The Benefits of Swimming: healthy body and mind. Part 2/2
This is the second part of a two part article on the benefits of swimming. The first part dealt with the physical benefits of swimming. Swimming is a great physical exercise and it is highly effective in training your cardiovascular system, lung, heart and in shaping up your muscles. It has a great impact on your physical posture, overall fitness and flexibility of your body making it less prone to injuries. Swimming as fitness activity has the benifits of being performed in a weightless environment which makes the training easy on your joints and ligaments. Swimming is great for burning the extra calories and as a weight loss routine.
In this second part I want to focus more on the mental benefits of swimming and on how it can help you to go through life with less stress and more peace of mind.
Mental benefits of swimming
Those of us who love physical exercise well know that training gives a healthier body but also, makes your mind wonder freely, relieving it from the everyday stress. Those who need to train to function properly, as I do, feel this even more and recognize that letting your body exercise makes you have more mental energy and makes you feel in balance with yourself. Among all the physical activities I have done in my life I have always found swimming to be special when it comes to how it can help my mind.
Immersing yourself into a swimming pool, maybe in the early hours of the morning, when the pool is not crowded with people and swimming softly, sliding through the water seemingly effortlessly makes me almost fall into a meditative state of mind which makes me loose my tension and swim the stress away.
Swimming is a repetitive kind of physical exercise and when you swim regularly, long laps, the repeating movements, the synchronized breathing pattern, the underwater silence and the lack of distractions make you focus on yourself, smooth out your emotional turmoils and free your mind. After an hour in the pool not only you have trained your full body and cardiovascular system, you also have let go all the stress and come to peace with your troubles and bad emotions. Do you feel I am going over the edge? Do not trust me feel it for yourself. Get out there in the swimming pool and start swimming.
I can give you some suggestions to maximize the benefits of swimming on your mind and soul. As already mention get into the swimming pool early in the morning if you can, when people are not there yet and you might have the pool almost all for yourself. Put up your goggles and your swim cap. Slide in the water softly and start swimming slowly and rhythmically. Warm up well before starting training and, swim a few laps. Start feeling your body moving smoothly through the water. Focus on you movements and on the rhythmic noise produced by your arms and legs work. Listen to your breathing, and let go your mind run freely through your thoughts. Regain in this way control on your emotions and inner peace.
As you become more and more trained, as you improve your swimming speed, as you improve your swimming endurance you will be able to enjoy the great mental benefits of swimming more and more. Swimming will become, as it has become for me, your way of escaping from all the stress and anger you accumulate through the day and you will fully exploit the benefits of swimming.
Keep healthy keep swimming.
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Hi. I found your post on “The Benefits of Swimming: healthy body and mind. Part 2/2″ very useful especially for my Alevel reasearch. But I was woundering who wrote this article, who done the reaserch. If you could let me know it would be very helpful.
Thank you for your time.
Benytta Doman
This was very helpful for my english essay
Thanks