Why more women are embracing nude swimming: “You can be completely yourself”

For the majority of people, the onset of autumn's colder months would mean the addition of more layers, rather than fewer. But for these women, the contrary has been true. “It just feels free, natural, and normal,” says Hannah-Rose Wilson, who spontaneously strips off to swim in the nude near her home in Sweden’s Östergötland County. “It feels like you can completely be yourself, like you’re one with nature. There is nothing else like it.”

Wilson is one of a growing number of women in Scandinavia who are shedding their clothes and taking a dip. Some do it for health benefits, others simply for the sensation.

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Wilson remembers the first time she took her clothes off to swim outside. “I was with my partner on a small boat in the middle of the water,” the 31-year-old says. “No one else was around. It was just a really freeing feeling. After that, I started doing it more and more. I can’t turn back now. I don’t know why I would want to put a tight, annoying swimming costume on. In the nude, it is raw. You can be completely yourself.”

After giving birth to her second child this summer, Wilson was feeling self-conscious about her body, but a swim sans costume changed her perspective. “There was this one specific time after I gave birth, I went swimming naked and felt like I could finally just embrace my body,” she says. “There was nothing tight on me that didn’t fit properly. I was just me in that moment.”

When she goes with friends, Wilson loves the way no one is judging each other’s bodies. “It’s so nice,” she says. “We’re all just humans. The more you swim naked around other women, the more you see other people’s bodies and are reassured that everyone is so different.”

Occasionally, Wilson sneaks away from her two young children and husband to go dipping on her own. “I’ve driven to a space to meditate for a bit when I needed a bit of space,” she says. “Then I start taking my clothes off and going in. There is an initial resistance, but after a while, you relax into it. I just take a few deep breaths and feel my body sink into the cold water. It’s always so refreshing, exhilarating.”

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There are many well-known benefits of swimming outdoors, especially when the water is cold. “On one level, it's positive to be active and experience nature, which helps, for example, in terms of mood, increased self-esteem and lower risk for depression,” explains Ana Batista, a Stockholm psychologist. “And we also know that swimming positively affects muscle relaxation and blood circulation, increasing the blood flow to the brain, which helps slow cognitive decline, improve sleep, and reduce stress. When we swim in cold water, these effects are emphasised by the exposure to cold, which adds an exciting component to the experience.”

To swim in the nude outside offers another dimension of wellness, too.

“It can be a powerful healing experience, especially for those who feel disconnected from their bodies,” says Batista. “Immersing in the wilderness, without the protective boundaries of clothing, can bring a sense of acceptance and reconciliation with that part of ourselves with which we might have been in conflict. In a way, it's a return to nature, which metaphorically, but also quite literally, represents a return to ourselves.”

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When Elisabeth Paul first dipped outside without anything on she was confronted with her own views of her body when the women jumping in with her felt no shame taking off all their clothes. “I don’t see myself as prudish but I’m also not an exhibitionist,” the 35-year-old says. “I see myself as open to things, and I think that day really made an impression on me, because I really wanted to feel free and natural in my body like the others seemed to be.”

Moving to Aarhus, Denmark in 2020, nude bathing became part of Paul’s daily routine. “Here, there’s a sauna and winter swimming club where the rule is that if you want to bathe there, it’s got to be naked,” she explains. “Mostly I go alone, either first thing in the morning, where I share the bathing bridge with the happiest old, naked people you could ever meet, or later in the afternoon and evening when it feels warmest. Other times I go with friends, or with my boyfriend.”

No matter the temperature of the water, Paul feels the urge to dip in the water, if only for a few seconds. “To start with, if I think about it too much, I could psych myself out,” she says. “I need to just do it, no hesitating. It’s off with the clothes, into the water. It’s cold, breathe, lower myself in, and feel so alive. It does something amazing for both my body and my mind. I feel warmer, like my circulation is kicked into gear, connected to myself and to my surroundings. I feel fresh, calm, happy, and alert, like a reset.”

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As time has passed, Paul no longer feels shame about swimming in the nude and embraces it as a time to really connect with herself and her body. “When I swim naked, I feel like myself,” she says. It also gives her the opportunity to let go of the external pressure that is often felt by women in society. “I’m not thinking about how I look or hating on some part of me I want to hide. It doesn’t bother me if someone finds me attractive or not. My body isn’t to be an object of someone’s gaze or something that needs to live up to some standard in order to be exposed.

"By not covering myself, my body gets to move through the world like it’s allowed to exist. The focus is on what my body can do, what it does in interaction with the water, what it feels like to just be. And I take that feeling with me out of the water. The body and the mind are one and the same.”