Why chilling together in a cold sea brings peace of mind and builds resilience

A new book celebrates the communities that have built up around wild swimming and explores the stories behind the swimmers and the groups they have drawn together Members of the Natural Resilience group The waters around the island of Ireland are never what many would call warm, but on a luminous Monday morning in September, they were also not what most of us regular swimmers would deem cold. The wade into a sea glowing like honey under the rising sun was a breeze. The water shimmered with gold, but it felt like an old friend was missing — the cold.

After all, the group we were swimming with, Natural Resilience, is partly about harnessing what the chill can do for us, physically and mentally. Run by Ciaran May, a former Northern Ireland team weightlifter, it has been instrumental in bringing many to its almost addictive joys and has thus created a ripple in the Belfast area..