This article was first published by YogaJournal.com.
As the owner of a hot yoga studio in Rhode Island, Brooke Finocchiaro spends most of her days sweating. But for the first 31 days of 2023, she started them by freezing—voluntarily.
For the month of January, Finocchiaro subjected herself to a daily cold plunge in the ocean and chronicled her efforts on TikTok. She had started practicing regular cold water immersions at the beginning of the pandemic, inspired by the Wim Hof method, as a way to help manage her seasonal depression. She saw her mental energy increase with each plunge.
This winter, as a byproduct of her anxiety and the stress of being a small business owner, she saw her mood drop even more. “As soon as you turn your passion into your career, it’s not as easy to relax during a yoga class,” she says. “So, I’ve had to turn to other coping mechanisms for my anxiety and depression.”
In an attempt to better her mental health, Finocchiaro decided to embark on a monthlong challenge of doing a cold plunge every day. She headed to the ocean most early mornings for her immersion although sometimes…
