like a warm blanket put over

00:05:07.100 you you had a hunch that maybe if we can help the body adapt to cold it will improve surgery outcomes

00:05:16.300 after general anesthesia is that correct yeah that's correct and there's a more general thing not just

00:05:21.620 in your response to cold but into your response to the whole stress of surgery gotcha okay so this is

00:05:28.700 this is basically thought that cold water exposure through cold water swimming could help develop the

00:05:35.100 overall stress response of the body not only the stress of you know being under anesthesiology but

00:05:41.120 also the stresses of just everyday life as well yeah well that's uh that's how things progressed yeah

00:05:48.540 i began to think well joy it was when i read an article a few years later you know i've done quite a lot

00:05:56.780 of work on on operation you know preventing hypothermia during operations and a few years later i came across

00:06:03.740 an article which in the newspapers on the medical article by any means about how inflammation have been

00:06:12.160 linked to depression now one of the main things like that we need inflammation is that it's the body's

00:06:17.380 response to infection to injury it's really important but like everything you can have too much of a good

00:06:24.440 thing and if you have an overactive stress response you have an overactive inflammatory response and

00:06:30.120 it becomes bad stress or bad inflammation rather than good or physiological inflammation and linking

00:06:38.540 it to depression and i thought well i know that if you adapt to cold water your levels of inflammation

00:06:45.420 go down that's one of the reasons it's good for you and potentially good for patients having surgery

00:06:50.640 so and i also knew how good i felt when i came out of the water without having depression

00:06:56.300 so i began to wonder well maybe then we could use cold water swimming to treat depression we're going

00:07:04.160 to talk about that today how it could possibly treat depression but so like let's talk about like what do

00:07:07.660 you think is going on about being exposed to cold water that has these you know again as you said being

00:07:13.900 cold usually isn't good that's something we think of as a stressor to the body but you're saying that

00:07:20.460 okay you can within small doses it can actually help you become more resilient to different types of

00:07:25.940 stressors so like what is going on what is when you expose yourself to cold what's going on in your

00:07:31.420 body that allows you to overcome or be resilient to acute or chronic stress so what goes on as i said

00:07:40.940 you get a stress response when you get into water but if you go in regularly and by the way cold water

00:07:45.540 isn't actually that cold it's anything less than 20 degrees centigrade has a significant physiological

00:07:52.400 effect on the body so when you get into cold water you have this stress response now if you do that

00:07:59.120 regularly and most cold or studies of cold water swimming they use a regime of about six immersions

00:08:07.420 at probably around 15 degrees centigrade and if you go into this cold six times you develop an adaptation

00:08:16.740 to cold and what this means is so the stress response is generated by the autonomic nervous

00:08:22.260 system so that's your sympathetic which is your fight flight and the parasympathetic which is your

00:08:27.340 rest and digest and what getting into cold water several times does is it reduces that sympathetic

00:08:34.840 response to stress so this means if you're running a high level of stress and consequently usually a high

00:08:41.120 level of inflammation your baseline goes down and also those peaks of stress go down so what you're

00:08:49.340 doing is you're keeping that stress and that inflammation in the good physiological zone rather

00:08:55.220 than the bad pathological zone interestingly on top of this if you put your face in cold water

00:09:03.420 you get stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system so this is the other side of the autonomic

00:09:08.840 nervous system which is good and this actually directly reduces levels of inflammation in the

00:09:16.640 body and so you're having a kind of double effect from swimming in cold water in reducing inflammation

00:09:22.560 so it sounds like what you what's happening is you're when you get into cold water you're giving your

00:09:27.960 your nervous system and it's like it's an it's like a workout for your nervous system in a way

00:09:33.240 yeah completely you know you just think about you know if you go to the gym you work out hard you

00:09:39.440 can work out too hard and you you injure yourself but if you work out just right and you can work out

00:09:44.980 pretty hard without injuring yourself you become stronger it's exactly the same principle and so you

00:09:50.500 mentioned you threw out some numbers there for how cold the water needs to be it's 15 degrees celsius

00:09:55.000 that's what like 59 degrees fahrenheit and i think 20 is about like 68 degrees fahrenheit yeah exactly

00:10:01.400 yeah yeah that's about right so under about 68 you you get a really good effect and they reckon the

00:10:07.500 maximum effect is probably somewhere between you know 10 and 15 degrees centigrade so you know what's

00:10:14.860 that 48 to 58 degrees fahrenheit something like that and what you've done in this book too is okay

00:10:20.500 you've you've made this connection of to cold exposure to your work as an anesthesiologist about the

00:10:26.020 benefits of it but there's like a there's a whole history of doctors or thinkers or writers i mean you

00:10:33.540 can even say religious people touting the benefits of cold water exposure how far back do we of the

00:10:39.740 record do we have that shows like getting in the cold water outdoors can have benefits well i think it

00:10:46.680 goes back as far as medicine goes back hippocrates the father of medicine as he's known he wrote a

00:10:52.800 treatise called on airs waters and places and in that he invoked the power of water i think for me the

00:11:04.060 most significant figure is richard russell who was a doctor in my hometown of brighton on the south coast

00:11:10.180 of england who in the early 18th century started bringing people to the cold waters of brighton and

00:11:19.860 taking them in and using that and he is credited with starting a craze for sea bathing which in fact

00:11:26.520 the prince regent came to stay in his house after he had died and became and you know really started to

00:11:34.960 enjoy this cold water thing and that's why brighton built up from this small fishing village into a

00:11:41.500 a kind of sea bathing metropolis and he richard russell wrote a treatise on treating the diseases

00:11:50.780 of the glands including the king's evil leprosy scurvy all kinds of things that i i wouldn't say it does

00:11:57.120 help and but he also advocated drinking the seawater which i also wouldn't uh wouldn't advocate but for

00:12:05.240 many years this was one of the well probably one of the few effective treatments we had but come the

00:12:10.700 era of antibiotics and drugs and pharma it kind of got forgotten okay so these doctors they they knew

00:12:18.360 that they they put people in cold water they saw that it had benefits they probably didn't understand

00:12:25.120 why what was going on in the body they probably had theories about humors and whatnot but recent

00:12:30.600 research has really explained like what is going on in our bodies when we expose ourselves to the cold

00:12:35.340 and you highlight that and so we talked about these different nervous systems but i want to talk about

00:12:39.980 like what besides the the response that we have in our nervous system like what else goes on in our

00:12:45.640 body once we jump into that cold water i mean what's the first thing that happens like why is it that

00:12:51.220 we have that we want to gasp for breath you know our joints ache like sometimes when i get into cold

00:12:56.800 water i want to pee like what's going on our body well i think that the basis for this is the fact

00:13:03.360 that all the blood vessels to the skin immediately shut down so your circulation to your skin which is

00:13:09.520 what we call the peripheral compartment that closes down and goes straight into you know and it's just

00:13:14.760 used it's kept in inside the body so you have kind of more blood going around the main part of the

00:13:21.460 body this expands the heart and expanding the heart releases a hormone called

00:13:26.800 atrial natriuretic peptide which makes you want to pee it puts more fluid through the through the

00:13:33.140 kidneys but the effect of just the direct effect on the nervous system causes you to want to

00:13:39.920 hyperventilate take a big gasp when you get into the water you want you hyperventilate i mean it's very

00:13:44.400 much like a panic attack which can be a bit of a problem but the thing is it's yeah and this is

00:13:51.160 this is actually the most dangerous part of it so if your head goes straight under you cannot control

00:13:55.020 this but after a few times of doing it you can absolutely control it and that that really helps

00:14:01.360 you okay so yeah we jump in our blood vessels constrict so this is also a workout for our

00:14:07.020 cardiovascular system in a way uh yeah it is it's uh it's absolutely a workout it's kind of a in a way

00:14:13.040 it's an exercise free workout for the whole whole cardiovascular system because you know blood

00:14:17.440 pressure goes up your heart rate goes up but all this all these responses are still there when you

00:14:23.100 adapt to cold water but they're not as powerful you mentioned you know when you got out of the

00:14:28.580 water that first time you went did the uh swim swim around the pier you said you just felt great like

00:14:33.780 you kind of like almost euphoric is there something going on with our brain chemistry that gives us that

00:14:38.760 euphoric feeling there's there's certainly something going on in the brain but as to quite what it is i don't

00:14:46.140 think we really know and we might never know i mean the brain is phenomenally complex you know it's uh

00:14:52.720 it does something like a billion billion calculations every second so for me you know there are two ways

00:15:00.660 of thinking about it first is you know you get all this adrenaline and noradrenaline going around the

00:15:05.340 body and that is kind of what cocaine does to you and you know in fact one of the guys i've done this

00:15:12.680 with a doctor i mentioned the book chris van tuveken one of the things he said to me after i'd started

00:15:18.440 him on the cold water swimming was i said if this was a drug they'd make it illegal and and the other

00:15:26.420 thing is that i think it's something how it resets the brain yeah this is i can't explain it but as this

00:15:33.260 amazing woman jill bolt taylor who has a 25 million times seen ted talk and she had a stroke and she

00:15:42.560 had a let a stroke she's a neuroscientist and she had a stroke where she had a bleed into the left

00:15:48.700 side of the brain she was aware of this and she found while she couldn't do everyday tasks like ring

00:15:56.300 up someone and tell them that i'm having a stroke she didn't care she just felt at one with the world

00:16:03.020 and this her theory is that the left hand side of our brain gives us our sense of self a sense of fear

00:16:10.080 sense of time whereas the right hand side of the brain that is about empathy and feeling at one with

00:16:16.820 the world and this is this is the reset i get when i go into the water so i can't give you a scientific

00:16:24.320 explanation but that's absolutely how it feels to me okay you mentioned some hormones that are 0.99

00:16:29.820 released there's that peptide hormone from our heart that causes us to want to go pee there's

00:16:35.000 adrenaline any other hormones that are released when we jump in cold water yeah it's a it's a kind

00:16:41.040 of complex reaction but you get all the stress hormones come in things like cortisol and it also

00:16:47.840 affects insulin insulin is the main sugar regulating hormone in the body and you're really important for

00:16:55.580 many metabolic processes so when you initially go in you know kind of it has a bad effect on insulin but

00:17:02.940 again when you've adapted to cold water that effect on insulin becomes better and actually your body

00:17:07.600 becomes more sensitive to the effects of insulin which is a really good thing and this is why it

00:17:12.780 may be possible to help treat type 2 diabetes for example okay so when you jump into cold water

00:17:19.320 the lot's going on physiologically blood vessels constrict to keep the heat in our body inside that's

00:17:25.840 going to help your cardiovascular system there's this nervous response that can help us respond better to

00:17:32.000 stress there's hormones that are released is there anything that happens like what is it about cold

00:17:38.680 water that can help reduce inflammation is there something going on there is it just quieting down

00:17:43.460 the inflammatory response yeah so it's it's kind of a two-pronged attack so first is that you know

00:17:50.300 actually getting into the cold water will lead to some kind of inflammation but it will keep it in the

00:17:56.160 good zone so if you do it regularly it will keep that baseline of inflammation down so you have a

00:18:02.300 sort of long-term effect and you also have an immediate effect and that immediate effect is what

00:18:07.240 you get it's the diving reflex that when you put your face in the water it directly stimulates the vagal

00:18:14.060 nerve and that directly reduces inflammation so the long-term effect you know lasts a while so

00:18:20.140 you know you go in six times you know you have 60 of your response left 14 months later but you can

00:18:26.600 always boost it by going in and getting your face in the water and that gives you an immediate effect

00:18:32.900 all right so you want the water to be about 68 degrees fahrenheit to maybe 50 degrees fahrenheit

00:18:39.820 to get the benefits there's some famous doctor philosopher said the you know the the dose makes the poison

00:18:47.400 how like how cold is too cold and like how long is too long in the water uh when it starts causing

00:18:54.600 problems well in my experience there is if you're properly prepared i think there's no too cold what

00:19:05.160 it is is too long and as you say that the dose is the thing that the dose is in the timing really

00:19:10.880 and yeah i've been in water actually i measured it at minus 0.2 in the sea just as i was getting in

00:19:18.680 once and and it's fine because i go in warm i go in prepared so you know the thing is not to become

00:19:25.880 hypothermic so if it's really cold you're just in for a minute two minutes something like that

00:19:30.660 if it's warmer you can stay in for a long time well how do you know if you're becoming hypothermic what

00:19:35.980 are the the telltale signs well for me i think that the best sign is what's called clawing of

00:19:42.440 the hands and this this means when you you know to to do a stroke you you bring your fingers together

00:19:47.440 to to do a swimming stroke after a while when you begin to get cold you can't really bring your

00:19:54.140 fingers together anymore and it becomes difficult and that's quite a good sign that you're getting

00:19:58.960 too cold but it's an early sign so that gives you time to get back to shore and get back in and start

00:20:05.140 getting warm any other things i guess one one you mentioned is you start you can't think straight

00:20:11.060 like you have a hard time talking and keeping your thoughts together yeah i mean that's that's when

00:20:16.580 you're kind of going a bit too far i think that the thing is the fumbles the mumbles the tumbles you

00:20:23.140 know you basically you your hands your coordination goes your mental coordination goes at that point

00:20:32.060 yeah someone needs to look after you all right so if as soon as you experience those hypothermic

00:20:36.680 symptoms it's that's the time to get out of the water we're going to take a quick break for your

00:20:40.980 word from our sponsors and now back to the show so you did a uh you've done a study surveying cold

00:20:49.820 water swimmers in the uk about the benefits they've gotten from their polar plunges and this is you know

00:20:55.500 you're basically asking people tell us about your experience and you've got all sorts of great

00:21:00.580 responses in one area where you saw there was a lot of benefit was helping people with mental health

00:21:07.380 issues like anxiety and depression tell us about that story like how has how has cold water swimming

00:21:12.960 helped people with their mental health issues and what do you think is going on there

00:21:16.600 well that came about you know about you know i read this article talking about the connection

00:21:24.800 between inflammation and depression and and yeah maybe if we reduced inflammation therefore we could

00:21:30.640 treat depression and so i took this theory to a guy called mike tipton he's a professor of extreme

00:21:39.020 physiology in portsmouth and he was the guy who'd been writing all these papers i've been reading

00:21:43.220 on the effects of cold water on the body's physiology and he said oh that's that's a really

00:21:49.840 interesting idea there was no particular way forward at the time but then a few weeks later he was

00:21:55.460 contacted by chris van tilliken tv doctor who said i'm doing this program called the doctor who gave up

00:22:02.720 drugs is there anything we can use cold water swimming for and he said well coincidentally i've just met

00:22:08.580 someone who thinks they can use it for this so basically the bbc found us this wonderful young

00:22:14.400 woman sarah 24 at the time who was depressed and had been on antidepressants for eight years and just

00:22:23.520 wanted to come up off them because she didn't want her baby daughter growing up seeing her mum take 1.00

00:22:29.120 tablets so we took her down to mike's lab we put her through a cold water adaptation program you know

00:22:36.400 it was four dips in about 15 degrees centigrade in this special tank and then the next day we went

00:22:41.680 out for a swim in the lake she kept up with it afterwards and you know within a few months she'd

00:22:48.640 stopped taking her medication and when i spoke to her just a few months ago and this is we're talking

00:22:54.780 about five years later she's still free from medication still doesn't need medication still swimming

00:23:01.480 occasionally and and it really helps so next we had to do this in real life so what we did was i met

00:23:10.560 this guy mike who is with a coast guard and you know general outdoors person down in in devon in the

00:23:16.800 southwest corner of england and he said i'd really like to run these courses for you and we can do some

00:23:22.160 research so we gathered together in the end about 60 people all with clinical depression and anxiety

00:23:28.560 and put them through a basic course it's eight sessions eight 30 45 minute sessions that that

00:23:35.620 includes warming up having a cup of tea things like that and eight sessions in the water in uh summer

00:23:43.040 started summer went into winter so it was temperatures probably between 58 and 48 degrees

00:23:49.300 fahrenheit say and saw what happened and the results were were utterly remarkable you know we were getting

00:23:57.900 cure rates you know and this is total recovery rates of about 70 for anxiety and the same for

00:24:04.940 depression i mean if it was a a pill no one would believe that kind of results no this inflammation

00:24:11.280 depression connection is really interesting we've had charles rhizone i think is his name on the podcast

00:24:17.300 yeah he wrote a book about i've heard that one that was it was really useful that that really helped

00:24:21.780 you with my research if you see what i mean yeah and i think his takeaway is there so when you're in

00:24:26.540 when you have chronic inflammation it basically it disrupts how the brain responds and you start

00:24:33.480 acting like a depressive and so his idea is like if you can reduce inflammation you can reduce

00:24:39.380 depressive symptoms and he found that's the case but his way was interesting he used heat to use sauna

00:24:44.980 treatments to reduce inflammation what you're doing is using cold which is another way to reduce

00:24:51.220 inflammation yeah and it's really interesting because i i heard that podcast and then i went to a

00:24:58.420 conference which was on uh thermoregulation so it was you know both hot and cold and a lot of the work

00:25:04.920 from people using saunas and using heat stress so rather than cold stress does seem to have very

00:25:11.900 similar effect i think the advantage of the cold is certainly that it's you know certainly for us in

00:25:19.900 uh in the uk and probably in parts of the us it's just more easily accessible you don't need special

00:25:26.360 equipment for it you just need some cold water and one thing you point out in the book and then charles

00:25:32.020 pointed out in his work as well is that the inflammation depression connection it's only in some people

00:25:38.860 like some people have depression that is caused by inflammation it's like half and half basically

00:25:44.540 so i think the takeaway that he had i think the takeaway you have too in your book is if you have

00:25:50.980 depression or anxiety and you've tried treating it with you know medications or talk therapy and that

00:25:57.000 hasn't really done much for you you might have depression caused by inflammation so maybe you just focus

00:26:02.240 on reducing inflammation yeah i mean i think that's a really valid point i think

00:26:08.560 the thing about i mean the thing to remember about cold water swimming is that it's not just you know

00:26:15.380 the effect of the cold on the inflammation is one part of it there's so much more to it you know if

00:26:21.800 you're going outside being outside in nature we know that's good for you we know views of water are good

00:26:28.260 for you we know being with other people you know one of the important things is to do this with other

00:26:33.080 people and certainly you know when we've been running studies we've one of the things people have

00:26:37.280 valued most is that having that group dynamic so there's more to it and of course you're getting

00:26:45.320 exercise so there is more to it than just the cold and the effect of the cold on the inflammation

00:26:52.300 but you continue on this this thread of it's the cold's effect on inflammation you also found that

00:26:58.160 people who had you know inflammatory problems like chronic pain arthritis crohn's disease these are

00:27:05.140 all problems that are often associated with inflammation they saw reduction in symptoms as

00:27:09.840 well any can you highlight some of those things that you found yeah i mean yeah you you summed it up

00:27:15.880 really so our theory was that you know if it were if it has an effect on inflammation you know

00:27:21.520 depression is inflammation so we've been through that but maybe it'll work on other illnesses and so

00:27:26.740 we sent out a survey to see you know were people using it you know we wondered were people using it

00:27:33.020 against these kind of conditions and the responses came back with mapping exactly what we had thought

00:27:40.800 that you know type 2 diabetes is lifestyle illnesses it's the the modern lifestyle illnesses is what

00:27:46.840 we're looking at here and it was type 2 diabetes and there's as a guy i've been swimming with for years

00:27:52.440 in the sea rob who had bad crohn's disease and he kind of find out by accident yeah he started doing a

00:27:59.460 uh a thing for charity and he had to swim in the sea and he noticed that his crohn's disease had

00:28:04.260 become better and then also on the course we had one guy with chronic pain who came along because he was

00:28:13.000 getting really depressed and he just came for the depression part of it noticed his pain was getting

00:28:17.540 better another guy had fibromyalgia and similarly he came across he was more anxious but he found that

00:28:25.880 his fibromyalgia symptoms got got a whole lot better as a consequence well and so the theories there okay

00:28:32.040 there could be like an inflammatory reduction going on um with some of this stuff um but the also the

00:28:38.920 other theory again this is like it's very speculative like there's this is kind of on the cutting edge

00:28:42.720 of of research but another theory that's out there is that idea that uh cold exposure can somehow reset

00:28:51.260 our nervous system i mean i think a lot of times with um one of the theories of fibromyalgia or chronic

00:28:57.320 pain is that the brain's pain wiring has gone haywire so you're feeling pain even though there isn't

00:29:04.440 anything wrong with you but you just think it's there and the idea is that somehow the cold helps reset that

00:29:10.280 yeah and i i think that's that's it as you say this is this is very speculative but what you get with

00:29:17.140 these conditions are these abnormal circuits and these circuits and they reinforce the brain tends to

00:29:23.080 reinforce the circuits and what the cold does in some way is it resets these circuits it maybe it just

00:29:31.700 sort of overwhelms the whole thing overwhelms the whole system and it brings you right into the present

00:29:38.340 moment those loops just are broken up and you can start to produce new and less unhealthy circuits

00:29:46.760 well in another area we saw benefits of cold water swimming was reduction in migraines what do you think

00:29:54.560 is going on there uh again that's it's a it's a really complicated thing migraine is a is a terrible

00:30:01.440 affliction and we came across a girl beth who is you know she was yeah young in the 20s doing a phd but 0.96

00:30:11.920 had to give up a phd because she's having 28 migraines a month you know i mean that's virtually 0.99

00:30:17.980 every day and the who suggests that a day with a migraine is like a day being paraplegic and if

00:30:25.020 she she wanted to do something in nature and again found by coincidence that it helped the symptoms of

00:30:33.520 a migraine and you know i think again we're being speculative but i think again it's these things

00:30:40.100 that resets the mind it resets those electronic circuits and it just takes you out of things and

00:30:48.820 reduces inflammation so it's it's a complex thing and you know a lot of this you could argue that

00:30:56.240 we should be doing research starting from the bottom up saying you know why why does cold water

00:31:01.020 swimming work but for me i think i prefer to start at the top and say well does it work and let's see

00:31:07.900 who it works for and then we'll get their stories and we can start beginning to work out why it works

00:31:14.820 afterwards okay so it looks like there's there are benefits to cold water swimming so someone's

00:31:19.680 listening to this and they think well i want to get started with i want to give this a try

00:31:23.040 how do you find a place to swim in the first place um are there you found there like are there only

00:31:28.620 certain times of the year that you can get the benefits of cold water swimming is it like just

00:31:32.120 winter time no well it depends where you live if you live in tahiti you probably don't get much

00:31:38.600 cold water at all but for most of us in temperate climate you know really you can get the

00:31:44.440 benefits all year round and what in fact what i recommend doing is you start in the summer start

00:31:48.900 when it's at its warmest that's what i did and then you carry on for as long as you feel feel good

00:31:55.880 about it and you feel safe so yeah it's finding a place there's lots of uh there's more and more

00:32:00.940 wild swim maps and things like this but essentially the golden rule is find a place find some cold

00:32:07.020 water whether it's a lake a stream a bit of the ocean and but before you go in make sure you know

00:32:16.500 how you get out because there's the book this book the official rules which was popular in the 80s and

00:32:22.240 one of the my favorites from that is agnes allen's rule which is almost anything is easier to get

00:32:28.560 into than out of and that applies to all of life in my opinion and it's particularly true for

00:32:34.020 cold water swimming and then yeah and the other thing is you know take a friend along you know

00:32:39.200 always do it with someone else because they can you know having someone else out there even if

00:32:44.400 they're not swimming with you that that increases the safety and will help you get out of any trouble

00:32:50.460 well i think i'm sure they can probably tell if you're becoming hypothermic as well

00:32:54.200 yeah absolutely yeah and that's a really important part of it is that they can recognize that kind of

00:33:00.840 thing okay so look for oceans it can be done all year i think in the united states there's lots of

00:33:06.780 little swim holes where the water stays really cold if you live in mountain areas the rivers are

00:33:12.640 freezing because it's just the water's coming from snow melt so this can be an all-year thing if you

00:33:18.020 want let's talk about you want to do in a group for safety but you also think there's a benefit just

00:33:23.860 from being around people that's one of the benefits you think what's going on it's sort of social

00:33:27.360 medicine yeah totally i mean one of the biggest issues with the pandemic for example has been

00:33:35.400 the way the increase in social isolation and going and doing this with a group you know for a start

00:33:42.100 you're meeting with a group you're reducing social isolation but also it's just so much fun you know

00:33:47.900 when you when you go and do it with a group you have a laugh and you know that shared euphoria was

00:33:53.800 really one of the things that came out of our studies you know when people get to you know

00:33:58.880 comment on how it benefited them it was that shared laughter then going and having a cup of hot chocolate

00:34:04.760 or hot tea or hot coffee up together afterwards so i think there's a lot more to it that community

00:34:11.820 rather than just the safety aspect so you you found your place do you just jump in or do you

00:34:18.220 recommend doing a warm-up before you do get in the water i think it's really important to be warm

00:34:23.760 before you get in so essentially our body is very good at protecting our core organs yeah our core and so

00:34:32.760 but the outside bit of it the skin the muscles the the fat there which is also known as bioprene

00:34:41.180 in the in the cold swimming community that is there is kind of a heat sink and it's like a storage

00:34:48.580 heater and so if you think if you go into water when you're cold you've got nothing in your storage

00:34:56.140 heater you know so your core will cool down and your vital organs which you really need to preserve

00:35:01.980 will cool down really quickly but if you go into the water warm and you know you've got that

00:35:08.700 that storage heater totally full you'll be able to stave off that hypothermia a whole lot longer

00:35:15.520 and the other thing i think about going so so one going warm the other thing that is important is

00:35:21.220 certainly before you're used to it is that you go in you just put your body in first because you don't

00:35:28.260 want the signals the conflicting signals from the body which is that sympathetic fight flight response

00:35:33.840 going along with the signals from your face which is the parasympathetic drive and also when you're not

00:35:42.440 used to it you will get that gasp you'll get that hyperventilation which you cannot control and so you

00:35:49.300 know the biggest danger for newswimmers or people who are just pulled out the water you know in these

00:35:55.160 crazy things is that they their head goes under and they breathe in a whole lungfuls of water

00:36:01.820 okay so don't jump right in the first time so the warm-up is that just you're recommending people

00:36:07.880 exercise like you want to raise your internal temperature it's you're trying to treat your body

00:36:11.760 like a water bottle basically get the inside warm-up yeah and and the most effective way of doing it

00:36:18.660 is actually to warm yourself from the inside out so by exercise is a great way of doing it if you just

00:36:25.860 sort of warm on the surface and cold in the in the you know the next bit and then warm in the middle

00:36:31.160 you know that's that's actually worse than than being cold but if you do something like for example

00:36:38.120 as they have in the nordic countries for many years if you go into a sauna and you warm yourself

00:36:45.300 completely through that's fine that's good and you know the the fins particularly have been showing

00:36:51.340 that for showing us that for many years all right so you warm yourself up you get in the first time

00:36:56.040 you're going to get in slowly just your body get your body acclimated before you stick your face into

00:37:01.520 the water because you don't want that those two nervous systems crisscrossing each other and you

00:37:06.500 inhaling a bunch of water how long should a swim be is you said earlier just depends on how cold it is

00:37:11.240 correct a swim it's difficult to judge a swim should be it depends on the temperature so to get the

00:37:19.620 benefits i think i think the most important thing is to know to get the benefits you do not have to

00:37:24.660 be in very long you need to be in as long as it takes you to get your breath back you know you have

00:37:29.200 that initial gasp and hyperventilation and you feel oh my god this is awful and then after a minute or so

00:37:36.600 that passes and that is long enough so in the middle of winter what i suggest is maybe three minutes

00:37:44.660 put your face in three times that's it and you know when it's super cold you may not even need

00:37:49.840 three minutes beyond that it's how good you feel and you know the things we discussed about

00:37:54.760 you know clawing at the hands feeling cold you know get out there's there's no virtue beyond a bit of

00:38:01.380 extra exercise from staying in for a long time gotcha uh what about warming up are there any protocols

00:38:06.280 you recommend for warming yourself up after your cold water swim well again warming up afterwards

00:38:12.980 best done from the inside out so you know do some exercise go for a run get on your bike i you know

00:38:19.920 after my swim i get on my bike and go to a cafe and have coffee okay so you warm yourself up is going

00:38:25.560 into a sauna directly after a cold water swim okay because i've heard different things right i think

00:38:32.620 a sauna i think is a good thing again you know we've got so much evidence that it's perfectly safe because

00:38:39.680 we the so many people have been doing it in finland and sweden and norway for so many years

00:38:45.580 the thing is hot air air just doesn't hold that much heat it feels warm but it doesn't hold that

00:38:51.900 much heat so it's a very safe way of warming people and this is why we use it in the operating

00:38:56.900 theater because it's so safe and that you know i think you've got to be more careful about a hot shower

00:39:03.180 and you know if you start with a lukewarm shower i mean this is how i tend to do it i haven't got the

00:39:07.880 luxury of a sauna most of the time but you start lukewarm with the shower that's fine but if you

00:39:14.680 start with a hot shower you can damage your skin and things like this because the body isn't moving

00:39:18.940 the blood away from the from the skin you can damage it you could scald yourself basically yeah exactly

00:39:26.560 well here's a question i forgot to ask are there people who should maybe be careful with the cold

00:39:33.600 water swims because of heart issues i've heard that you jump in you have that that reaction and

00:39:40.560 it could cause a heart attack is there anything to that idea so yes of course there's some people

00:39:46.640 whose hearts are so bad that you just don't want to get them into cold water but really if you can walk

00:39:54.620 down to the beach or get yourself into the swimming place and get yourself out again you are probably

00:40:02.380 fit enough to go into the water you do yeah be careful if you have a heart condition but

00:40:09.640 it's a bit of a myth that it's the heart attack that kills people it's these hyperventilations

00:40:15.120 getting the face under the water and not being able to hold your breath under the water that's what

00:40:19.860 what kills most people rather than the the stress on the heart that stress on the heart is probably

00:40:25.460 no greater than walking up two three flights of stairs okay uh so what if you don't have access to

00:40:32.140 outdoor cold water can you get these same benefits by taking cold showers or ice baths you can get the

00:40:38.440 benefits but not the same benefits i mean there was one shower one study of cold showers which showed

00:40:45.460 that people who took a cold shower in the morning had less sick days the thing is the effect from the

00:40:52.340 cold comes from two main sources as it will there are two main determinants of it and that is the

00:40:59.380 actual temperature of the water and the rate cooling and in a shower it's probably not going to be as

00:41:06.040 cold it might be you know it's going to be room temperature or whatever and you you're not immediately

00:41:11.660 immersing yourself in cold water so you don't become cold quite so quickly an ice bath well yes

00:41:17.860 that will give you those benefits but for me it's just not as much fun unless you have a really big

00:41:23.360 ice bath with lots of people jumping in and out it's not as much fun as being with lots of people

00:41:28.520 jumping in and out to see but yes you would see benefits i think another point too besides the social

00:41:34.260 benefit of swimming outdoors like there's something about being outside that amplifies the these

00:41:41.060 benefits as well like there's been lots of studies done about the benefits of being outside in nature

00:41:46.560 to for depression and other sicknesses yeah without a doubt and that's yeah i like to think of cold

00:41:53.900 water swimming or outdoor swimming as a total package it's not just about the cold i think the cold

00:42:00.060 brings you some unique benefits but it's it's the community it's being out in nature we do know

00:42:06.220 that's good i mean just a view of water brings mental health benefits plus the exercise and everything

00:42:15.240 else that you get from it so it's it really not just about the cold okay uh somebody if you can't

00:42:21.360 have access to cold water for you live in tahiti for example an ice bath could you can get benefits of

00:42:28.760 for the cold uh yeah you you would get the the benefits of the cold and then maybe if you did

00:42:34.460 it in tahiti you could be looking out over the ocean in your ice bath and you get in and get out

00:42:39.640 and you're warm the whole time so fantastic you're living the dream you've you've you've won life if

00:42:45.620 you're doing that well mark mark this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn

00:42:50.260 more about the book and your work well i mean with the book the book go to your favorite local

00:42:56.840 bookshop and order it that's uh that's the thing with that i mean i send out occasional tweets from

00:43:03.320 the wild swim doctor about swimming but i think what i'd like people most to do is look at some of

00:43:09.300 the work that's being done by organizations to get people out and help people find the benefits of

00:43:15.500 cold water swimming and so this is mental health swims.co.uk or chilluk.org and seashore.org

00:43:23.880 three organizations i work with who do amazing stuff you know really bringing access to this

00:43:31.060 fantastic therapy well dr mark harper thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:43:36.160 absolute pleasure for me too thanks for having me my guest today is dr mark harper he's the author of

00:43:42.340 the book chill the cold water swim cure it's available on amazon.com make sure to check out our

00:43:46.280 show notes at aom.is slash cold swim we find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:43:50.800 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

00:44:01.780 art of manliness.com we find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles we've written

00:44:05.480 over the years about pretty much anything you can think of and if you'd like to enjoy ad-free

00:44:08.460 episodes of the aom podcast you can do so on stitcher premium head over to stitcher premium.com

00:44:12.280 sign up use code manly set checkout for a free month trial once you're signed up download the strap

00:44:16.280 on android ios so you start enjoying ad-free episodes of the aom podcast and if you haven't done

00:44:20.380 so already i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give you a review and apple podcast or spotify

00:44:23.760 helps out a lot if you've done that already thank you please consider sharing the show with a friend

00:44:27.700 or family member you'd think we get something out of it as always thank you for the continued support

00:44:31.100 until next time it's brett mckay reminds you not to listen to the wind podcast but put what you've heard

00:44:35.020 into action

00:44:50.380 you

00:44:50.860 you

00:44:51.080 you

00:44:55.860 you

The Art of Manliness - May 09, 2022

The Cold Water Swim Cure

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript