How to remain motivated during the dark times of the year?

Swimming has a way of acting on everyone differently, but it’s impacts are immense. But how has swimming come to be associated with removing stress and anxiety from our lives and how can it benefit us in the long term, especially in the dark hours of winter.

Swimming should ultimately be something you look forward to every day, but it requires personal commitment to do so. Once swimming clicks it provides an exciting combination of reachable goals and challenges, but doing so requires seeing it as such. So how can you come to think of swimming in this way, even if it doesn’t seem like it now, and how do you stay doing it throughout the long year when you’d rather take a break from work?

It’s physical impacts:

Swimming stands fairly uniquely above the rest of sports because of it’s ability to hit every muscle in your body. Not only does it strengthen your visible musculature, but it stretches and reinforces the tendons and sections which hold your body together (core muscles, lower back/spine, and neck).

By keeping with home exercise and your instructor’s lessons, you’re indirectly strengthening posture, vulnerable bones and joints, and your lungs/breathing. Because water buoyancy eliminates most of gravity’s downward pressure, it also allows you start and continue swimming throughout your 70s and 80s.

 Its mental impacts

The mental benefits of swimming can be both simple (feeling comfortable in a bathing suit) and complex (strengthening your overall mental health).

As an article from swimming.org shows, swimming in a bathing suit can help to improve both bodily confidence and the drive to continue swimming.

Because of its unique demands, swimming also shifts your body’s heart rhythm, balance, and daily routine enough to reduce trips to the doctors office and other health problems. It also has the ability to work as an outlet for excess physical energy and emotions, taking the mind off of daily preoccupations 

How to set a “swim schedule” and make it a constant part of your life

Despite these benefits, practise might still seem like a lot to do on a regular basis. Although it presents such a unique way of strengthening your mind and body, getting up and going to the pool-especially in the winter-is tough. Whether it be hands-on help, or practicing a new swimming skill on your own, understanding your own personal journey and talking to your instructor are vital steps towards setting small goals for yourself and staying motivated.

In the winter I find it easier to plan swimming classes right after work, eating light energizing snacks throughout the day, and only eating big meals once you’re back home. This will get your body to associate swimming with food and implements it into your daily life. Competently applying this self-awareness on your own in exercise, nutrition, and during classes will also strengthen your self confidence and keep your mind focussed on your ultimate goal, whatever it may be.