How To Overcome Your Fear of The Cold
It’s no secret that I find a huge amount of joy in cold water swimming. My regular dips in my local outdoor pool have unquestionably changed my life, my mental health has improved, I’m far braver than I was and I’ve become part of a wonderful new community. There’s something magical about the fact that something so simple, so primitive, can give me so much clarity. It blows my mind.
Since sharing my love for cold water swimming I’ve had a few people tell me that they’d like to give it a go but the thought of getting into cold water scares them. I get it, before I tried cold water swimming the idea of plunging into cold water was not at all appealing! It’s a totally normal response, cold water is associated with discomfort and danger, and even I was deeply sceptical about it before I gave cold water swimming a go.
So how do you go from thinking ‘that sounds great but I can’t stand the cold’ to jumping on in? I thought I’d share how I overcame my fear of the cold.
Photo by kevin laminto on Unsplash
Mindset Is Everything
So much of cold water swimming is mind over matter. If you’re scared or you’ve convinced yourself that it was be really horrible cold experience then it’s going to be so much harder to take the plunge. Simply put if you tell yourself you’re not going to enjoy it then you probably won’t.
There are a few tricks you can use to get yourself in the right headspace to take on the cold.
Flip The Narrative - sometimes the way to fight negative thoughts about an experience is to flip the narrative. Instead of telling yourself how cold the water is going to be flip the narrative to how fresh the water will feel. Try to focus on adopting positive words when you’re talking about swimming and the cold over more negative ones that can seep into your subconscious and put you off.
Remind Yourself of Your Why - there has to be a reason why you want to try out cold water swimming, so when you’re feeling scared or nervous remind yourself of that why. Whether it’s curiosity or because you want to improve your wellbeing, remembering why you’re doing something can carry your through difficult moments. Write down your reason why somewhere you can see it regularly, remind yourself of it, recite it as a mantra, remember why you’re putting yourself in this position and what you’ll get out of it.
Visualise The Experience
Visualisation is one of my favourite mindset tools and it’s been really helpful in overcoming any concerns I had about braving the chill. Before every swim I take a bit of time (usually on my walk to the pool) to visualise what I want my swim to be like. As I focus down on how much I’ll enjoy my time in the pool and how good it will make me feel I start to feel more confident and motivated to get on and get in the water.
Visualisation isn’t simply convincing yourself you can do or be something. The research shows that practicing visualisation can help improve your motivation, concentration, coordination, aid relaxation and reduce fear. How cool is that?! It works because the neurons in our brain (the cells that transmit information) interpret what we visualise as reality - our brains generate impulses that tell the neurons to perform the movement, creating a new neural pathway and priming our bodies to act the way we imagined. It is really really effective.
Get Inspired
Outdoor swimming can feel really intimidating. It’s got a reputation for being a bit hardcore, full of people who’ve been doing it for years and can sniff out an interloper at 50 paces. There are a lot of people around who have been doing it for years, but trust me when I say they are lovely and just like you!
Instagram is full of swimmers sharing their cold water adventures, and it’s through following these swimmers that I’ve gained the confidence to swim in skins, worked out how best to warm up, realised that you don’t have to stay in the water more than a few minutes and that understand it’s perfectly acceptable to swim for cake. They challenged my preconceptions of what a cold water swimmer was, and helped me realise that it really was something I could do. Here are a few of the accounts I look to for inspiration every day.
Similarly, the community I’ve found at the pool have helped me endlessly. They encourage me to get in the pool on a chilly day, remind me how much I’m going to enjoy it and gee me up if I get nervous.
Feel The Fear, But Do It Anyway
It’s hard talk, but sometimes you just need to boss up and get on with the task in hand, and cold water swimming is one of those times. There aren’t many ways around the fact it is going to be cold and you just need to accept that and get on with it (with the help of the tips in this post). Trust me, it’ll be worth it!
