Working out or moving around to warm up your muscles first helps, says Matt Barnes.
The Sarnia man’s daily routine for the past year has included icy showers and dips in Lake Huron when the water has been at its coldest as a way to help with mental wellness, he said.
“It is a huge shock initially, but if you push through that and just take some nice, deep breaths, you can just kind of calm yourself.” he said.
He and his spouse Taryn, mental health therapists with Southwest Counseling Services in Sarnia, organized a group of about a dozen people New Year’s Day to participate in a polar dip.
As part of the effort, they collected about $500 in donations for addiction services at Bluewater Health, Taryn Barnes said.
Hopes are to make it an annual tradition, Matt Barnes said.
“If we have any returning people,” he said with a laugh.
The couple and company spent just a few seconds in the water Sunday — enough for the shock of the 2C water to show on participants’ faces.
Barnes said he’s able to stay in for three to four minutes as a result of his cold-exposure training, and waded back to shore as others scrambled onto the beach.
“It started with 30 seconds and then just gradually worked up,” he said about his training.
He also participated in a cold-exposure challenge in October, Taryn Barnes said.
“The more you do this, you’re training your body to manage stress better so that you’re calmer, more grounded and can just deal with stressors in an easier way,” Matt Barnes said.