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There are absolutely loads of benefits to cold water swimming, such as boosting your immune system and reducing stress.
But the number one benefit of wild swimming is how popular you will become on Instagram.
You don’t need a degree in social media marketing to know that if you want to be an outdoor influencer, you just need to jump in a river on a cold morning. Nothing will add 20,000 followers to your Instagram account quite as quickly as becoming a wild swimmer. 
So, if you want to become a wild swimmer too, this guide will have answers to all of your questions.
The Equipment
There are a few things that you’ll need before you can become an Insta-famous wild swimmer.
Tripod
You’ll need something to hold your phone while you make one of those cool time-lapse videos of you getting in the river and swimming around. But here’s the secret: they’re not really time lapse videos, you just have to walk quickly and only get in the water for 3.2 seconds to qualify as a wild swimmer.
Dryrobe
You’ll definitely need one of those huge, fleece lined Dryrobes for after your wild swim. Consider wearing it on the school run and to the supermarket too, so everybody knows what an incredible tolerance for cold water you have when you’re not buying turkey dinosaurs.
The Beanie
You’ll need to keep your head warm while you’re in the water, so you’ll need a beanie. Not just any beanie though.
The proper wild swimmers only wear brightly coloured beanies made from Peruvian Alpaca wool that are handcrafted by blind Nepalese children and then sold online for £60.
Choosing the Right Time to Go
There’s absolutely nothing impressive about going wild swimming on a warm day. Even toddlers paddle in the water in the summer.
Instead, always aim to go wild swimming on ‘the coldest day since records began’.
You can almost guarantee to double the amount of ‘likes’ you’ll get if you have to smash your way through the ice with a large rock before you can swim.
Getting the Perfect Shot
The aim of your photo shoot is to make everybody on Instagram think that you’ve got some ‘hidden gem’ wild swimming spot that nobody else knows about. So it’s important to spend some time fishing all of the Tesco carrier bags and Costa cups out of the nettles in the background.
You’re going to have to master the art of smiling whilst trying to ignore the intolerable coldness around your bits. And try to keep a smile on your face when you feel something moving by your feet, it’s probably nothing to worry about.
Timing is everything too. You want that pink glowing skin so you can tell everyone how refreshing it was, but you’ll only have a four second window to get the shot before hypothermia sets in.
Remember, you only need to stay in the water long enough to get a photo – you don’t need to actually swim.
Tell Everyone
When you get to work, teeth chattering, skin glowing and hair still damp, wait patiently for someone to say ‘Good Morning’, and then proceed to spend 20 minutes telling them that it was a good morning to go for a wild swim.
Explain all of the health benefits of cold water therapy to them while you eat your bowl of granola and sip tea from your thermos.
If you work from home and don’t have colleagues to tell, consider taking the Jehovah’s Witness approach. Spend your free time going door-to-door, asking elderly residents if they have a moment to talk about Wim Hof.
Posting on Instagram
The last and most important step comes later that evening, when you are home and wrapped up in multiple layers – posting to Instagram.
There are a couple of things that will help your Instagram posts get lots of attention. So men, you should probably go and get a six pack. And for the women, a six pack isn’t essential, but having nipples like fruit pastilles certainly won’t hurt when it comes to the wild swimmer algorithms.
There’s a huge community of wild swimmers on Instagram, so make sure you follow and like all of their posts, then maybe you can spend hours arranging a meet-up so you can all swim together for 3.2 seconds one icy morning.
