IHe's going to put on his swimsuit and his sequined wig. For the 25e year, Gilbert Alberti, 43, is preparing to dive into a deep blue sea at 13°C to celebrate the New Year. He wouldn't miss the event for anything. “The first time, for the transition to the year 2000, it was a bet with friends. Since then, it has become a tradition followed by my grandmother's birthday lunch, who is celebrating her 95th birthday this year,” he says.
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From around 400 the first year, they increased to more than 1,200 braving the cold on 1is January 2024 in Argelès-sur-Mer in the Pyrénées-Orientales and even more were expected this year. “It’s a real success,” says the tourist office of the seaside resort, which offers entertainment with a DJ and offers hot chocolate to all participants when leaving the water.
American “polar bear clubs”
From Collioure to Menton, the coastal towns of the south of France are increasingly attracting cold bath enthusiasts, between Christmas and the beginning of January depending on the municipality, taking inspiration from the “frosted baths” of the towns of the North and the Atlantic coast, where we sometimes get soaked at 7 or 8°C. In Nice, the story is even older: people take their invigorating bath on the Promenade des Anglais every December 22 since the Liberation. As for the Atlantic coast, and in the north of France, the tradition dates back to the end of the 1960s.
The phenomenon appears to have its origins in the United States with the “polar bear clubs”, themselves inspired by the practices of Scandinavian migrants. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club, in New York, claims paternity of the event, with a first event organized in 1903 by Bernarr Macfadden, a precursor of bodybuilding convinced that the cold was “beneficial for endurance, immunity and virility.”
The L Street Brownies, founded in 1902 in Boston, would steal the frozen bath scoop… but their first swim on 1is January of that year in Dorchester Bay was not mentioned in newspapers until 1904. Today, New York's “New Year's Day Plunge” is no longer reserved for members of the club, but open to the general public, and allows funds to be raised for associations.
36,000 bathers in the North Sea
The tradition strengthened in the second half of the 20th centurye century. There New Year's dive (“New Year's dive”) has been organized since 1960 in a seaside resort in The Hague, in the Netherlands, on the initiative of a local swimming club. Its participation record, in 2012, remains in the memory, with 36,000 people jumping into water at 13°C in the North Sea, and its temperature record, of 8°C, in 2017… Currently , the event is financed by a brand of pea soup which awaits brave swimmers in a bowl after their dive. In the country, around sixty cities have adopted the tradition.
End-of-year holiday baths mark above all the symbolic transition to the new year, but are not the prerogative of Western countries. “In southern Greenland, the Kalaallit practice bathing in cold water at the same time as gathering kelp (kelp), which they eat and feed the dogs, between April and May,” explains Philippe Stefanini, author of Bathe in cold water, let's go! (ed. Jouvence). The doctor in agronomy and biological anthropology says that “when the sea recedes, families, children in their arms, immerse themselves in the basins of water left by the sea”.
He also discovered that “these symbolic immersions also exist in India during Makar Sankranti, a celebration in January of the return of the harvest season, with a view to purification.” In China and Tibet, these practices date back to six centuries BC, “during the renewal associated with spring, when the melting of the ice allows access to water and light”.
The recognized benefits of cold baths
In Europe, the benefits of sea swimming in all seasons began to be recognized around 1620 in Yorkshire, precisely in Scarborough, located on the steep shores of the North Sea, which became a famous spa resort. Little by little, spa guests are immersed in cold water.
Between 1750 and 1840 there appeared a medical discourse on the benefits of the ocean, recounts the historian Alain Corbin in The Void Territory (ed. Flammation, Champs). Therapies, sometimes shock, were developed mainly to treat the “hysteria” of women and young girls through “blade baths”. Alain Corbin describes the brutal immersions in the sea, at the precise moment when the wave broke, upside down to increase the suffocation.
Today there is no need to go through these “blade baths”, nor through extreme temperatures, but the cold water of the ocean remains a real cure for rejuvenation and health, provided you practice this bathing in the rules of the art, with caution and regularity. “We can start with a Scottish shower, without hesitating to put on a hat, gloves and swimming shoes,” advises Myriam Willemse, naturopath and co-author of Bathe in cold water, let's go!.
Endocrine system, sleep, joints…
“The effects are notorious on the endocrine system,” explains Philippe Stefanini, researcher at CNRS/Ades. Results are seen in levels of adrenaline, the stress hormone, after four months, while endorphin levels increase. Cellular oxygenation is doubled, and it is also a natural dopant with an increase in oxytocin and dopamine levels, as well as an action on sleep and fat loss. »
These invigorating cold baths are ideal for people suffering from blood and lymphatic circulation disorders in the lower limbs such as varicose veins, edema and heavy leg syndrome. “The benefits are felt for the joints, which are no longer subject to the effects of gravity and are relieved,” adds Myriam Willemse, herself a daily practitioner in the waters of the Mediterranean.
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It is important to remember the contraindications: cardiovascular history, pulmonary insufficiency, stroke, pacemaker and transcutaneous device. “You should also not take any risks in the event of a weak immune system, for example due to cancer, because the body is more vulnerable and will use all the energy to warm itself,” explains Myriam Willemse. You therefore need to be in good physical condition, whatever your age.
Philippe Stefanini does not want to speak of a “miracle”, “but maintains that regular practice, medically supervised and with the support of a club, allows a real improvement in physical and mental health”. Gilbert, in Argelès, has already done the hard part by diving into cold water; To reap all the benefits for his health, it's up to him to make the traditional New Year's bath a regular practice.
