Feeling generous?
Grab a Gift Card
I get asked this question all the time. Honestly, it depends on the person. For some people it will be a nervous system reset, for others a resilience practice, but to answer the question I’ll rank them in this order:
After coaching others through cold plunge for years, I like to phrase it as: if you can do this one hard thing by choice, you can tackle many stresses in your life with grace.
Over the weekend, I went on my yearly winter mountain swim at Hartz Mountain with a mate.
The weather was cool and breezy. Some of the pathways were frozen over with ice, slowing our pace to a shuffle to save our tailbones. After walking through the rainforest, we emerged onto an alpine plateau with the lake in the distance. A few peaks to our left were hazed in mist and calling our names.
This was our second year doing the swim, and we were more efficient this time. First came exercise to get the blood pumping followed by a breathing method to prep our minds, and warm water prepped help reheat our hands and feet after.
This year I really embraced getting in, quickly getting onto all fours, crawling over slippery rocks, and launching into a freestyle across Lake Osborne. We both yelled our enthusiasm across the glacial tarn, our senses hightened to primal capacity. My yearly swims had paid off, and I didn’t experience as much twisting of the stomach or burning of the skin. I felt like an uncaged lion. Ready to take on the world and all it had to offer.
Getting dressed, we shared our appreciation for our ritual, and reminisced on doing this into old age. Walking back to the car, soft snowflakes fell on my head. I turned my gaze towards the cloudy sky, and smiled, to feel them on my cheeks.
