WILD & WONDERFUL
Making waves
Getting out in the great outdoors has never been so important, says Hayley Dorian, founder of Wild Sea Women - a group of girls empowered by the natural cold water that surrounds us. Elysia Fryer finds out more…
I think it’s fair to say that, whatever it is that we’ve experienced in recent months, we have all used the breath as a coping mechanism. It’s something so simple, yet oh-so effective. The breath is something that I never stopped and listened to, until I took up yoga. Now, much of what I do and how I’m feeling can be controlled by the power of the breath. When I was young, my mum would tell me to ‘breathe and count to 10’. Now, an avid yogi, I’m starting to think she was on to something... Yoga is my therapy of choice, but for others, it can be meditation, walking, running, cycling, cooking or reading, to name but a few. For Hayley Dorian and her group of Wild Sea Women, therapy comes in the form of the glorious cold waters. Hayley’s new office is the North Sea and after years of working in a fast-paced, desk-based IT job, nothing beats this new, natural environment she finds herself in on a daily basis. “I’ve always loved the buzz of cold water,
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ever since I was little,” Hayley explains. “In my twenties I started going into the sea - literally dipping in for a couple of minutes and then coming out. “I never really knew the health benefits around it, I just knew it made me feel so good and alive. In the last three years or so, I started going in daily because I found out that there were loads of positive benefits to mental health and physical wellbeing.” Yes, something as simple as a dip in the sea can indeed save a life - and that’s where Hayley’s passion for wild swimming came from. Taking the power of the breath and the cold water, and putting it to good use. The Wild Sea Women meet weekly at each of their locations on a Sunday evening to take a dip to help reset the mind and body ready for the week ahead. “It’s a great place for women from all walks of life to get together, meet new people and just enjoy the simplicity of getting in the cold water and feeling the instant health benefits,” Hayley says. “I had pneumonia years ago and was told my lungs would never be healthy again. I wanted to prove them wrong, so I began learning about the most optimal ways of breathing and began right away putting
them into practice and saw a massive improvement in my health. “I was also diagnosed with an autoimmune disease about four years ago and the cold water has been my biggest medicine. I suffered very badly with chronic migraines, but it’s very rare I get a migraine now. If I do feel one coming on, I go into the sea, dip my head under, and like magic, it’s gone. “After noticing the health benefits, I decided to start digging deeper into the science behind it, and I stumbled across the Wim Hof Method. “It’s all about the benefits of cold exposure along with breathing techniques for our
mind and body. Wim Hof is a Dutch extreme athlete - he has World Records in being able to withstand the cold, sitting in ice baths for hours. He’s known as ‘The Iceman’. “He has a really sad story. His wife, who he had four young children with, died of suicide when the kids were really young. He’d always been one for going into the cold water and knew how much it helped him in his own state of mind - to get through life. So that’s how the method was brought to life. He wanted to help and inspire others who were going through similar situations.” Hayley’s results, paired with her knowledge of the Wim Hof Method, triggered a lightbulb moment. A moment when she
It was time for Hayley to ditch her career as a firewall and network engineer and make the water her new workplace JAN/FEB21
