What has been practiced as a popular sport in some countries for centuries is also becoming more and more popular in this country - and especially in this Corona winter: ice bathing.
In different variations, whether bathers or swimmers, they all share a fascination for cold water in nature and the feeling of coming out again.
If the body encounters cold water, it reacts immediately.
“The skin reduces the blood circulation, the vessels contract because the body wants to protect itself against cooling down,” says Burkhard Weisser, professor of sports medicine: “That means that the periphery - the skin, including the extremities - closes and the blood stays in the core of the body so that it is protected against the cold. ”This lasts for a certain period of time, but at some point the core of the body can no longer be protected.
Then the cold returns.
Something else happens to the body as you go in (never jump).