A man claims he has cured his depression by taking daily dips in frigid water.
The 30-year-old was suffering from severe depression, anxiety, and feelings of dread for years, which lead him to attempt ending his life last year.
Mitchell Bock was then hospitalized by a crisis team and discharged after 13 hours with a single follow-up call, which he described as a “tick-box exercise”.
After he was discharged, Mitchell felt disappointed by the care he received and started looking into alternative mental health treatments.
“I was feeling hopeless,” the young man from Wales recalled
Then, in January, just weeks after his suicide attempt, Mitchell’s mother Melanie Aldridge sent him an ice bath—a tub designed to retain cold that he could use to submerge himself.
They had been looking into the benefits of ice-water therapy, so Mitchell started using it right away. Within a few days, he began to feel the effects.
“When I first did it, I remember waking up without the usual feeling of dread,” he said. “It was like going to bed with the flu and waking up completely cured.
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The thought of jumping into an ice bath may put some people off, but Mitchell said it didn’t take long to acclimate to the extreme cold—and the benefits were undeniable.
“At first your body panics. You feel tingling and your heart races, but once you control your breathing its fine. I don’t find it uncomfortable anymore.
“I see it as swapping out a whole day of discomfort for a few minutes. You come out feeling amazing. It really is an instant thing.”
Now, the finance worker from Caerphilly tries to have an ice bath, a cold shower—or leap into a lake—every day.
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“The coldest I’ve done was an ice bath at zero degrees, surrounded by snow,” he reported.
The ice baths have been so effective he has started to wean himself off the medication he has been taking for years.
He has stopped taking his anti-anxiety medication entirely and no longer needs regular talk therapy sessions.
“I’ve been on meds and going to therapy for years. Whenever I’ve rung the doctors, it’s been a short conversation and they’ve told me to up my meds.
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“Now, I’ve started weaning myself off one of my medications and stopped taking one altogether. I’m that confident in how I’m feeling.”
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Congratulations, Mr. Bock, on finding what works for you and much success to you.