"I’d started winter surfing a few years ago and understood the ways the water could impact my body and mind, especially when it was cold.... But the process of cold plunging, I found, was its own distinct experience, with its own intention and power.... 'After I get out, I don’t try and rush into my towel or dryrobe....'... 'I don’t practice a formal faith tradition at this point in my life, but being in the water feels more sacred to me than any church service I’ve ever attended.... When I’m stressed... I try to find the nearest window with a view of any water.... I envision myself in the water, feeling the lapping of the waves against my chest, the pressure of my lungs contracting and expanding in protest to the deep cold....'"
I was interested in this concept of "women who seek out cold water."
This post gets my
"religion substitutes" tag. You know, there are women who seek God and women who seek cold water. And you can be a seeker of cold water in a way that feels like religion.
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36 comments:
It's not a substitute for religion. It's paganism which is the superior religion of the world.
Now that I shower with cold water, I’ve gotten flashbacks from when I was a kid, when we didn’t have hot water showers. There’s something special about it. Maybe flashback is not the right word, as it connotes the use of hallucinogenics. I don’t know if it’s different or the same, all I know is the shower feels like I remember feeling when I was a child taking a cold shower. If I’m making any sense.
The women I've worked with over the years primarily sought space heaters. You could even say religiously so.
By contrast, here's a recent article by a woman who suddenly found she was allergic to cold temperatures (a mysterious condition with "no known cause or cure," but which she relates to a family trauma).
https://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/essays/cold-urticaria-allergy/
The first gym I joined when I was 21 had a cold plunge next to the hot tub. It felt fantastic but I was the only one who used it. Never found another gym that had one.
I like to get in a cold lake or creek here in Montana at least once a year. It seems to reduce inflammation in my joints, and it even makes me a bit high.
But I wouldn't make a big thing about it.
Polar bear club. Sex differences published in handmade tales.
I don’t practice a formal faith tradition at this point in my life, but being in the water feels more sacred to me than any church service I’ve ever attended
ahem.. When you don't believe in GOD, you'll believe in ANYTHING
Cold water robs the body's heat 32 times faster than cold air. At water temp of 33 degrees, the average person has 15 minutes to live, less if you exert yourself trying to swim to safety. These ladies remind me of the practitioners of auto-asphyxiation, who get off on playing with painful practices that bring them to the threshold of death. How decadent and luxurious! Don't fool around with this, kids! Stay away from death's door.
In your post a few months back, there was a reference to Johanna Nordblad, the freediver who set a record for the longest under-ice swim. It was made into a documentary which is on Netflix - 'Hold Your Breath: the Ice Dive' - I recommend it. Trailer (Am I allowed to say it's breathtaking?)
My middle daughter used to do a lot of surfing in winter using a wet suit. The water off California is cold in winter. She has not resumed since the baby. Maybe they will do mother-daughter surfing in a few years.
Shrinkage?
One way to get rid of hot flashes!!!
I hike in the Pacific Northwest and the highlight of any hike for me is a swim in a mountain lake. They're always freezing, but only for a moment, and then it's transcendent. I wish I could capture for you the feeling of floating in the middle of a lake; shore, trees, mountains rising on all sides, sky above. It's like being at the center of a sphere of nature. Once, while floating, I watched a bald eagle plunge down and come up with a trout.
Cold water immersion has been reported to have mood enhancing effects. I use it for that purpose. I have used cold as a tool for a number of things, but primarily as acute treatment for anxiety and depression, and also by cooling my body at night when I wake up after sleep phase 1 so I can return rapidly to sleep phase 2. You can also use a cooling vest as a substitute for air conditioning which is one way hyper milers go for record mileage. That might be more relevant now than it was approximately 2.5 years ago. Tony Robbins claims that every morning he dunks himself in 55 degree water.
In any case, there is peer reviewed literature on the impacts of cold water immersion. The trick to getting the immediate benefits seems to be the triggering of the drowning reflex. I can say this, no matter what awful ruminations you have swarming inside your skull, the immediate possibility of being completely submerged in freezing water will change your focus.
In Finland, one of the coldest, darkest places in the world, they do three things to relieve depression, scald themselves in steam, drink large quantities of alcohol, and throw themselves into freezing cold water.
It's the Lilies and Bluebirds delusion.
I didn't read the article, but I looked at the photos. It doesn't appeal to a younger crowd. No bikinis or headlights in the photos. We all seek God or, anyway, a higher power in our own way.
As I recall, Freud posited that frigid women--mothers-- were the cause of most psychological problems. (For about 70 years, that was Science that only ignorant yahoos would question.) Roll over Sigmund, tell Carl Jung the news.
The old insane asylums used to use an ice bath as treatment, not sure if it was voluntary or not.
Forced cold therapy would be terrible.
Do I see an opportunity in Cold Tubs?
Feel the invigorating action of icy water jets rinse away anxiety in moments! Marvel at the sensation of wellbeing as cares and troubles float away!
Some people spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars, and days or weeks of travel to remote places to achieve what you can now have in your own back yard!
Forget the Hot Tub! How twentieth can you get? Call today and start chilling with Cold Tub!
But seriously, I don't even like swimming indoors.
OTOH every morning I put my sobakowa bead pillow and a cold pack in the freezer so that I can rest my hot head on something cool when I go to bed at night. The pillow stays cool for a few hours and I then deploy the cool pack, except on the coldest nights.
For those of you who would like an introduction, I present the Nordic artist Jonna Jinton explaining "the power" she gets from cold water.
Those of you gentlemen who are married should probably watch this at work.
https://youtu.be/eEDmZlVCCzc
Religion less the behavioral protocol. An ethical interlude in a sub-cryogenic crypt to dull the senses.
I'm a sometimes cold water swimmer. It does not feel like a church service in the least.
Participated in the Polar Dip in Portland, Make ne on New Years day this year. Great start of the year. Recommendation which I missed, surf shoes. My feet were freezing in the cold sand afterwards.
religion as a warm fuzzy.
*oops Portland, Maine
Do the women who like to be in cold water use the phrase "grok" in any fashion?
Used to attend a spa which had numerous pools, including a scalding hot one, and an ice plunge. Intense, but only the hot one worried me about getting maimed. No spiritual notions, sorry.
Coldest I've ever been was on the bottom of Provincetown harbor, in 10 inch visibility and a rented wetsuit. Not doing that ever again. No spiritual notions there, either, unless you count the Cold Water Diver's Prayer.
In my experience women instinctively seek social support and interaction...they can find it through mates, friends, family, or religion.
Company
Communes
Convents
Concubines
Congress (sexual)
Conventions
Cults
Churches
The details matter not to those involved.
My aunt lived on Lake Erie and swam anytime there wasn't ice in her way. I don't think she saw it as spiritual in the least.
"Polar Bear Clubs" have been around for a long time. I was surprised that there was a cult aspect to them, but it was a health cult, not a religious or spiritual one. In the old days members went to church (or didn't go to church) just like everyone one else, but they had to say publicly that winter swimming did a body good, rather than just admit that it was an excuse for fun with friends.
Good for her. If the Democrats keep up their economic and energy policies, we all may get to experience the joy of no hot water.
Icebergs clubs like Bondi rock 🤣
Our Swimming Club dates back to 1929 and owes its origin to the desire of a band of local life savers trying to maintain their fitness during the Winter months.
They formed the Bondi Icebergs Winter Swimming Club, drew up a constitution and elected office bearers. Included in the constitution was a rule that to maintain membership it was mandatory that swimmers compete on three Sundays out of four for a period of five years. This rule, known as the “15B rule” still exists and has been the source of much commentary over the years.
In 1995 female members were admitted, and in 2002 the Club opened their new premises.
The Bondi Icebergs is the only licensed Winter Swimming Club in the world.
https://icebergs.com.au/swimming-pool/swimming-members/
On the east edge of the Ozark Plateau ground water emerges at about 54 degrees. There are a few large, spring fed rivers there that are perfect for float trips. In the hottest weather you can jump into the pools where gigantic springs emerge, really underground rivers in their own right, plunging from over 100 degrees into 54 degree water. It feels terrific. I wouldn't use any word stronger than refreshing to describe it, though. There's a pretty good dose of bullshit going on in the more florid descriptions, is my thinking.
Cold morning baths used to be part of the daily routine for upper-class English lads attending the exclusive private "public schools." As a way of stiffening the upper lip, only a partial success.
The issue is to worship the Creator rather than the creation. I relish the outdoors here in the PNW hiking, fishing, swimming, camping while all the while thanking and worshiping my Heavenly Father who made it all for us to enjoy.
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