Cold and Discomfort, Challenge and Growth
Lessons from my ice bath
I looked down at the huge galvanised steel bathtub made for three adults, full of ice.
I was thinking I might wait, maybe it is warmer when everyone else has been in.
I was not ready yet.
“Come on, let’s go” said my husband and there was no more time to think. As instructed we stepped in together. Legs in, one- two, and straight down!
Doing something new and challenging
Challenges and uncomfortable experiences are all around us; the speech you need to make, the difficult feedback conversation or an unexpected change. Sometimes challenges can feel good and healthy and other times the discomfort becomes over-whelming. For our brains to operate efficiently, they seek to predict and see patterns and create a mental models so that you are not surprised. But these short-cuts are also at the root of why new and challenging, can be hard.
Good news is… Our brains are changing, always moulding and creating new connections, especially when we are doing something new. When we get used to something and good at something like driving it is more efficient for that to become an automatic process so we don’t need to use our conscious energy on it.
The more we do it they less uncomfortable it becomes.
"If we always choose comfort, we never learn the deepest capabilities of our mind or body" - Wim Hof
I started with cold showers a few years ago and that year I found my annual new years, north sea dip quite bearable. The image on the left is my after a dip in March when the North sea is maybe at its coldest.
With the help of my adventurous husband I am often it situations that might test the boundaries of my comfort. A challenge can be a healthy way to test out and move the edges of your discomfort.
I might complain in the run up to it, but I am so proud of myself once I have done it.
“If you challenge yourself, if you are constantly facing new tasks and challenges that you are no good at, you are building new roadways and bridges. Our brains can re-wire and change when we do something that we are not already good at.”
- Dr Eagleman author of Livewired - The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain.
There is a balance to be found.
These is an ‘optimal anxiety’. There are benefits to the moments when you are not really in your comfort-zone but you are not stressed either. We perform better, learn and experienced more and open our perspectives more when we break out of that comfort-zone. Living outside your comfort-zone by choice not only help you to avoid boredom and rumination that leads to being blandly dis-satisfied, but it helps you to have an easier time when there is unexpected change.
“Nobody ever died of discomfort, yet living in the name of comfort has killed more ideas, more opportunities, more actions, and more growth than everything else combined. Comfort kills!”
— T. HARV EKER
Resisting change is natural
When something feels unfamiliar, our defences go up and we experience more fear around it, which causes us to become even more wary of it. This wariness keeps us from embracing the change. So we avoid it. By avoiding it of course the potential of the change is frozen, the discomfort may still be there, it doesn’t go away but we are locked in patterns and situations that stop if from being able to evolve.
TRAIN FOR IT
Ask me about…
- Training to learn about the psychology of discomfort,
- Coaching to explore your own challenges and growth
And more…
We can make friends with discomfort. Of course, doing something new of making a big change can bring discomfort but we can learn how to experience it, navigate our way through it and change how we relate to the change and the discomfort around the change.
Connect with the change positively, what will it give you? Think about the other uncomfortable things you have experienced that resulted in a positive outcome.
Learn and get clarity about the skills needed. For the 1-2 minute ice bath we spent one whole hour learning the Wim-hof breathing method. By the time we got in we felt more trained and ready than when we started. The cold is real but so was my presence, learning to breathe with intention made me stay with my body and the breath.
Meet and move through discomfort. Name and own the emotions in the discomfort, maybe there is anger or frustration or anxiety. Calling out an emotion helps to ease its hold on you.
Will, one of our trainers says this on his website: “If each of us learned how to rise above our challenges and connect with that amazing power that lies within us, we would engage more fully with life and be happy, healthy and strong. That would change the world!” - Will van Zyl
I am grateful to the two incredible Wim-Hof trainers, who gave their guidance and support to help me to do the thing I never imagined I would do…
An ice bath! It felt incredible and I am hugely proud of myself!
