I believe the “Lightning Process” also played a part. This process uses neuroscience to influence your health using a tool kit which is centred on language, posture movement, coaching and visualisation. I use it to help raise my energy levels and improve my clarity of thought.
Ice baths also helped clear my fog brain and energised me. And I’m pretty certain they speeded up my metabolism and helped me lose weight, which could be a big deal for jockeys.
Under supervision, I gradually built up the time I spent in cold water and how low the temperature was. My longest stint at approximately four degrees was 15 minutes.
Two weeks ago, having sat in an infrared sauna [anti-inflammatory] doing Wim Hof-style breathing exercises to prepare my core, I thought nothing of getting into a swimming pool at twelve degrees for three minutes.
I can remember shutting the pool cover afterwards, but the next eight hours are a total blank. Apparently I had what is known as a Transient Global Amnesia [TGA] incident.
The symptoms of TGA are the same as a stroke, which is what the compassionate paramedic in the ambulance thought I’d had. I was very confused, asked the same question 20 times, and thought Boris Johnson was the Prime Minister. My blood pressure, normally about 120, went up to 177: high given that I hadn’t physically exerted myself in any way.
The recurring theme of TGAs is that they are much more frightening for the family and friends around the people having them, because some of the symptoms do resemble a serious stroke. My wife and daughter were definitely traumatised by my behaviour.
And while the patient feels no pain, the raised blood pressure shows that calm support and reassurance is essential.
I still can’t, and never will, remember being in the ambulance or arriving at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. My first vague memory is my sister telling me that I was getting better before I was sent for a CAT scan.
Thank God my sister was there, because I was seriously confused at that point. Apparently I told her that the whole thing was some kind of Kafkaesque nightmare, which reassured her that my brain wasn’t working too badly! I haven’t admitted to her that I had no idea what that meant.
During that period my brain was unable to make memories. But after eight hours I started to remember things from the past, although the hours preceding this ‘incident’ are still pretty sketchy.
Subsequent research pointed me to Dr Paul Jarman at the Cleveland Clinic, a consultant neurologist. His view of a similar incident, which happened to the 5:2 diet doctor Dr Michael Mosley, was that TGA’s are due to a swelling in the area of the brain responsible for short term memory.
This swelling can be caused by the strain caused by erratic breathing, which is a normal response to entering very cold water.
‘This kind of strain rapidly increases the blood pressure in the chest, which can force the circulation to momentarily move in the wrong direction, up through the veins in the neck,’ Jarman explained, ‘leading to a swelling of the blood vessels in the hippocampus.’
The only underlying issue is probably that I’m a 60-year-old man, and the valves that stop the blood flowing in the wrong direction may not be as “water tight” as they used to be.
Given that the average age of the one in 10,000 people who have experienced a TGA is 62, jockeys are more likely to slip over in the shower.
And, happily, Dr Jarman says there are no lasting effects.
So as long as they are supervised, and they’ve passed their medical, cold-water immersion should be available to them on all racecourses. As for 60-something-year-old men, I wouldn’t want to put you off. I’m still sure there are a lot of benefits – particularly for mental wellbeing.
As the fascinating psychotherapist Owen O’Kane told me at a recent cold-water plunge, “the benefits of cold water are incredible, but it’s good to check you have no underlying health issues before you do it.”
And don’t do it on your own.
Personally I’m going to ease myself back into it after I’ve had an MRI scan just to be sure. And maybe only waist deep, to make sure my breathing is under control.
