Restorative benefits of cold water swimming​

​We joke that we’re just in it for the otter badge. But the truth is, the real rewards are much bigger and more profound than a cute patch you can sew on your dryrobe. It can make the difference between going through the winter suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder… or not.

Chances are you are aware of the ‘wild swimming’ trend. It’s been trending so long that it can’t really be called a trend anymore, and sea swimming businesses such as Norma MacLeod’s Immerse Hebrides and Saltbox Sauna are booming.

For some, it’s the perfect time of year for it. Counterintuitive as that may so9und, but lots of swimmers start getting excited when the water temperature starts to drop. Currently, the sea is about 10 degrees and will drop further to eight and then six degrees, with the lochs even colder.

This is about cold water immersion, with ‘dipping’ in the sea as a restorative practice and form of mindfulness and self care. It’s about getting closer to nature, being immersed in it.

It is said that the Celtic monks, a seafaring people, would enter the sea and stand in it up to their necks. Today it’s not about spiritual enlightenment but most swimmers will agree that it is good for body and soul.

Scientific research is bearing out what swimmers have known for a long time, that cold water immersion has multiple significant benefits. The most frequently reported benefit is to mood but it has also been found to help pain and inflammation and even potentially slow the progress of degenerative conditions.

The body’s nervous system and endocrine system are both involved in the cold water response. The science gets a bit complicated but cold water immersion for a short period - research has found five minutes to be enough - appears to dampen the body’s negative reactivity to stressors.

This involves ‘fight or flight’ response. The cold triggers the release of noradrenalin which boosts alertness. It also triggers the release of endorphins, ‘nature’s pain killer’, in response to the stress and discomfort. However, for complex reasons, levels of the ‘stress hormone’ cortisol are found to decrease and continue decreasing for a while after cold water immersion.

There is also the involvement of the vagal nerve. It is connected to the vocal cords and muscles at the back of the throat and stimulation of this nerve leads to feelings of calm.

This may be why so many swimmers swear by getting themselves fully submerged, even if only briefly. One of my regular swim friends insists on always doing a full duck dive before getting out. She calls it “a sea blessing”. Shades of the Celtic monks there.

Most of the physical benefits of cold water immersion can be achieved by cold showers and ice baths, but the social benefits of swimming with like-minded friends, or the added benefits of being in nature, are not so easily replicated.

Still, it can be hard to persuade others. A non-swimming friend once asked: “Could you not just go to the Lewis for a couple of pints like everybody else?” And I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been told: “You’re off your head.”

That’s as maybe, but I’m not alone. There are a fair number of swimmers in the islands and some swim in good-sized groups, while others prefer less company. Some groups were born out of the formal sea swimming sessions that were run the early days of Immerse Hebrides, and the Sea Urchins is one of them.

They arrange swims most days and I joined them on a favourite location at Holm shore on a Friday afternoon. The day was calm, the sun was low, and there was a strange sense of the surreal as the Glasgow flight made its final approach for landing right above us. As I floated on my back, arms outstretched, I could read the numbers on the aircraft as it passed overhead.

Huddling around afterwards, once they’d dressed in the thermal layers, woolly socks, dryrobes and bobble hats, they laughed and joked together. For them, swimming is a social event and most wouldn’t consider going alone - for safety reasons, as well as social ones.

One of them, Caroline Briggs, has a particularly cautionary tale. She had a disorientating experience a couple of years ago. “I went to Horgabost on a really lovely sunny day. I thought, ‘I’m going to stay in my depth, there’s people on the beach, it will be fine’. And then I don’t really remember getting out. I had a shower and I sort of ‘came to’ as I was coming out of the shower block and I felt really dizzy and weird.”

Caroline had ’lost’ 20 minutes and as she drove home through Ardhasaig she found herself thinking, “Where am I? Am I on the Golden Road? I didn’t have a clue. I shouldn’t have been driving. I wouldn’t swim alone now.”

What happened was transient global amnesia, a rare condition that can be triggered by cold water swimming and causes short-term memory loss and a feeling of disorientation.

The group agrees that safety comes first. Another of their number, Eilidh Thompson, said: “We do keep a really good eye on each other.”

There is another reaction that happens to the cold, one that is more universal but can also cause problems. This is the ‘afterdrop’, where core body temperature continues to decline even after getting out of the water, thought to be due to a process called conduction, where the ‘cold front’ caused by the water on the skin keeps travelling towards the core, meaning swimmers can become hypothermic later. The key is to be dressed within 10 minutes as it is obviously harder to do when shaking. Sometimes the shivering can be quite violent. I have experienced my teeth chattering so violently I honestly thought they would break.

Talking safety, the Sea Urchins all agreed there was “no such thing as a safe beach”. While some beaches are more notorious than others, it depends on the state of the sea, the tides, the weather and personal factors like experience, sleep deprivation and illness.

Margaret Maclean likes to swim at Swordale bay or the Ui Church. “If it’s too rough at one side, it will be calm enough at the other.” She is careful to always have her tow float and a watch, so she knows how long she has been in the water, and wears swim shoes to protect her feet. But most importantly, Margaret has seen herself turning back even when she is standing in the water. On that day, the waves were dumping on the shore and she sensed a powerful undertow.

“If I’m not happy about something, I won’t go in. If I’m in water and I’m not happy about something, I’ll just come about. I think it teaches you the power of the sea.

“You’ve got to listen to the wee voice that says you can’t. You need to be careful and don’t assume that because it was okay the last time it’s going to be okay. Keep switched on.”

Margaret’s swim goals are not about distance, but just getting in. She finds sea swimming helps her deal with the outside world and social media overwhelm.

“It’s not exercise. I will swim and sometimes I will do a good few meters or whatever, but there’s times I’ve seen myself just standing up to my neck in water and I’m looking round.

"If I’m down Swordale I’m seeing the ferry go out and the fishing boat come in and the birds, and it’s just that being at one with nature. If I go into the water for a swim, it’s like hitting the reset button.”

Margaret’s introduction to it came through Colin Macleod, running sessions with SurfLewis. These involved wetsuits but Margaret quickly discarded it as a “faff” and now just wears a bikini.

“I just think of the winter months, and you might have snow on the shore and you’re stripping off, and it’s freezing and then you’re going into the water and it’s just the ruggedness of it. The honesty of it. And then you come out (thinking), ‘I did that’. Not many people would take off a jacket in this weather and yet we’re stripping off and going in. And you get a buzz about doing something that not many people do, don’t you?”

Eilidh Thompson came to sea swimming around the same time, in 2019. She recalled: “My mum had died in September and my daughter Bethany phoned me one night in the beginning of November asking did I want to try a taster session with her with Norma at Immerse Hebrides.

Feeling low after mum I just said yes. We went and that was it, I was hooked. For me sea swimming brings a connection to nature for me in its truest sense.

“I experience it all in the sea. No matter how you feel going in or what has happened, the sea soothes it. For me it helps with everything: anxiety, bereavement, problem solving, body image. I've learned that what your body lets you do is more important than its look. Sea swimming puts things into perspective and creates head space.”

Eilidh said her Sea Urchins were “a lovely group of ladies” who “support each other in and out”. She also has a passion for the cold and is working to increase her tolerance so she can one day complete ‘an ice kilometre’, which must be done in water less than 5 degrees.

“I get SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) in winter and the sea staves it off for the most part. I absolutely love the colder waters, seeking out where the coldest is during the winter to challenge myself going in. Over everything, safety has to come first. I want to enjoy sea swimming for many more years so things have to be done responsibly.”

Eilidh added: "We were laughing in our group recently about getting older, still swimming and whoever was physically mobile was going to have to wheel the others in. Sea swimming does that, it helps you laugh at yourself too.”

Heading home in the van after our own Saturday afternoon swim, Ep was reflective.

“It’s time out. You can go for a swim and you don’t need a lot of equipment. In fact, you don’t need anything. I like swimming in the pool as well but every time you go in the sea it’s different.

"The waves, the weather, what the sea’s doing, the colour… it is a really immersive thing in that you’re in it and it’s never the same. It’s that connection to nature and something more.”