Since I grew up throughout the road from my hometown’s swimming pool, I’ve cherished swimming and being within the water. Whether or not a pool, lake or ocean, I spent most summers within the water hanging out with pals, which changed into taking swim classes, changing into a swim teacher, working as a lifeguard and changing into a aggressive swimmer.
It seems that this enjoyment of water 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 counsel that there are intrinsic useful 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 analyze the impression of swimming and being round water on my sleep high quality. Sadly, I do not reside close to an simply accessible pure physique of water similar to a lake or ocean. I do, nevertheless, reside 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 enhance 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 respiratory, which inspires leisure. Deep respiratory can positively impression sleep high quality,” stated 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 saved my weight-reduction plan comparable 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 interact 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 knowledge utilizing my Apple Watch and waited till the top of the trials to check and distinction the data 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 knowledge
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 — primarily the alternative of what I used to be anticipating to seek out.
Sleep on swim days vs. non-swim days
I additionally seen an fascinating sample with my sleep when evaluating swim days with the off-days instantly following a swim day, or what I will discuss with as a “restoration day.” On swim days, my whole sleep time averaged just below 7 hours, and my awake time was about an hour per evening. On restoration days, my whole 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 sincere, I used to be baffled. I learn on-line to see if others have had an identical expertise and located the possible trigger. In keeping with writer and competitive swimmer Olivier Poirier-Leroy, the extra intense the exercise, the tougher it may be to sleep as a result of spiked cortisol and norepinephrine (adrenaline) ranges. In actual fact, it may well take as much as 48 hours for norepinephrine ranges to return to regular after high-intensity train — which appeared to be the case for me.
Constantly strolling out of the swim middle with wobbly pool noodle legs was most likely an indication that I used to be pushing myself just a little too exhausting. Regardless of not having the outcomes I had anticipated (or hoped for), I seen a couple of different fascinating adjustments throughout this experiment which can be tougher to quantify however value mentioning.
My stress floated away
My lap swim periods occurred in the midst of my workday, round 1 p.m. Each time I left for the swim middle, I felt sluggish and harassed about going once I had different duties to finish. Some days, I even had an accompanying pressure headache earlier than swimming and was typically not trying ahead to the exercise.
Through the exercise, these adverse emotions would steadily wash away. I started trying ahead to reaching that meditative state the place I may focus solely on respiratory and calming my thoughts.
After each swim, I seen a big enchancment in my temper. I used to be much less harassed and didn’t expertise that typical afternoon stoop once I often opted for one more cup of espresso to get me via 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 checklist.
Conclusion and remaining ideas
I consider being in and round water had constructive calming results, because the Blue Thoughts Principle suggests, however maybe not fairly sufficient to outweigh the spiking cortisol levels I used to be experiencing from pushing myself too exhausting.
Like Discovering Nemo’s Dory says, I’ll “simply preserve swimming” utilizing the perception gained from this experiment till I discover a joyful medium that improves my sleep high quality. I hope to conduct comparable research with much less intense exercises or just spend time close to water every day to discover these theories additional.
In the event you’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 applicable depth stage and on the proper time of day.
