{"id":156576,"date":"2025-11-28T00:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T00:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/156576\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T00:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T00:27:11","slug":"berkshire-swimmers-brave-cold-lake-to-help-fight-depression-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/156576\/","title":{"rendered":"Berkshire swimmers brave cold lake to help fight depression"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ellie Tutt,BBC Radio Berkshireand<\/p>\n

Nathan Briant,South of England <\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

The swimmers are taking part in a study exploring whether swimming helps with depression and anxiety<\/p>\n

On a cold morning in November, a group of swimmers in Berkshire took to the water wearing special gloves and costumes.<\/p>\n

Pulling tow floats behind them, about a half a dozen braved Bray Lake, near Maidenhead, as part of the Blue Space Project.<\/p>\n

It is part of a national study that has recruited 480 adults with experience of mild to moderate depression to see if swimming can lead to a reduction in depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n

Participant Dom Neil Dwyer said: “I tried lots of different things, from medication to therapy to diet and I heard about cold water swimming and I was really desperate. <\/p>\n

“Since then I have not looked back. I have swum through the winter, in the ice, and it’s been amazing.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The water was too cold for people who had not swum in similar temperatures before to have a first go<\/p>\n

The Blue Space Project is one of 17 across England and Wales that are working with researchers on the study.<\/p>\n

Mr Dwyer said: “After a swim you feel amazing but after you do it several times you really feel like you build up a resilience; you feel more self-confident.”<\/p>\n

At the time of the swim, the air temperature was -1C, the water temperature 8.8C, and swimmers stayed in the lake for about 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

At 8.8C the water temperature was too cold for people without any experience of it to take the plunge.<\/p>\n

Carine Evans, who runs the project, is working with the University of Portsmouth<\/a> on the study.<\/p>\n

She said it delivered both physical and mental health benefits, to the extent that just getting into the water for the first time was positive.<\/p>\n

“Making yourself do something that you know is going to be really uncomfortable is actually really good for us \u2013 for our mental health, our confidence,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We’re pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones and we are also getting used to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. <\/p>\n

“That’s a very good transferable skill that we can use in other areas of our lives.<\/p>\n

“We have a really lovely community of swimmers and community is a really important part of open water swimming.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ellie Tutt,BBC Radio Berkshireand Nathan Briant,South of England BBC The swimmers are taking part in a study exploring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[163,85,46,522,523],"class_list":{"0":"post-156576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}