Could you tell me a time you felt calm?

When my anxiety comes knocking there is only one place I want to be and that’s in the water. Outside factors affecting my mental health are quickly washed away when I find myself swimming from the shallows out into the deep. 

The tingly feeling of the water around my body as my wetsuit fills up…the repeated arm movements of the stroke, all these things focus my mind on being in the water and nothing else. 

In recent years I have always had some swim events to train for, more recently I swam the length of Windermere so my training swims have been long and I probably didn’t appreciate just how much the water puts me in that calm state. With COVID and the opportunity to pack up and head for a swim being taken away it made me understand just how much the water means to me and my life. I’ve had no events to train for and so I have got a new appreciation for the water and the benefits to me, sometimes a dip is just what my mind needed. 

Finishing a swim its like all my worries have been left in the bottom of the water and I can focus on the things that really matter, I am in a much calmer place.