Why is Cold Plunging gaining in popularity for team building, leadership training, executive retreats, and corporate events? The experience of turning the impossible into possible!

Why is Cold Plunging gaining in popularity for team building, leadership training, executive retreats, and corporate events? The experience of turning the impossible into possible

 

ALL IN – Mindset, Breathing & Cold Immersion 

A seemingly impossible challenge combined with a well-facilitated experience by a skilled professional offers a positively life-changing and empowering experience.   

Imagine submerging into freezing cold water, all the way up to your neck, at near-freezing temperatures, and staying in for several minutes.  As you imagine how you might respond in the cold water over a period of a few minutes, I would like to offer a clarification between cold plunging and cold immersion.   A cold plunge is when you get in and then out quickly, cold immersion is the practice of getting in and staying in for 2 minutes or more. 

What emotions came up for you?  

If you are like most people, some degree of resistance close to “There’s no way will I do something like that.”  

Here are a few common fears about the experience of cold immersion:

• Frigophobia – Fear of the cold  
• Algophobia – Fear of pain
• Xenophobia – Fear of the unknown 
• Atychiphobia – Fear of failure (which can be exacerbated in social settings amongst peers.) 

These are all realistic fears when it comes to cold immersion. 

Why? Because there is a strategy for engaging in the process of cold immersion, and if you don’t know what it is, there is a likelihood that some of the above fears will come true. 

I can say this because I have experienced it firsthand.  I understand what it feels like to become hyperthermic to the point of shivering uncontrollably and not being able warm back up for a long period of time. In fact, it was this experience that led me to find out about the practice of cold immersion.  I wanted to find out how the impossible becomes possible. 

So how do you do it?  

You find someone who has not only experience but a proven method for teaching the process.  The critical elements in the process involve implementing strategies for both mind and body control.  In my experience, these techniques must be executed both at the right time and in the right sequence, or you get a different result.  When done properly, with all of the key ingredients at the right time, you create the opportunity for breakthroughs.  

The breakthrough occurs when you shift your belief from impossibility to possibility.  In that moment, everything changes.   

Why might a business want its employees to experience cold immersion?  

Emotional Resilience 

The experience of navigating uncertainty and fears while summoning the courage to do so develops resilience to navigate stressful situations of any type. 

Team Bonding 

Sharing a unique experience with people creates memories and a bond that brings team members closer together. 

Health and Wellness 

The research on the practice of cold immersion and what it does for the human body is clear and the list of benefits is long.  Adding this element to overall health and wellness practices will produce a stronger and healthier individual. 

Mindset 

What happens when you shift from perceiving a situation as impossible to one of possibility?  Belief about what might be possible in other realms shift.  

Who can I trust with such an “extreme” experience?

Remember that you will need a skilled professional that has both experience in cold immersion, an understanding of the elements of psychology, emotional state management, and a proven process for facilitating the experience. 

Personally, after 25 years of creating challenging experiences, I can say I really enjoy delivering the Mindset, Breathing, and Cold Immersion programs that I have created because of the many reasons above and more.  I have put in my time in both seeking out the most experienced practitioners and going ALL IN myself. My practice of countless cold immersions in the dead of winter in harsh conditions in Iceland, Jackson Hole, and other mountain regions, along with the practice of delivering this experience for countless groups of all types (YPO groups, Executive Teams, Families, Students of my courses) has provided me with a skill set I am excited to share. 

Tim Walther

President

Grand Dynamics International