LAKE NATRON CAN YOU SWIM FREE

The climate can at times be unbearable as the African sun blazes down upon the land. The area is off the beaten track and only a handful of people go there. “We actually had this one woman plan out - we didn’t catch on until like week three or four, but every week she brought a smaller mug, which is wild.Lake Natron and its surrounding area is a place rich in cultural and natural diversity. “Everyone gets so excited about bringing their mugs, which is great,” Novotny said.

There’s a contest every Friday where participants vote for “Mug of the Week.” And people take it seriously. They have to bring their own mugs, however.

LAKE NATRON CAN YOU SWIM FREE

And so what better way to manage sensory overload than to just be together in the water? Lake Michigan is a profound nervous system regulator.”Īfter the jumps, people enjoy free cold brew supplied by Novotny’s coffee shop. Being together creates a lot of sensory overload for a lot of us. “And because there’s an awareness that our social skills are not where they used to be, I think there’s a kind of collective social anxiety and an ambivalence: We want to be together, but we’re anxious about being together. “I think we all have experienced social atrophy over the last couple of years,” she said.

The group’s demographic might skew toward younger generations, Solomon said, because people in their 20s and 30s are craving ways to gather that are not centered around alcohol and hookup culture, and because the pandemic has led people to seek new ways of being together. In June 2021, Friday Morning Swim Club was born, inspired by both Glatt’s Friday morning post-bike ride dips and Novotny’s Thursday evening jumps.īefore jumping in, Eugeni Nikolov surveys the waves during Friday Morning Swim Club at Montrose Harbor on Sept. “So after a couple times of doing that, I decided it’d be kind of cool to commit to doing this maybe weekly.” But I had a couple of friends that were interested in just going to jump in the water,” Novotny, 34, said. “People weren’t really doing anything during that time. In the early summer of 2021, Novotny decided to invite Glatt and three other friends to jump in the lake every Thursday evening to catch up and check in on each other in the middle of the pandemic. They bonded over music and became friends. He met Nicole Novotny, owner of Printer’s Row Coffee Co., in her coffee shop that summer. Glatt and some friends made it a habit to jump in the lake after Friday morning bike rides. The origins of the swim club can be traced back to 2019 when Glatt, a photographer, was training for the Chicago Triathlon. “And so I imagine that’s also the appeal of that, is that there’s no goal. The experience is an experience of being rather than an experience of doing or accomplishing,” said Alexandra Solomon, a professor at Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy and host of the “Reimagining Love” podcast. “What I love about this is, it’s so playful. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)Įxperts say that creating a sense of community is important for mental health, and that being in a lake is also good for physical health. Hundreds of people gather on Fridays and jump in together. Swimmers jump in Lake Michigan as part of the Friday Morning Swim Club at Montrose Harbor in Chicago.

Lake natron can you swim