At West Seattle’s Alki Beach on a recent Sunday morning, seagulls toed the shoreline and dogs on leashes kept their distance from the frigid winter waters.
Clad in bathing suits and beanies, about three dozen people had a different idea.
Together they waded — some slowly, others briskly, almost all jubilantly — into Puget Sound.
Within seconds, their toes, calves and thighs sparked like live wires. Vessels in their hands and feet tightened, their blood defying gravity as it careened upward to their vital organs. Vocal pops — Woo! Woo-yee! — escaped the mouths of a few first-timers. Many, their breath caught in their throats, struggled for words. A cocktail of stress and feel-good hormones shot through their systems as their legs went numb.
Many smiled, euphoric, as seconds, then a few minutes ticked by. Passersby in parkas braced against the 40-degree cold.
“It gets in your skin,” said Sunny Lee, 48, who works in commercial banking and regularly swims in Lake Sammamish and Beaver Lake. “I get antsy if I’m not in the water at least on a weekly basis.”
Cold water immersion, in vogue on social media and celebrity circles for a few years now, is having a moment in Seattle. Ocean, lake and river water is abundant, mostly clean and accessible year-round. Taking an ice bath has long been a routine for athletes to ward off inflammation. And although the science is slim on its effects on mental well-being, people anecdotally report feeling more focused, energetic and joyful after a quick cold dip.
Like running clubs and climbing gyms, cold-plunging in Seattle has morphed into a popular social activity: The Sunday Alki group, called the Coldwater Collective, meets weekly for a sauna, plunge and potluck on the beach. Another group, the Puget Sound Plungers, gets together several times a week up and down the Sound for pop-ups, to celebrate one another’s birthdays and welcome newcomers. Together, the groups have more than 10,000 social media followers.
“They have Sharks versus Jets battles,” joked Greg Finney, 49, who says he’s known as “Greg the grill guy” at the Coldwater Collective meetups. He’s heard about a third group who take their dips in the buff.
For some, including Finney, the practice is also therapeutic. Wading into cold waters can jolt the psyche as much as the body.
“The shock of the water helped” with his outlook on life and the winter blues, said Finney, who likes swimming in the pebbly shallows to get a “weird swimming-in-the-dark ASMR experience,” he said.
Plunging with a group has added benefits, he said. “You get all the camaraderie of joining a sports team without all the effort.”
Dread and desire
Cold water can instill dread. But for many, it beckons.
In 2022, Robbie Barnhart was at a precipice. The pandemic’s aftershocks were in full swing, he’d lost his job and he’d moved away from Seattle, a place he’d felt happiest. He decided to visit a cousin who lives south of Stockholm.
One day, off a dock in the Baltic Sea, Barnhart decided to jump in.
He’d heard that cold immersion can have positive effects, and the ocean “called to me,” he said.
“It wasn’t like I jumped in the water and everything made sense. (But) It definitely put me on a path of, things are starting to come into view,” said Barnhart, 32.
“I call it my ‘baptism by Baltic.’ ”
Cold-plunging has for centuries been practiced ritualistically, religiously and medicinally, and winter swimming has long been common in many Nordic and Eastern European countries. In more recent history, ice baths, plunges and cold showers have become ubiquitous among athletes and gymgoers.
Just as icing an injured knee can help reduce swelling — the cold restricts blood flow, which reduces pressure on pain receptors — cold-plunging is thought to inhibit inflammation that might spring up after a big workout, said Dr. Chris McMullen, associate professor of rehabilitation medicine and sports and spine medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
When we drop or wade into cold water, our survival responses kick into high gear. Evolutionarily, our bodies are trained to try to survive situations like this and, to protect our heart and other vital organs, blood vessels in our extremities shrink and shunt blood toward our trunks. Stress hormones and neurotransmitters are released, which helps keep us alert and awake.
These processes and others might help explain the physical and mental benefits so often reported by people who plunge. Small studies hint that cold-plunging might affect mood, immune function and digestion. The science is far from settled, though. There have been few randomized studies on the practice and research on cold-plunging is often hampered by small sample sizes.
But what we do know about how the body functions — as well as the known benefits of social bonding and getting outside — may together help explain why people keep doing it.
“It’s hard to separate if the benefits are coming from being in nature, doing something with other people, versus the physiologic effects,” McMullen said. “It’s done outside. In some cases, it’s exercise if you are doing cold water swimming. And all of those things are known to have mental health benefits.”
For Barnhart — who got a new job as an international cargo pilot, ultimately decided to move back to Seattle and often attends Coldwater Collective events — plunging is less about the act itself and more about the community he’s found.
His toes might be cold. But, he said, “I’m warmer in my heart.”
“You feel so good”
It’s a cold, dark December morning and Nate Garberich, 34, is filming the steady patter of rain on his windshield as he drives to Meydenbauer Bay Park in Bellevue.
“Some days you just really don’t want to do it,” he says, flipping the camera to show his face. The video cuts to the beach. “But then you think, ‘What if I did it, and I made a video of it?!’ ”
He sloshes water in his sandals, then wades in. “And then afterward, you’re so happy!”
Garberich, who grew up in Seattle, first got hooked on cold immersion in 2021 after noticing how much it improved his mood. A friend in London started a popular running group, and Garberich wondered if a cold-plunging group could get similar traction.
He created an Instagram account called Coldwater Collective and started posting photos and videos. Soon, he was hosting five or more events a week. Eventually, he added a potluck, and people brought grills and snacks. Garberich started fundraising to buy a portable sauna, which he hauls behind his pickup.
“Initially we were getting a lot of people who are curious about cold-plunging, and that is still true. But the people who have stayed have been more interested in just hanging out with people,” he said.
Plunging is safest in groups, and many experts advise against doing it alone. People concerned about open water can find plunge pools at local spas like The Ladies Room and Banya 5.
Any amount of time in cold water could be dangerous for people with certain heart, thyroid, circulatory and other health conditions, who should talk with their doctor first or avoid it altogether. Body heat drains significantly faster in cold water than cold air, according to the National Weather Service, and anyone who plunges is at risk of developing hypothermia, frostbite and drowning.
“Some people go in, like, ‘I’m going to (plunge) for 20 minutes,’ and I’m like, ‘Cool, you’re going to lose a finger!’ Just so we’re clear: That’s not a good idea,” said Ashley Mason, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, Osher Center for Integrative Health, who studies body heating practices.
Companies, families and friend groups are catching on to the social benefits of plunging.
At Golden Gardens on a recent Friday afternoon, a small group of employees from the outdoor gear company KAVU, including founder Barry Barr, were on the beach for their weekly “work, play, plunge.” They work in the morning, exercise together, then do a double dip — get in, rest, go in again — in the Sound. A few are sporting sweatshirts they designed that say “The Ballard Plunge Club.”
“It’s like a microadventure,” said Kathryn Strasle, 31, Northwest sales representative at KAVU. “You go to Golden Gardens, you get in the cold water, you feel like you did something for fun.”
Back at Alki, small pods of families and friend groups spread across the beach for their own cold water meetups.
“It’s an instant hangover cure,” said Isaac Zahn, 26, who was out until 2 a.m. the night before, and plunges most weekends with a group of friends.
“I’m going to play a soccer match later and feel 100% even after little sleep,” he said. “It hurts and it’s awful when you get in, and then you feel so good when you get out.”
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