Heather is a senior lecturer within the School of Sport, Health and Exercise Science. She has been a member of the Extreme Environments Laboratory since 2007 where she completed a PhD in the area of Environmental Cross-adaptation in Humans. Prior to that she worked at the Institute of Naval Medicine within the Environmental Medicine Unit for six years. Heather’s research interests are in the area of human exposure to heat, cold and altitude and how we can prepare and mitigate the effects of these environments. More recently, she has become interested in establishing if these extreme environments have any benefits to health and wellbeing. She has published 50 research papers and co-authored two book chapters. She is a trustee of Swim the Wright and sits on the medical board of the Ectodermal Dysplasia Society. As well as her teaching and research, Heather provides advice and support to a range of companies, charities and the media on questions associated with her research. In her spare time Heather is a keen open water swimmer having successfully completed a solo crossing of the English Channel, numerous other open water swims including relay swims round Jersey, Jersey to France, round the Isle of Wight as well as representing GB in the World Ice Swimming Championships 1k event in 2017. In this episode, Heather tells us about how she started cold water swimming. She gives important advice for anyone who is thinking of taking up cold water swimming, and for those of us already doing it. She discusses what research has been done into cold water swimming and general health, pregnancy, menstrual and menopause symptoms. She will tell us her views about cold showers and sitting in an ice bath in our garden. Heather will share her experience of swimming the channel which ended successfully but with only seals to celebrate her arrival in France. We also discuss team sports and how we might want to revisit these. Follow Heather: Twitter: @H_Massey1979 / Instagram: @drheathermassey Date of episode recording: 2023-03-30Duration: 43.43Language of episode: EnglishPresenter: Joyce HarperGuests: Heather MasseyProducer: Joyce Harper

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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