“You must be crazy!” These are the words I heard from family and friends when I said that I was off to a breathwork and ice bath experience.
I did not feel crazy, as ice baths have been something I have been interested in for a long time, and I completed a breathwork course last year and still benefit from my learning.
But why?
I’d previously watched the series where Wim Hof took celebrities on a journey of breathwork and cold water/ice immersion, and I witnessed the emotional but positive impact it had. I was so inspired by how individuals could recentre themselves by concentrating on their breath and immersion into the cold.
This was the start of my interest, which led to some cold showers, a January dip in the sea and even the beautiful experience of swimming in the Iceberg Pools at Bondi Beach this summer.
My interest increased as a result of my menopause presentations suggesting alternative therapies to support those experiencing menopausal symptoms. I am an advocate for trying alternative therapies to ascertain what you enjoy as well as what supports you and I’m always trying new things to share within my talks.
The biggest trigger was a conversation around the emotional numbness that can occur for menopausal women. I have lived through this. A loss of connection with yourself or the outside world. When this happens many look for connection, feeling or comfort in other ways and I am sad to say, these are not always positive with some leading to thoughts of self-harm or worse.
Here is a very honest description from a client I have worked with and her reasons why ice baths support her:
“I discovered ice baths last winter, I do struggle a little in the winter with the lack of daylight and then this year with perimenopause symptoms as well, I just felt some days I needed to feel alive and to clear my head from the relentlessness of work and home mental load. So it grew from being just a bit of novelty to soon becoming a non-negotiable part of my daily routine. I loved the challenge of it, the knowledge that if I can get through some minutes in freezing water it built my resilience for the day. I love the breathing techniques and how for those few minutes it was just me, the water, my breathing and quite often the birds or even just the wind! Every day I always felt better than before and also felt several other benefits including helping some recurring sports injuries. Also a cup of tea never tastes as good as that after an ice bath!”
However, stepping into an ice bath might take courage, breathwork and encouragement, but it is the perfect place to feel, recentre, reconnect and have two minutes where the only thing you can think of is you controlling you and nothing else.
Before signing up I met with Lindsay from @JustBe who was facilitating the session and she advised me of the following:
Using breathwork and cold water immersion can enable you to recentre and focus on the present moment. You use presence and self-awareness to move through the practice. The ice baths are such mood/energy boosters and can increase dopamine levels by 200%.
Breathwork can be so supportive to menopausal individuals and certain practices can support hot flushes, anxiety, panic attacks and overwhelm.
“When you meet stress in your terms you respond differently.”
Why not try it?
It would only be natural to feel apprehensive and question the benefits and this is exactly how my friend Kirsty felt before she tried it, but take a moment to read about her experience:
“I’m not going to lie, I was really nervous about attending Lindsay’s ice and breath class, but now I can’t wait to have that feeling again!
Lindsay was amazing at calming the mind and offered confidence as I stepped into the bath of freezing ice water, and ‘wow’ what a feeling. Quite quickly I was able to submerge my whole body into the water and the strangest thing was I didn’t feel cold! I felt a rush of adrenaline with tears of emotion. I felt like the world had literally stopped spinning and the voices in my head went quiet and all was still. I was totally unaware of my surroundings and was able to JustBe”.
After reading this you may also think I’m a bit crazy, but the calmness I felt following the session is something I am going back for next month, and I will possibly be adding an outside bath to my garden!!
