Convince Me!

"When I see someone, I start a conversation and say, 'It's not as strange as it looks."

"It is good for mental well-being ... the mental and physical effects last for several hours."

David Pattenden, 72, Beverley, East Yorks

"Cold is all in the mind. [Winter gives me] the same feeling as cold water on my skin. It lessens anxiety and makes me feel more resilient."

"Lockdown makes me feel numb, but this makes me happy."

"I expose my skin to the cold air while running and exercising as I find it helps my immune system and keeps me alert and happy."

Debbie Bent, 54

"You really have to be calm, focused and very mindful and aware of your physiology. It's potentially life-threatening if you stay out too long."

"Your body is buzzing, your head is clear, you're warm and you experience all the benefits of being immersed in your environment in these low temperatures."

"[A cold spike and adrenalin release] has a significant impact on inflammation reduction and circulation. Ice baths are an integral part of professional sports recovery."

"We've got used to living in the warm so what may not be that extreme seems so much more uncomfortable. Our body never learns how to thermoregulate itself."

"{People impressed with this new therapeutic push of the body to the limit are] waiting for the snowfall or extreme weather to expose their skin because of the benefits of mindful walking in the cold." 

"[Running or walking in the cold] is about letting go of our preferences for comfort ... I have become phenomenally strong in terms of my emotional, physical and spiritual resilience to life's trials, in all settings and contexts, through the medium of natural cold exposure."

"When you're in that moment of feeling a huge gust of ice-cold wind hitting your body with snow or rain bombarding you, a sense of formidable empowerment overcomes you and all of a sudden, you're warm and you're buzzing with endorphins."

Will van Zyl, 47, teacher, Wim Hof Method workshops and retreats

Win Hof Method website

 

Wim Hof, a 61-year-old Dutch adventurer has impressed a lot of people with his skin-bared-to-the-cold philosophy on health and well-being. He is the record holder for a barefoot half marathon on ice and snow, and has a cult following. Over 500 Wim Hof Method instructors offer their services to induct, introduce and train people in the Wim Hof way of approaching natural health therapies by the simple expedient of accustoming the body to bare-skin exposure to the cold.

This is an offshoot of the Nordic devotion to the very same type of therapeutic belief in health measured in terms of accustoming the body to exposure to winter cold, toughening the body and relaxing the mind. A 2011 study from Radboud University (Netherlands) found sympathetic nervous and immune systems to be influenced by short-term training programs like unclothing oneself and taking a cold walk outdoors in inclement winter weather. And that study influenced Mr. Hof to take his own experimental first steps in practising winter-weather-skin exposure.

Call it meditation with an Arctic twist

Obviously aspirants to toughening themselves up to withstand the experience of baring oneself nakedly to the winter elements of cold, ice, snow and wind, cannot be achieved overnight. A gradual build-up of body tolerance to the shock must take place before a potential adherent to the method can be capable of spending any length of time exposed in this way. And even then, a reasonable length of time and no more must be dedicated to that exposure. The time element would be best achieved on an individual basis; people becoming aware of the fine line for them personally between achieving comfort and acquiring a dangerous exposure level.

Sensitivity to sensations that may warn of overdoing exposure is paramount for safety since risk of hypothermia and frostbite with excess is always a danger until such time as tolerance has built to a point where lengthier exposure can be achieved. David Pattenden became aware that local police were looking into reports of a semi-naked man tramping through his village in extremely cold temperatures, alerting him to the fact that his hobby was concerning to onlookers perhaps fearing for his sanity.

He has plenty of company and the company of bareskin runners and walkers is steadily increasing, people having become intrigued by the prospect of enjoying the chill feeling against their bare skin. Lockdown has served to point people in unusual directions for relief from boredom and isolation. The Outdoor Swimming Society in the U.K. has enjoyed an increase in membership by a third coinciding with the first of the lockdowns. A Swim England study concludes 7.5 million people in the U.K. swim outdoors in winter.

 

Hof holds 21 Guinness World Records, scooping one for spending nearly two hours in an ice bath. Adults are recommended to spend no more than 10 minutes in one

 

When the third lockdown entered her life, Debbie Bent began to walk her dog, fairly casually dressed in vest top and thin trousers. The British are well known for their 'eccentricity' and that a steadily growing number of people have taken to new lifestyle therapies is hardly surprising. Despite which, people continue to be surprised and perhaps a little concerned when they see someone out and about on frigid days in exposed condition. Ms.Bent has embraced wild swimming as well.

According to presenter Ben Fogle who posted a photograph of himself running in the snow wearing shorts and nothing else, the caption on his Instagram feed captured his sentiment: "cold is all in the mind. I expose my skin to the cold air while running and exercising as I find it helps my immune system and keeps me alert and happy. Clothes, central heating and inactivity have reduced the efficacy of our bodies", he states with the utmost conviction.

Win Hof Workshop, Prague, Czech Republic  

"Exposure to fresh air outside is good for us because it can help provide non-recycled air to the lungs which improves the blood's oxygen levels and circulation."

"Moreover, moderately cold temperatures are good for skin health because it constrains the blood vessels in the skin [allowing the body temperature to regulate]."

Dr.Paul Banwell, founder, Melanoma and Skin Cancer Unit, East Grinstead, U.K.

IS THERE TRUTH TO WIM HOF'S METHOD? 

When the human body is exposed to extreme cold, our core temperature drops, causing the body to enter a state of hypothermia, and eventually we freeze to death.

But 57-year-old Wim Hof, from the Netherlands, has been able to spend nearly two hours in an ice bath and emerge unharmed.

The Iceman, as he is known, has also run a full marathon above the Arctic Circle wearing just shorts.

Hof puts his capabilities down to his self-developed meditation and breathing technique – known as the Wim Hof Method – enabling him to control his body’s autonomous hormonal responses.

This was tested by researchers at Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands as part of research into the treatment of autoimmune diseases.

Hof was injected with endotoxin, a substance that tricks the body into thinking it is under bacterial attack.

He should have developed a fever and flu-like symptoms but did not, so researchers concluded that there may be truth to his claims about his ability to suppress his automatic immune response. 

 

What Emergence From COVID Lockdown May Hold for Child Psychological Development

"To get child care back up and running, governments must find ways to bring employees back to the sector."
"This means addressing the problem of low wages and inadequate compensation, and putting in place special funding to make sure that child care facilities are safe for both children and staff."
Don Giesbrecht, chief executive officer, Canadian Child Care Federation

"Children who were isolated or quarantined during pandemic diseases were more likely to develop acute stress disorder, adjustment disorder and grief."
"Thirty percent of the children who were isolated or quarantined met the clinical criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. Furthermore, separation from parents or parental loss during childhood also has long-term adverse effects on mental health, including a higher risk of developing mood disorders and psychosis, and 'death by suicide' in adulthood."
"Adults need to be vigilant that children are not inappropriately blaming themselves or feeling that the illness is a punishment for previous bad behaviour."
The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health 

Amparo Aguilera puts a protective face mask on her grandchild Kilian in Igualada, Spain April 26, 2020

Image: REUTERS/Nacho Doce - RC2GCG90NK6P

There is no question that most children would have reacted initially to school closures with triumphant pleasure that their time would be their own to do with as they pleased. Until the realization set in that though they had ample time, they were unable to do as they pleased with it. All normal channels of pleasure, physical expression, entertainment were closed off. And it was explained to them by exasperated, fearful parents that the family had to remain indoors together to tough out the spread of a serious disease.

Children are sensitive to dangers impacting on their family, threatening their security with their guardian parents, and they can be sensitive to unspoken fears that communicate to their comprehension of a total turn-about in the way their world has operated to the present. All the old familiar routines were to be abandoned, and new ones take their place, more rigid, protective, alien to their familiar way of life; claustrophobic in type and character.

And if those children are within a family unit further stressed by a lack of employment, of tight physical living conditions, of food shortage, and short-tempered parents stressed to the limit, an overwhelming sense of insecurity and fear for the future tempers their discomfort with the new reality. Child anxiety, depression, loneliness and despair are the perfect breeding grounds for mental illness.

Photograph: Photofusion/REX/Shutterstock

Kids Help Phone reported that in the early lockdown period the service reported a 350 percent increase in calls received by the national help line geared toward responding to children's needs. Each day an average of 2,000 calls, texts and chats were anticipated from young people in the ongoing lockdown; children who were looking for explanations, for empathy, for reassurance that all would turn out well.

A Spanish survey reported that close to nine in ten parents had noticed alterations in their children's expressed emotions and behaviours, with many suffering concentration difficulties, irritability and profound anxiety. In Canada, 72 percent of child care centres closed, making living arrangements more acute for parents, unprepared to look after their children full-time.

Clinical psychologists in the United Kingdom published some useful advice for parents in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, urging parents to be aware their children needed appropriate, age-centric information about the pandemic; to consider that between the ages of four and seven, children develop a sense of conscience, at the same time they have a poor understanding of the science of disease.

"Loneliness that may result from disease containment measures in the COVID-19 context could be associated with subsequent mental health problems in young people."
"Children and adolescents are probably more likely to experience high rates of depression and probably anxiety during and after enforced isolation ends."
"This may increase as enforced isolation continues. Clinical services should offer preventative support and early intervention where possible and be prepared for an increase in mental health problems."
British researchers, large-scale meta-analysis

The truth is children’s lives are not really back to normal, and will not be for some time.’ A member of staff takes a child’s temperature at the Harris primary academy Shortlands, London, on 4 June. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Image

Adapting to COVID Food Preparation Options ... and After

"Whenever there are times of trouble there's innovation or ways of getting better from it. A lot of the discussion has been, 'How do we improve the food system?' ... but there are businesses doing well out of this and I think in the future things could get better."
"We've had a massive increase of unemployment in Canada. People have lost wages and obviously can only eat what they can afford."
"I think frugality will change once the economy opens up -- once people can get back to their jobs, once they've got money, once they've got the ability to spend it."
"The convenience angle -- 'I'm busy. I have to work long hours. I don't have time to cook for the kids' -- that will come back."
"Meal kits maximize time and are convenient, and the product offering is reasonably well-priced. [But they're] not the cheapest way of feeding a family of two, three, four people. So you're paying for that convenience."
"When we move to a time period where people can get out and work like they did before, they'll start becoming more time-poor. Because of that, they'll need that convenience aspect more than they have during COVID. And that's when we'll see restaurants becoming more prevalent again, and meal kits fit nicely in there as well."
"When people start getting time-poor, they have less time to cook for themselves."
Simon Somogyi, Arrell Chair, Business of Food, University of Guelph

One-third of people have been baking more than usual during the pandemic, and 20 per cent expect to keep it up. Getty Images

Consumers now know what food scarcity looks like. They saw its image in bare shelves within supermarkets, and long lines of would-be food shoppers awaiting entrance to a grocery store that would admit new shoppers only when the current ones departed to ensure sufficient distancing space could be respected. When they did have the opportunity to enter, they looked for shelf staples with long stable lives, since who knew how long scarcity would go on for, much less the new state of existence in the universal lockdown. So tins of fish and dried beans were high on their list -- if they could find them.

There was a sea change in how people ate, with restaurants closed and no longer could they plan to spend 40 percent of their food budget eating out and slipping into convenience stores to pick up extras. They experienced a frightening shortage of eggs, flour, meat, dairy products, even yeast as everyone, from seasoned to novice class, began to panic and bake their own bread. People became socially isolated by dictate and all their meals thenceforth were taken at home. Prepared by themselves. How novel.

The global pandemic disrupted lives in many ways, none more fundamental than in the way we eat. Home cooking -- food preparation at the very least -- became a necessity. A new respect arose for farmers, delivery systems, food warehousing, service workers. And ordering meal deliveries took the place of eating out. Restaurateurs went out of business or acquiesced to take-out and deliveries. Suddenly the home kitchen became the focal point as it was meant to be; not merely decorative but functional.

According to an AMC Global survey, 60 percent of people have experienced what it's like to dedicate time and labour in elemental cooking with food staples, more often than they ever envisaged they might under normal circumstances. Under these anything-but-normal circumstances everything has changed; people who stockpiled the bare essentials began to understand that they'd have to learn how to use them to advantage.

And suddenly waste became a sin and frugality automatic. Pandemic cooking meant nothing would be allowed to go to waste; no one could know if, when or whether shortages could become more acute and widespread. More prepared meals such as canned soup, frozen pizza, boxed macaroni and cheese have been eaten by 28 percent of the people responding to the AMC Global survey, since the start of the pandemic. People became concerned with making fewer shopping trips.

And a new shopping variation arrived with online food delivery and the sale of food kits. Relatively new in Canada, meal kit providers like Goodfood and HelloFresh have begun to expand their services and their offerings in recognition of their new market niche, not about to evaporate any time soon. Bets are that those who have given food kits a try will stick with them as attractive options once social distancing has been relaxed, they're returned to a normal workday and available time contracts.

Photo by David Ciccon