Why get baptised?

Rend Collective’s Chris Llewellyn has been having ice cold baths every morning. It’s got him thinking about the meaning of baptism

If you visited my Tennessee garden in the early hours of the morning, you would be greeted by the sound of chirping birds, a distant banjo riff drifting across from my neighbour, and a large Northern Irish land mammal in distress.

Yes, I have joined the movement of masochistic wellness enthusiasts who greet the day by getting into a tub of ice-cold water in the hope that it will elicit not just colourful language and blue-skinned discomfort but numerous health benefits.

Proponents of the plunge claim it aids body composition, burning calories as your body fights to not die a Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic-style hypothermic death, as well as swapping bad white fat (the kind we poke at in the mirror) for better brown fat (the kind no one sees at all). It also lowers blood pressure and inflammation.