Investing in health
In March, I attended a Fire and Ice workshop at Mountain Yoga in Cardiff. In a nutshell, this involved transitioning multiple times between a 42 degree hot tent, and a natural spring-fed cold plunge pool, at a “refreshing” 5 degrees.
Am I having a mid-life crisis? No. But my oldest friend is, and if you don’t stand in solidarity during difficult times then what are friends really for?
Committing to one last dip for the photo op, naturally…
I confess that I went in slightly sceptical in terms of the promised benefits. These were two-fold:
Mentally, it is designed to improve your resilience to stress. Cold water is quite stressful, but using breathing techniques to counter the immediate panic response and find calm while being submerged in a cold bath for 4 minutes was undeniably effective. The idea being that these techniques can carry over into helping to manage the more general stressors of everyday life.
Physically, the transitions from hot to cold and back again were designed to get the blood pumping. The hot tent intervals also included some stretches, balancing challenges, and exercises to help to warm us up quicker, while discussing the impacts of modern living on our general health and mobility.
Overall, it was surprisingly informative on the health front. All things that we know deep down, but with some jarring stats thrown in.
We’ve been hearing for years that life expectancy has been increasing. Unfortunately, healthy life expectancy has not been keeping up, and has actually started to go backwards. In the latest figures published by the ONS, the UK average healthy life expectancy sits at 60.7 years for males and 60.9 years for females. When we look at this in relation to when most people plan to stop work, this is quite a sobering statistic.
We have many discussions with clients around their retirement goals, and the vast majority are keen to stay active - with travel goals, energetic hobbies, and a desire not to spend their post-work years sat in an armchair waiting for the end.
Our main role is to ensure that the money is working to support these plans, but having the health to achieve these plans also shouldn’t be taken for granted.
So, do I recommend that everyone sits in a cold plunge pool for a few hours every day to prepare for retirement? No. Do I have any desire to repeat the experience? Also no. But, personally, I can’t deny that it helped to nudge me over the line to rejoin a bootcamp and rebuild some of the strength I lost from going into full hibernation mode this winter. At 35, I’m statistically more than halfway through my healthy life. That’s a scary thought, but I’ve always been competitive, and those are some odds that I’m determined to beat.