Into the Cold: What Drives Participation in Cold Water Activities – Take Our Survey
We are looking for volunteers to take part in our ‘cold-water activities’ survey who:
- Participate in, or have recently taken part in, intentional cold-water swimming exercise or cold-water immersion therapy.
- Are 18 years or older and who live in the UK.
Research Purpose?
The purpose of this research is to explore people’s habits, experiences, and motivations related to cold-water activities, including open-water swimming and cold-water immersion. For the purposes of this survey, cold-water activities encompass (supervised or marshalled open-water swimming, non-supervised wild swimming, and cold-water immersion (including cold showers). These activities may take place in a variety of settings, such as cold plunge pools, ice baths, or natural water environments including rivers, ponds, lakes, seas, and estuaries.
We would like to discover:
- Demographics: who is taking part and where.
- Participation: which cold-water activities you take part in.
- Motivation: your reasons for engaging in cold-water activities.
- Health experiences: your experiences of health-related benefits from regular cold-water activities, as well as any negative or adverse experiences associated with cold-water activities.
- Nutrition: your nutritional habits and dietary practices following cold-water activity.
What are the benefits?
By taking part, you will help us to better understand:
- People’s cold-water activity habits, viewpoints, experiences, and their motivations and facilitators for participation.
- How current trends can inform and enable future research to explore the possibilities associated with cold-water therapy.
This research project was granted ethics approval through Coventry University’s Research Ethics review and approval process
[Project Reference: P191233].
Ready to take part …..
Before you ‘dive in’ please read through the following:
The Survey
To make things easier, we’ve separated the survey by cold-water activity (Option 1 – 5). You only need to complete the survey for the activity you take part in.
If you take part in more than one cold water activity, we would really appreciate it if you complete all ‘options‘ that apply.
Active Exercise in Natural Water
(Rivers, lakes, seas, ponds, and estuaries)
Option 1: Supervised Open-Water Swimming in Summer (May to September) – LINK
Option 2: Supervised Open-Water Swimming in Winter (October to April) – LINK
Option 3: Unsupervised Wild Swimming in Summer (May to September) – LINK
Option 4: Unsupervised Wild Swimming in Winter (October to April) – LINK
Passive Time in Cold Water
(Rivers, lakes, seas, ponds, estuaries, cold plunge pools, ice baths, or cold showers)
Option 5: Cold-water immersion – LINK
We would be grateful if you could share our survey with others who may wish to participate……
GEN Health UK 