The world over, it's a tradition to ring in the new year with a dip into freezing cold waters. Despite winter weather and against all survival instincts and common sense, thrill-seekers from Coney Island to the Netherlands strip down to their skivvies and leap into ice-cold oceans, lakes, rivers and swimming pools on New Year's Day.

Coney Island temperatures were unseasonably warm, in the high 50s, for the 115th annual Polar Bear Plunge, compared to last year, which hovered at a frigid 17 degrees.

Coney Island's Polar Bear Club, founded in 1903, is the oldest winter bathing organization in the U.S., but the history of the tradition of taking a New Year's plunge is murky. The New Year's Day tradition started in the Netherlands in the 1960s. CNN reported that in Russia and Scandinavia, people have taken dips in freezing waters as homeopathic remedies for centuries, and according to TIME, athletes have been swimming the notoriously cold English Channel sans wetsuits since at least the 1800s.

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But despite its purported health benefits that many revelers swear by, swimming in the cold isn't advised for everyone. Popular Science reported that the adrenaline-inducing activity could turn deadly if participants aren't physically prepared. Cold-shock, heart attack, drowning and, of course, hypothermia are all a threat, and that threat is heightened for those with underlying heart conditions. Training is key for an event like the Polar Bear Plunge.

Whether it's the adrenaline rush, the camaraderie of taking on a physical and mental challenge with hundreds of others, or the metaphor that after the plunge, anything the new year brings will be smooth sailing, the Polar Bear Plunge is sure to continue, dangerous or not.

"I'm all for the attitude of 'let's do something that makes us feel good,'" Dr. Thomas Traill, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine told CNN. "It's better than plopping yourself on the couch and watching sports on TV."