The home I grew up in sits immediately throughout the road from my hometown’s swimming pool. Evidently, most summers had been spent within the water — from taking part in with pals and taking swim classes to then changing into a swim teacher, lifeguard and aggressive swimmer.
It is no shock, then, that I get pleasure from being in and round water, whether or not a pool, lake or ocean — and it seems that this enjoyment is backed by science, too. You’ll have heard of a “blue prescription” or the Blue Mind Theory, popularized by marine biologist Wallace Nichols. These theories recommend that there are intrinsic helpful connections between people and water. Being round water or “blue space” has been confirmed to extend dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin within the mind and reduce cortisol ranges, which lowers coronary heart charge and stress levels.
Preliminary ideas and expectations
For this experiment, I needed to research the impression of swimming and being round water on my sleep high quality. Sadly, I do not stay close to an simply accessible pure physique of water similar to a lake or ocean. I do, nevertheless, stay close to an indoor pool, the place I made a decision to take up lap swimming.
I dove headfirst into this investigation, assuming, for a couple of causes, that I might sleep higher on the times I swam. Not solely does being round water have a naturally calming and meditative impact, however swimming can also be an excellent form of exercise and has many identified advantages — together with better sleep.
I spoke with licensed psychotherapist and sleep specialist Annie Miller, who defined that motion and train improve the physique’s pure sleep drive, which permits us to really feel sleepier and have total higher sleep high quality, and swimming isn’t any exception.
“Swimming is an exercise that promotes deeper, extra conscious respiration, which inspires leisure. Deep respiration can positively impression sleep high quality,” mentioned Annie.
Let’s be clear: I am no scientist, however I did my finest to maintain different variables the identical. I restricted my espresso consumption to 2 cups within the morning and stored my weight loss program related every day, together with what and once I ate. I did not drink alcohol and took the identical sleep gummies each evening. I additionally didn’t have interaction in every other types of strenuous train on the times when I didn’t swim.
I swam a constant distance of 1 mile every swim day. The one distinction was the pace at which I accomplished the mile, which ranged from 38 to 40 minutes. I tracked my exercises and sleep information utilizing my Apple Watch and waited till the tip of the trials to check and distinction the knowledge to keep away from doubtlessly swaying the outcomes prematurely. Proper off the bat, nevertheless, I seen that my sleep high quality appeared worse on the nights after swimming versus days once I did not swim.
Swimming vs. sleep information
The outcomes
The ultimate outcomes of this experiment shocked me: On common, I truly slept much less and was awake extra on swim days in comparison with non-swim days — basically the other of what I used to be anticipating to search out.
Sleep on swim days vs. non-swim days
I additionally seen an attention-grabbing sample with my sleep when evaluating swim days with the off-days instantly following a swim day, or what I will confer with as a “restoration day.” On swim days, my complete sleep time averaged slightly below 7 hours, and my awake time was about an hour per evening. On restoration days, my complete sleep time was a lot larger — round 8.5 hours, with a considerably decrease awake time of about half-hour.
Sleep on swim days vs. restoration days
To be trustworthy, I used to be baffled. I learn on-line to see if others have had the same expertise and located the possible trigger. In response to writer and competitive swimmer Olivier Poirier-Leroy, the extra intense the exercise, the more durable it may be to sleep as a result of spiked cortisol and norepinephrine (adrenaline) ranges. In reality, it could possibly take as much as 48 hours for norepinephrine ranges to return to regular after high-intensity train — which gave the impression to be the case for me.
Persistently strolling out of the swim heart with wobbly pool noodle legs was in all probability an indication that I used to be pushing myself just a little too laborious. Regardless of not having the outcomes I had anticipated (or hoped for), I seen a couple of different attention-grabbing modifications throughout this experiment which can be more durable to quantify however value mentioning.
My stress floated away
My lap swim classes occurred in the midst of my workday, round 1 p.m. Each time I left for the swim heart, I felt sluggish and pressured about going once I had different duties to finish. Some days, I even had an accompanying stress headache earlier than swimming and was usually not trying ahead to the exercise.
In the course of the exercise, these destructive emotions would progressively wash away. I started trying ahead to reaching that meditative state the place I may focus solely on respiration and calming my thoughts.
After each swim, I seen a big enchancment in my temper. I used to be much less pressured and didn’t expertise that typical afternoon hunch once I normally opted for one more cup of espresso to get me by way of the remainder of the day. I felt bodily drained however mentally energized and focused, able to deal with the remainder of the day’s to-do record.
Conclusion and last ideas
I consider being in and round water had optimistic calming results, because the Blue Thoughts Concept suggests, however maybe not fairly sufficient to outweigh the spiking cortisol levels I used to be experiencing from pushing myself too laborious.
Like Discovering Nemo’s Dory says, I’ll “simply maintain swimming” utilizing the perception gained from this experiment till I discover a glad medium that improves my sleep high quality. I hope to conduct related research with much less intense exercises or just spend time close to water every day to discover these theories additional.
If you happen to’re like me and also you’re searching for methods to get higher relaxation, don’t sleep on our simpler tips and tricks, similar to limiting expertise utilization, creating a bedtime routine, journaling or meditating and — take it from me — ensuring you’re working out at an acceptable depth stage and on the proper time of day.
