2. The Plunge

One December afternoon, Nora got peer pressured into jumping in a 30-something degree pool. She’s not here to promote cold plunging, but sometimes being uncomfortable for a short period of time can change your perspective! 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Nora McInerny: On Christmas Eve, one of my wildest, hippiest cousins was stopping through Phoenix and found herself stuck there because of the great Southwest Airlines debacle of Christmas 2022. It was supposed to be, you know, a few hour layover, and then it turned into a nearly all day layover. And my cousin is delightful. She’s wonderful. And I had not laid eyes on her in years. Over five I’m pretty sure. 

My cousin is the kind of person who makes everything feel fun and exciting. My cousin and I are so similar and so different, like many cousins. We share a gene pool, but not 100% of the gene pool. We are different kinds of people. And so when she looked at me on Christmas Eve, when it was in the high fifties here in Phoenix, beautiful and sunny and suggested we jump into my swimming pool, I said, What are you talking about, Johannah? Why would we do that? The water is barely above freezing. The air temperature is 55.

I know that sounds warm to a girl who lives in far northern California. It is really not warm. You need to know that my pool is not heated.

Look, I grew up in the Midwest. I know that having a pool is fancy. I know that having a pool is luxurious. This pool of mine was built in the 1960s. It is very, very beautiful. It is also on its last legs. It is also very, very deep. And most importantly, it is unheated. I did not want to jump into an unheated pool, but my cousin is so persuasive and magnetic. One time in our twenties, she convinced a limo driver who was idling outside a club in downtown Minneapolis to just drive us around for free until his paying client called him. So even though I didn’t want to, I got on my swimsuit and I jumped in. 

[Audio of people counting down fades up. Sounds of a splash followed by screaming]

Nora McInerny: It was terrible. It was terrible. My Instagram feed, my TikTok feed, the wellness world is full of people sitting in ice baths and telling me how wonderful it is and relaxing. This is nothing of the sort. Nothing of the sort. Every moment, and I believe I spent ten solid moments in that pool, was absolute hell. But… Getting out was borderline euphoria. Actually, it was euphoric. The air temperature was again only in the fifties. That is cold here. But we sat in the backyard like little lizards soaking up the warmth of the sun. And I felt amazing. And like I said, there are lots of people who can tell you about the benefits of coal plunging or the dangers of it. Now that I’ve done it my TikTok feed is really filled with even more people jumping into ice covered lakes. And I’m not going to do that. I’ll tell you that much. No, no, no, no, no. 

I’ll pop into the pool for 2 minutes and absolutely despise it. And then I will feel amazing. And I am not encouraging you to take an ice cold shower or jump into an unheated pool. It is fine to watch from the edge or watch from your warm shower or watch from the comfort of your warm bed on your phone. You don’t need to feel obligated to submit yourself to suffering in pursuit of wellness or self-improvement or just a challenge.

You can listen to your body and when it tells you absolutely the hell not know, go out and seek comfort because life is uncomfortable enough, often. And maybe you don’t need a lesson in how to survive discomfort in a simulated or very expensive setting. Maybe you have enough of that in real life. A real life you don’t actually get to escape from. Maybe you’ve already been shoved into a pool of ice cold water and you still can’t catch your breath and you want to just scream, “I hate this!” And in that case, I wish you a pool of warm water or a patch of sun, some comfort and ease. I wish you the euphoria of the absence of suffering.