Last week, the Bay Area experienced some warmer weather. Some areas were under heat advisories. And in San Francisco, temperatures reached the upper seventies with humidity levels making the air a little stickier. And while that is considered warm for the city, it’s relatively cool compared to most of the state. That’s because cold water temperatures off the coast serve as a natural swamp cooler, dissipating heat from the air.
Bay Area water temperatures are notoriously cold year round, at fifty and sixty degrees fahrenheit. And that same cold water can do more than regulate our weather, it can also regulate your health.
Award winning sports journalist, Chris Ballard is the author of “ The Plunge: Maverick Swimmers, An Unlikely Quest, and the Transformative Power of Cold Water.” Chris jumped into some frigid water himself to research the effects and benefits of cold exposure on the human body.
KALW’s Executive Producer Ben Trefny, brought Chris to our downtown live event space at 220 Montgomery for a conversation about why more people should consider a cold swim in the Bay. Chris begins by explaining why he first became interested in cold water plunges.
