How to Master Anxiety Around Water
Diving right into your fears and worries can help you tap into water’s mental health healing powers. It might also save your life.
I have been a decent swimmer for years, but all that swimming never sunk my water anxiety. Every time I slide into the deep end I have this irrational anxiety that I won’t make it to the other side. This panic only happens in pools. It doesn’t make sense, but then, anxiety isn’t rational.
Water is the grist of legends for a reason. Think of the tales of Odysseus, the movie Jaws, or maybe your last trip to the lake when you had a freakout moment of “OMG, what just touched my leg?”
My adult swim team coach doesn’t understand my deep-end anxiety, but he’s got his own issues. Like more than a few pool swimmers I’ve met, Coach Mike, a fish in the pool, is all in a tizzy when it comes to swimming in any natural body of water. The rest of the team gets a full-on natural high from our swims in the nearby Gulf of Mexico. He won’t go in.
From being in the presence of water to the mental health benefits of swimming and cold water dipping, numerous studies confirm the positive mental health benefits of water. But it’s hard to tap water’s power to reduce anxiety if being in or near bodies of water raises…
