By El, our Events superhuman… and wild sea-swimming profesh.
I, LOVE, to swim.
Over the past few years, it’s become a central part of my life – a draw, an aspiration, a glimmer, a necessity. Countless surveys have shown that stress and overwhelm are becoming all too familiar to so many of us, and we’re all finding our own ways to counteract and counterbalance, to find our own centre and calm in the inevitable whirlwinds.
To do this, I often come back to what I call ‘glimmers’. Teaching my brain to pick out the things that make me smile, and actively going after the things I know feed my soul.
For me, cold water swimming and the light it brings to my life – literal, social, and metaphorical – sits bang in the centre of this, and is where I find pure joy.
The thrill of the cold is not for everyone (plenty of raised eyebrows when I admit to jumping into the sea in February), but it’s rather addictive once you start (…yeah I didn’t believe this either 😂 but now I’m one of those irritating people who *genuinely* prefers sea swimming in February to summertime).
Swimming addiction aside, though, the all-round benefits are pretty epic. Healthwise, mindfulness, fresh air, embracing the weather, sunshine or no – they all have all the obvious knock-on effects to smileyness and productivity in general. Scientifically, it’s a stressor – putting yourself willingly into a stressful situation, like ferrreeeeezing water, apparently helps your body learn to deal with stress and manage it better on dry land. (I concur). Socially, the community I’ve found have become firm friends, allies, supporters, both in person and online via my little insta sea swim account – set up as a diary of swims a few years back, and connecting me with some phenomenal cold-water-loving humans around the globe and on my doorstep.
All this brings me back to a favourite belief. Do the things you love, and you will find your people. Actions are important. Community is everything. I’m blessed to feel a part of this one 💜
