You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Mary L.

You ever heard of a Polar Bear plunge?

That's when a bunch of people get together, sometimes as a New Year's Day Day tradition and jump into the freezing ocean.

Ready guys?

I'm going to walk in, walk in with intention.

Well, people are now doing this all year round. It's called cold plunging.

Ready? Go. One, two, three.

Whoa, whoa whoa! Oh, that was good.

That feels good.

And cold plunging is exactly what it sounds like.

You submerge yourself in cold water.

And it doesn't have to be the ocean.

This could be in a tub in the backyard, it could be in a frozen lake, depends how, you know,

how far you want to take it. Usually in the studies we're talking about temperatures

lower than 60 degrees. Some people push it to you know 40 degrees you know in the

30s but there's no one definition people are practicing

it in different ways depending on what they have access to that's nPR health

and science correspondent will stone He lives in Seattle and cold

plunges a few times a week. Let's see if I can do it. You're hearing him on an

outing with a group called the Puget Sound Plunchers.

And some of their members told him that a cold plunge can feel transformative.

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