It’s no secret that swimming is a skill that can save lives and allow swimmers to have a lot of fun at rivers, pools, or beaches.
But did you know that learning to swim opens up a lot more pathways in life and teaches a lot more skills than just how to paddle water and hold your breath?
Social Skills
Joining any team or club is a great way to meet new people and make new friends.
As a child, being on a swim team or in swim lessons gives you the opportunity to develop your social skills, learn how to cheer someone else on, and how to be part of a team.
Many lifelong friendships are created in childhood during programs such as these. Swim lessons, swim teams, swim camps, or even a regular camp that also has a lake are great places for children to find steadfast friends.
The nature of swimming is a more vulnerable sport than others. Being in the water is an uncertain space, at least until you get more comfortable. Overcoming the challenge of learning to do a new physical movement paired with the foreignness of practising in only a swimsuit fosters conditions for strong friendships.
As an adult learning to swim, admitting there is a skill you are not the best at and want to improve can be challenging. Finding a group of people who are all doing the same thing can feel liberating!
At any age learning group dynamics, teamwork, and how to build relationships is valuable and worthwhile!
Outside of the learning-to-swim environment, being water-savvy comes in handy in everyday life.
Without any swimming capabilities, you might have to schedule your life around avoiding water. This can impact your ability to go to certain places or attend outings with friends and family.
If you get invited to spend a day on a friend’s sailboat, you want to be able to say yes with no hesitation due to your fear or inexperience with water.
Get to know more about the best swimming lessons in Australia here.
Leadership and Reliability
Learning to be part of a team goes hand in hand with increased skills in reliability, capability, and leadership.
Why? There are many opportunities to strengthen these personal qualities in any club, sport, or team.
Getting to swim practice and swim meets on time, prepared, and ready to participate builds responsibility for the self as well as for others.
Ensuring that you have eaten well, are hydrated, are well-rested, and completing stretches and warm-ups allows you to practice knowing what your body and mind need in order to perform at your best.
Working as part of a team gives the opportunity to practice leading and following. Stepping up to make decisions quickly and in the long term may be part of your responsibility.
Furthermore, as a strong swimmer, you gain the exclusive capability to be a lifesaver in dangerous situations. Even if you are not a lifeguard or other type of rescuer, you may find yourself utilising your skills to help a drowning person, much like how a medical professional might help someone having an emergency at a restaurant.
Risk assessment and being able to take action in tense situations are also positive byproducts of swimming, specifically when you learn water safety.
Your self-reliance and reliability for others improve with all the different character-building factors associated with learning to swim.
Swimming is a confusing sport, because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it to not die. And when I'm swimming, sometimes I'm not sure which one it is.
- Demitri Martin (comedian)
More Opportunities for Fun
The ability to stay afloat, hold your breath, assess risks, and generally keep yourself safe in water means that you can participate in many more fun activities!
Swimming in creeks, rivers, lakes, ponds, oceans, bays, seas, pools and any other aquatic environments will be accessible and safer for you to explore.
And by unlocking aquatic environments, you get the chance to partake in a ton of new activities that would otherwise be too risky.
In addition to tame experiences like water parks, canoeing, kayaking, sailing, rowing, and paddleboarding, and going on a cruise ship, you can sign up for more exciting things.
Scuba diving, snorkelling, tubing, windsurfing, parasailing, wakeboarding, surfing, swimming with animals, treasure/sea shell/litter diving, and competitive swimming are all activities that require intermediate to advanced swimming ability for safety and performance.
Think how much more fun a tropical vacation is when you are able to explore the land and sea! How much less you need to fret in a situation where you might fall into the water, like hiking, bouldering, or spelunking in places with rivers and streams. How much more freedom you have to explore aquatic places, especially without needing to have someone watch over you every second!
Interesting Careers
The more interesting careers tend to be the niche ones. And niche careers can pay extremely well. The catch: many require specialized skills.
You might not think there are very many job positions that would require strong swimming skills, but there are actually hundreds!
Think about it: the earth is mostly covered in water, and any time people interact with it, there needs to be a specialist who can ensure the safety and proper operation of any machinery. Not to mention all the research that needs to be done!
Some of the most lucrative, exciting careers that require swimming are:
- Underwater photographer for nature, wildlife, or events
- Commercial airline flight crew member
- Spelunker
- Field marine biologist
- Geoscientist
- Oil rig/other water-bound equipment repair person
- Marine technician
- Aquarium tank cleaner
- Professional mermaid/aquatic performer
- Seashell collector
- Aquatic therapist and rehabilitator
- Treasure, wreckage, salvage, survey diver
- SCUBA instructor
- Swim coach
- Olympic swim coach
- Fisheries manager
- Fisher
- Commercial diver
- Marine engineer
- Deckhand
- Commercial shipping captain
- Ocean animal rescue
- Ocean pollution collector
- Professional surfer
- Professional or Olympic swimmer
- Lifeguard
If you want to be able to do a job that not everyone can accomplish, consider one that requires swimming! Whether you want to be a scientist, engineer, researcher, diver, technician, or work with people, there is a niche for you to find and enjoy!
Maintain Health
Of course, swimming is an excellent way to achieve and maintain physical fitness.
However, it can also benefit your emotional and mental health!
Physical Fitness
Swimming is one of the best activities for physical health because it offers a whole-body workout every time. You need to use all of your body parts to stay afloat and swim, so nothing gets left out in a typical swim session.
Additionally, water resistance is like having resistance bands go against you with every movement. It’s almost as if you are lifting a weight every time you move, in any direction!
And, since there is little to no hard physical impact with swimming, you are not risking injuries to your joints and connective tissue the same way that things like running create wear and tear.
Vigorous movement paired with water resistance plus controlled breaths means that your cardiac health and circulatory system greatly benefit. The heart beats more and gets stronger; the blood flows more, reinforcing circulatory health and increasing blood flow even when you aren’t exercising. Your metabolism gets a boost so you burn more calories even when you aren’t swimming or exercising!
Learn how to swim with a professional coach! Find swimming lessons on Superprof today!
Emotional and Mental Fitness
The act of swimming (or any exercise) releases endorphins and serotonin. These hormones allow stress to melt away, increasing feelings of happiness and calm. Once again, the effect lasts even after you have finished your swim session.
Breathing in a controlled way is a proven stress-relief technique. It’s the same principle as Pranayama in a yoga practice: breathing regularly, on purpose, and paying attention to the breath helps to quiet the mind and relax hidden tensions.
Practising any activity can create a meditative state. Some people find this meditative state easily with traditional meditation methods. Some people find it easier to reach this state while creating art, making music, cleaning or cooking, or while doing a physical activity like yoga, running, pilates, or swimming!
Research also shows that just being near the water can be greatly beneficial for people who have mental health issues like PTSD, addiction, anxiety, autism, and more.
Swimming is one of those special skills that are theoretically attainable by mostly everyone, but only a small percentage of people actually learn to excel at it.
Even so, you don’t have to be an expert swimmer to expand the opportunities you can safely sign up for in life. You just need to know enough to keep yourself safe and get out of trouble.
Even if you don’t want anything to do with the water, knowing how to swim can save your life, or the life of another, in an emergency. People fall into the water, crash their cars into the water, and get caught in a flood more often than you might think. When a situation like that arises, it’s too late to learn. Knowing before you need it is crucial in an emergency situation.
People of any age can learn how to swim and even rescue other swimmers in distress.
And, in every area where swimming is needed, you are bound to find people who you can make strong friendships with!
So, did you learn anything new about how swimming can positively impact your life?
Find an instructor for swimming lessons here on Superprof!
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