- Researchers are reporting that swimming in cold water may reduce stress and anxiety.
- Almost one-half of the women in a new study indicated that cold-water swimming helped reduce their anxiety.
- Experts say the anxiety reduction could help ease symptoms of menopause.
Swimming in cold water may reduce menopausal symptoms, including stress, hot flashes, and aches, according to a new study published in Sage Journals.
The study included 1,114 women, 785 of whom were going through menopause. All swam in cold water to see if it would reduce symptoms from menopause.
The researchers reported that:
Most of the women said they swam explicitly to improve their stress and anxiety. They reported that the exercise was healing and an immediate reliever of stress and anxiety.
One 57-year-old woman described the experience this way: “Cold water is phenomenal. It has saved my life. In the water, I can do anything. All symptoms (physical and mental) disappear and I feel like me at my best.”
“Cold water has previously been found to improve mood and reduce stress in outdoor swimmers, and ice baths have long been used to aid athletes’ muscle repair and recovery,” Joyce Harper, a professor of reproductive science at University College London and a senior author of the study, said in a press release.
“Our study supports these claims. Meanwhile, the anecdotal evidence also highlights how the activity can be used by women to alleviate physical symptoms, such as hot flashes, aches, and pains,” she added.
Other experts agreed the study findings do provide some positive aspects to cold water therapies.
“Swimming in cold water can reduce anxiety, just as many other people participate in regular exercises,” Dr. Jennifer Leighdon Wu, an OB/GYN at Northwell Lenox Hill Hospital in New York who was not involved in the research, told Medical News Today. “I found this study interesting.”
“I am not surprised by the results of the current study,” Dr. Michael Krychman, medical director of…
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