Chilly-water swimming skilled shares ideas and knowledge

New 12 months’s Day is a busy time for Canadian lakeshores and riverbanks, as daredevils collect to make the leap—the polar bear plunge.

We talked to Lee Hill, a analysis coordinator in McMaster’s School of Well being Sciences and the co-author of a analysis assessment on the advantages and dangers of chilly water swimming.

Hill, a former Olympic swim coach and an winter swimmer himself, is at the moment a postdoctoral fellow at McGill College, after doing his Ph.D. in train science, learning musculoskeletal accidents in swimmers.

Right here, he solutions questions and shares perception on the most secure approach to indulge within the polar bear dip.

What occurs to the physique once you all of the sudden plunge into icy water?

Lee Hill: Being immersed in chilly water could cause a drastic drop in blood stress or make your coronary heart charge skyrocket within the first couple of seconds.

You’ll hyperventilate—respiratory can improve 600 to 1,000% within the first few seconds—so your possibilities of passing out develop into very excessive.

Along with this, once you topic your physique to chilly shock, you will have hassle considering clearly; blood will get diverted away from extremities, making it arduous to maneuver; nerves cease firing, which additionally makes it more durable to maneuver correctly; the vagus nerve is stimulated.

What ought to an individual who is not a ordinary cold-water swimmer take into account in the event that they’re considering a polar dip?

First, it is smart to test in together with your physician earlier than you topic your physique to an excessive shock like this.

Then, from a security standpoint: Do not do it alone. If you are going to all of the sudden immerse your physique in icy water, it is best to do it with somebody on standby to allow them to control you.

By no means dive in, ever, ever. That is the way you drown. Even ordinary chilly water swimmers by no means dive in.

OK, no diving. How about leaping in—the entire “rip off the bandage” philosophy?

Folks wish to run in and get it over with, however ideally, it is best to go in slowly to organize your nervous system for the chilly immersion that is coming. Start by placing your ft in, then get your palms moist. Splash chilly water on the again of your neck. Now your physique is acclimated and you may go in additional safely.

For example you prefer it and are cleared to do the dip safely: How lengthy do you have to keep in there?

There is a researcher named Gordon Giesbrecht who’s an skilled on chilly water survival and is even referred to as Dr. Popsicle or Dr. Freeze. He coined the time period “1-10-1”:

It takes one minute to get your inhaling management after that sudden gasp. Use that first minute to get your physique’s panic beneath management: Maintain your airway above the water; it’s extremely straightforward to hyperventilate and you do not need to faint.

Now you will have 10 minutes of fine, coordinated motion the place your muscle groups and nerves are capable of transfer rather well. After 10 minutes you will start to expertise chilly incapacitation.

After which the ultimate one: There is a fable that hypothermia occurs in a short time once you get chilly. However your physique has checks and balances to maintain you protected—there’s peripheral vasoconstriction (peripheral blood vessels constrict), goose bumps to preserve warmth, your physique turns off the kidneys and the rest you do not want. Even immersed in ice water, you will have roughly an hour earlier than you’d lose consciousness.

And the way about after the swim, something to remember?

When you’re performed together with your dip or swim, stick with individuals for just a few hours. That is as a result of one factor we additionally observe is a “secondary drop,” when all that chilly blood in your extremities warms up and is again in circulation. That may sluggish your coronary heart and drop your blood stress an hour or two later. When you’ve been hypothermic, it takes just a few hours to be sure to’re staying heat.

Is there a well being profit to an annual polar bear plunge?

There may be simply not sufficient analysis to assist sweeping claims of its well being advantages. Even when chilly water dips had been helpful—and there is scant analysis on this—to really derive a profit to your physique, you’d need to do it habitually. When you do it every year, you will get very restricted or no profit.

Length issues too: Polar dips do not final lengthy. You run in, immerse your self, run out, have fun. I would say perhaps it is good to your social well being, particularly when you do it with associates.

For many, a polar dip is a ceremony of passage, a enjoyable factor to do to kick your yr off with an expertise you’ll be able to discuss.

What makes plunging into icy water a enjoyable expertise?

There is a thrill of survival once we take into consideration doing these excessive actions. Immersing your self in chilly water places your physique in survival mode—it is working to stop hypothermia and preserve you alive.

Quite a lot of these survival capabilities occur with out aware thought in your half. Certainly one of them is that your physique floods your system with feel-good hormones: Adrenaline, dopamine, norepinephrine. These are survival hormones that actually provide you with a purpose to reside, as a result of your physique is telling you, “please keep alive.” So, in a really literal sense, there’s a thrill of survival.

As effectively, when dopamine is launched, it creates long-term potentiation of reminiscences, reinforcing reminiscences so once you look again you assume: It was scary and chilly and I actually loved it.

And naturally, there are bragging rights.