HALIFAX -- At least one woman can still be found taking a daily dip in Halifax-area lakes, and is now expanding her ritual to the frigid Atlantic Ocean.

Michelle Avery began wading into cold bodies of water in October, around the same time people started replacing bathing suits with jackets.

“Lately it’s been between four and six Celsius” says Avery, referring to the water temperature at Papermill Lake in Bedford, N.S., on a mid-December day.

“I don’t ever jump in full body,” she says. “I step in slowly and let my body kind of adjust. I do a little meditation and deep breathing.”

After treading in the lake water for a few minutes, she emerges not just refreshed, but free of agony. Avery says the cold water rush provides relief from a chronic condition that has caused her years of severe pelvic pain.

“I have endometriosis and chronic neck pain that actually came from being bedbound for a couple of years with endometriosis pain,” she says. “I’ve had surgeries and nerve blocks and anything you can imagine for pain control and nothing has worked anywhere even close to this cold water swimming.”

Avery began thinking about cold water pain management after her husband participated in a New Year’s Day polar bear dip in Herring Cove, N.S.

After doing more research and talking to her doctor, Avery decided to give it a try this fall.

“When you have a lot of pain you’ll try anything,” she says.

For Avery, the positive effects were immediate.

“Even though I was only in for a matter of seconds, the adrenaline rush afterwards was enough to get me to go and do it again,” she says. “And then I would say I really started seeing benefits within a week and the longer I started staying in the water the more benefits I was seeing.”

Avery says the cold water therapy has been life-changing.

“When I come out of the water, 100 per cent of the time I am pain-free,” she says. “I can arrive here for my swim full of pain and I leave every time pain-free.

“That usually lasts somewhere between four and eight hours. It’s like taking a very good pain medication but without the side effects. (The pain) will come back, so I have to keep doing it. But the level it’s been coming back is lower and lower and lower. So my baseline level of pain has been getting less and less.”

Avery says her sleep schedule has also improved, going from less than four hours of rest a night to a minimum of seven.

She says there’s a very strong mental component required for being able to enter -- then stay -- in the frigid water. Her husband, Ian Shephard, was initially joining her on the cold water swims, but now watches from shore.

“Hopefully she’ll inspire lots of other people to do it as an activity, a fun hobby, and maybe get some pain relief out of it too,” he says.

Aside from managing pain, other people have found additional therapeutic benefits from taking a so-called ice bath.

The health benefits of cold water swimming range from better circulation to improved mood, while risks include hypothermia and cold water shock. Officials recommend people speak to a doctor first and avoid swimming alone.

As for Avery, she’s documenting her swims on a personal YouTube channel and is planning to continue her cold water dips throughout the winter months.