I’m a fan of dipping a toe into the ocean before I decide whether or not to take a swim.

If it’s cold, I’m back to the safety of my beach towel.

Braver souls out there, however, appear to have taken the plunge, and it’s proving beneficial.

Back in January this year, Vogue wrote about something called ‘wild swimming’.

It’s the practice of visiting your local beach, river, or lake to take advantage of the benefits of swimming in a natural body of water.

These benefits supposedly include improved mental health, with David Start, the author of Wild Swimming, describing it as something that is:

“…slightly naughty, a little bit scary and wonderfully invigorating about leaving your wetsuit at home, and entering open water with just your skin (and perhaps a swimming costume) between you and the elements.”

I’ve never thought of swimming as naughty, but sure.

Fast forward to August, and wild swimming is back in the news, touting even more benefits.

Moreover, it has attracted the attention of medical researchers, says the BBC, who want to find out if it really is as healthy as it’s made out to be.

A group of people from the Chill group at Croyde in Devon are partaking in a study to uncover whether or not swimming in the ocean improves mental health. Researchers are going as far as to suggest that it could assist in dealing with the side effects of menopause.

Doctors and psychiatrists will be analysing these swimmers over the course of the next six months, and believe that it could lead to more GPs socially prescribing cold water swimming.

Check it out:

Sandria Simons, a cold water swimmer, says that “immersing yourself in natural cold water eliminates all of your stress, all of the worries, it’s amazing”.

I guess we’ll have to wait for the results of the study to find out exactly how much of that can be proven.

I’ll read it on my beach towel.

[source:bbc&vogue]