Cold Water Immersion and Yoga: The Perfect Combination
Yoga is a great companion when it comes to the popular practice of cold water immersion. When you are about to enter the cold water there might be anxiety, trepidation and perhaps excitement. Using your experience in yoga you can start to regulate your nervous system and your breathing. This is important because you need to be able to breathe with ease once you get into the freezing water.
But why are ice baths so popular?
You can hardly scroll through Instagram without seeing someone plunging in an ice bath or a group of people on the beach with woolly hats running into the cold sea. Not to mention the various podcasts about the benefits of ice plunges.
The benefits of cold water immersion
There are many benefits to cold water immersion. It’s used in sports for recovery and you can certainly find plenty of anecdotal evidence as well as scientific research on the positive effects. But there are also potential contra-indications. Some health conditions are not suitable for the kind of (otherwise positive) stress the cold invokes. You also need to have some safety awareness that comes with all water activity, especially the cold. If you are swimming in the sea you need to be aware of the tides, currents and waves. And never swim alone.
Cold water therapy isn’t for everybody. And you do need to do a little research beforehand. Perhaps find a local swim group, or with cold water plunges do the first few in a guided group setting. Finally, use common sense.
For me, cold water is another form of meditation, and awareness and, like yoga, a way to calm my busy mind.
Has cold water therapy always been around?
Well, it might be fashionable at the moment, but we have been going in the cold water as a therapy for many years. So cold water immersion is nothing new. Yet, because of social media, influencers and motivational speakers such as Wim Hof, we are all more exposed to people going into the cold water whether it’s the sea, a lake, the bathtub or specially made ice baths.
My mother, who turns 80 this year, went dipping in the frozen Copenhagen harbour as a child. She had respiratory issues, and it was thought it might help. (It did!). Her dad was already part of the “sea pirate” club, and he brought her. A group of people met, cold plunged, went into a warm sauna-like space with a wood stove and probably had another plunge. And judging from the photos and my mum’s memory, they had to break the ice in the harbour at the time.
In many countries dipping in cold lakes, in the snow and combining it with sauna is a tradition. It’s nothing new.
Using yoga to complement cold water immersion
When you get into the water, the appropriately named “cold water shock” hits. That’s where you really need your yoga.
Being in a very uncomfortable cold environment and the actual cold water shock makes us panic and our breath becomes shallow – if we even remember to breathe! The fight or flight response kicks in. Having a yoga practice we know how to work with our breathing, how to slow it down, and through that also calm the mind.
And this is where magic happens. Your mind is completely focused, your breath is calm and at ease. Your body might be cold, but you are simply at the moment. Present and almost in a meditative state. It takes training. And even if you have done cold plunges for a while, it still takes a few moments to get to that calm, blissful place.
Feeling cold and freezing. Yet, at ease and focused. And for me, that is the yoga of cold water immersion.
