Of all the things I’ve missed during the pandemic, swimming ranks high. In the water, all of my worries disappear, and as those worries have piled up at an alarming rate over the past six months while the pools in New York City have remained closed due to the Coronavirus outbreak, I’ve had little recourse to calm my mind.
“With swimming, you’re taken outside of your normal environment the moment you plunge into the water,” Bonnie Tsui, author of Why We Swim, confirms of the activity’s transcending capabilities. “You’re enveloped completely by a medium in which sound is muted, vision is blurred or fogged, taste and smell are limited,” Tsui says. This muting of the senses “encourages a kind of internal retreat,” she continues. “The hushed sound of water boosts alpha wave activity—those brain waves associated with relaxation and creative thinking. Things drift in and out, and you find that you make connections you might not have otherwise.”
Swimming just might be the ideal workout for these fraught times. It dials down stress more quickly than anything I know, which is why I was thrilled when the city’s pools reopened last week, with 33 percent capacity and distancing protocols. (For those who want to avoid people entirely, pools have entered the gig economy with apps like Swimply offering local private pools by the hour.) According to the Center For Disease Control and Prevention, there is “no evidence that COVID-19 can be spread to humans through the use of recreational waters,” a heartening development that provided me with additional incentive to get back into the water. Less compelling was my stroke proficiency after months in at-home isolation.