Chill: the science & medicine of cold water swimming

Dr Mark Harper is a consultant anaesthetist and also a medical scientist who is an expert on the physiological response of the body to cold water swimming.

In this talk he brings together his clinical research and the physiology of cold-water adaptation to show how outdoor swimming can be employed to reduce surgical complications and how cold water swimming can be an effective intervention for mental health.

In collaboration with Dr Chris van Tulleken and the Extreme Environments Lab in Portsmouth, he has had the opportunity to test this in practice on the BAFTA award nominated BBC television programme The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs.

Mark is also conducting clinical trials using sea swimming as a clinical intervention for anxiety and depression.  He has helped to set up Chill UK which now provides outdoor swimming courses for hundreds of people around the UK and has been a director of Mental Health Swims. He is the author of Chill – The Cold Water Swimming Cure.

 You can read more about Mark here

Dr Mark Harper – Consultant Anaesthetist, Royal Sussex County Hospital (Brighton), Honorary Clinical Reader (Brighton and Sussex Medical School)