It made me more stress resilient. The big thing of diving into ice cold water is the immediate panic reaction the body resorts to: huffing & puffing, an immediate flight impulse and just an overall sense of “I am going to die” yelling at you internally. After you’ve experienced those sensations and were able to just SIT with them for a minute (or five), and mentally as well as emotionally reazlize that you are in fact not going to die – other stressful situations fade in comparison. It is like pushing the 10 of your 1-10 stress scale to a 15. This has made me more stress-resilient overall.
It made me complain less. I used to at least internally immediately react to frosty situations with “Brrr, that’s cold.” – even if someone just opened the window a second ago. Since I have now learned I will not immediately die (even when it feels like it), I complain less. This has also carried not-cold situations because again, what can be worse than sitting in freezing water for five minutes? Kid tantrums got nothing on you.
It made me feel like a badass. Other than completing a marathon or 100 pull-ups not much ranks in the same sphere of making you feel like a complete badass. And if you like to boast, it’s pretty impressive to most of the people out there too… 😉