The health and safety of outdoor swimming.

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Outdoor swimming has seen increased growth and attention over the last two years. According to the magazine, Outdoor Swimmer, 19.1% of outdoor swimmers only started in the last 12 months. It is also believed that outdoor swimming can provide physical and mental health benefits, with 1 in 5 taking up the hobby for mental health reasons. But there are also risks involved and certain precautions that should be taken before engaging in this activity.

Discussing the physical and mental health aspect further, the editor of Outdoor Swimmer, Ella Foote, said: "Swimming as an activity is really good for physical and mental health. So, if you wanted to go swimming in the pool, it uses all the muscles in your body. It's also quite a meditative type of exercise. So, once you know how to swim, you don't really have to think about how you're doing it.

"If you take it outside, you can get the benefits of natural daylight and immersing and engaging with nature. So, it's like physical activity on, I don't know, ecstasy. It's that next level."

Looking at the younger generation, they are twice as likely to say they took up outdoor swimming for their mental health compared to the older generation, according to the trends in outdoor swimming released by Outdoor Swimmer, which gathered responses from 4,463 outdoor swimmers.

In terms of gender, women are recorded as having higher participation than men. Males are more likely to take up outdoor swimming for their physical health than women, with more than 20% saying they entered a triathlon. Females, however, take more of a social aspect in the hobby, with 15% saying they take part because of family/friends. Ella said:

"Women are the biggest demographic, sort of middle-aged women, I hate to say, 35-to-65-year old's, are loving life in the water. Many do it for mental health reasons. Men do swim and enjoy it, but they tend to do it more for very much physical health, or to compete or to take part in an event."

Outdoor swimming has enjoyed a rebirth of interest, especially in the last two years with the lockdown and closure of indoor swimming pools. In terms of location, the trends in the outdoor swimming survey showed Scotland came third, with just over 20% saying they began outdoor swimming in the last year.

Ella said: "I mean, outdoor swimming has been seeing a great incline for the last five to 10 years. But when we were all locked down during the pandemic, all the swimming pools closed. Firstly, the pools took a long time to reopen and secondly, we were encouraged not to meet indoors, so people were spending more time outdoors."

Finally, touching upon the safety that should be considered when trying out outdoor swimming, Ella talks about her top tips for staying safe, saying: "Make sure you can swim. If you have learned to swim, but you haven't swum for a few years or so, take yourself to a leisure centre, do a couple of lengths. Make sure you're swim fit, not just fit. There are plenty of people that can run a marathon that can't swim very well.

"Do a little bit of research, it doesn't have to be a big study, you could just do a bit of Googling. I'd like to swim here, what shall I watch out for. Look for a group of like-minded people. If it's a cold season, make sure you take plenty of layers, a hot drink, even in summer take a jumper, maybe a flask or something hot, because you are effectively getting into water that's colder than your body temperature, even on a hot day. So, prepare for that and I guess just learn some basic things, like how to identify hyperthermia."

With mental and physical health increasingly coming at the forefront of Scotland's issues, perhaps outdoor swimming can bring a much-needed remedy to combat these issues.