Look out, hygge, there’s a new Nordic buzzword to live by. Sisu is a Finnish way of being defined as “stoic determination, tenacity of purpose and hardiness”. I try my best to channel it one February morning in Helsinki as, teeth chattering, I shed my towel and climb down a ladder into the frozen Baltic Sea, the surface crusted over with a slush of ice that bobs with the tide.
Cold water swimming may be having a prolonged moment in the UK, but the Finns have known about the mental and physical benefits of talviuinti (ice swimming) for centuries. In a country where lakes are frozen over from October until May each year, many Finns think nothing of starting the day by drilling their own ice hole for a dip in -20C water. Assuming there’s something to this uplifting ritual, championed by global names such as Dutch motivational speaker Wim Hof, could this extreme bathing be one of the reasons Finland is officially the happiest nation on the planet? I’m determined to brave the cold and find out.
