Do you feel diving has given you better health?

[scubadada]

Two things lift my mood significantly, sunlight and diving, they tend to often go together

 

[Z Gear]

Diving's definitely been good for my mental health ... nothing relieves stress like coming home from work in the afternoon and heading down to the local mudhole for an hour of underwater therapy. And it's also been good for my physical health, but in an indirect way. What it's done is motivate me to get my body in better shape so that I can keep diving. I've reached that point in life where there are things I can't physically do anymore that I used to do routinely. I'm 63 years old, and I want to keep diving actively well into my 70's. That means eating more sensibly, spending time at the gym regularly, and generally taking care of my body in ways that will allow me to continue carrying the gear to and from the water. That's effort and sacrifice ... and diving gives me the motivation to make that happen ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Very nicely put. I read this out to my wife( my favorite dive buddy) and she loved it as well. Its great to know how this activity is inspiring / motivating one to do things to keep the body strong, watching what they eat and keeping hydrated. I guess if diving is a motivating reason for taking these measures and it works, I am looking forward to what lies ahead and at least I have good understanding on the indirect benefits diving can bring to ones life.

 

[rongoodman]

Well, the guys at Protec seem to think I'm doing pretty well at 68, but once again I've come home from a week of cave diving with an ear infection, so I guess it's a mixed bag. I think the time in the gym has had a much greater effect than the actual diving, though.

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

Like many posters I think its very much a two way thing. The gear carrying aspect sure helps physical fitness, and while diving isn't (usually!) a cardiovascular activity, you definitely get a lot of muscle toning from swimming underwater. But the desire to want to keep diving - especially for those who dive in more difficult environmental conditions - is a strong motivating factor to keep up general fitness in order to keep diving.

Mentally, I think diving is a fantastic sport. It hones your concentration skills when focusing on particular tasks (Navigation etc) but also makes you much more mentally aware in general. I'm as relaxed as the next person underwater, particularly as I'm completely familiar with all my local dive sites and environmental conditions. But I'm constantly alert and thinking about many different things - my gauges (depth & air), the gauges of my buddy/others in my dive group, current dive time, distance back to the boat/surface/shore, what route to take around the site on the basis of all of the above, where other dive groups are on the site and the best route to avoid them, plus where to look on the site for critters, and also looking away from the site and out into the blue for larger pelagic schools etc. And you're constantly learning from your peers and personal experiences, which is never a bad thing either. So I definitely think there are benefits in terms of mental health and development.

 

[Remy B.]

I'm new to diving, but I find it as the best stress therapy, no phones, no people talking, the only thing that bothers a little is your dive buddy but that is something you take as a part from it, it can't be perfect all the time, until you go solo

It is one hour in a nice place, in a perfect place, a place where you are free from normal life, you are truly free for one hour, weightless, stressless, too bad it has a short time limit.

I do enjoy the surface and the people, but diving is my escape to another universe, that give me a break from all of it.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

This has been my experience with diving for fitness.

Swimming US Masters - great
Freediving - good
Scuba - not so much
Tech diving - eh, little better than scuba since you lift heavy stuff and have more drag when frog kicking
Cave diving - awful, you just rotate your ankles
Scootering - LOL!

Age has played a part though. I was young when doing scuba along with the metabolism of youth and a host of sports, activities, and strength and endurance workouts. From age 20 to 31 freediving was my passion and I played lacrosse, surfed, ran and lifted a lot. In my 30's I started tech diving, but still did lots of freediving and swam US masters. In my 40's, I have a slower metabolism, bad knees, and I'm tech and cave diving & scootering. I run as much as my knees can take, swim open water in summers, but I focus on the Stronglifts 5x5 program to keep in shape at age 46. 5 sets of 5 reps are good for my joints and heavy weights help boost testosterone and improve strength. I need to work on flexibility. Been bad on that since a car accident in 1999 in the Cayman Islands.

Being underwater is chicken soup for the soul as a terrific stress reliever as was pointed out. Being on scubaboard ... not always the case.

 

[Z Gear]

+1 for mental health, -1 for physical health... diving is the opposite of good cardio, and it eats into the time I used to dedicate to the latter. Doing both is not impossible, just takes more deliberate mental effort to force oneself... or maybe I should just pick sites that require a really long surface swim...

Yeah I guess in my case i am still getting a work out. Our kick out to some of the kelp beds is a good 20 minutes or so.

---------- Post added April 26th, 2015 at 08:26 AM ----------

Like many posters I think its very much a two way thing. The gear carrying aspect sure helps physical fitness, and while diving isn't (usually!) a cardiovascular activity, you definitely get a lot of muscle toning from swimming underwater. But the desire to want to keep diving - especially for those who dive in more difficult environmental conditions - is a strong motivating factor to keep up general fitness in order to keep diving.

Mentally, I think diving is a fantastic sport. It hones your concentration skills when focusing on particular tasks (Navigation etc) but also makes you much more mentally aware in general. I'm as relaxed as the next person underwater, particularly as I'm completely familiar with all my local dive sites and environmental conditions. But I'm constantly alert and thinking about many different things - my gauges (depth & air), the gauges of my buddy/others in my dive group, current dive time, distance back to the boat/surface/shore, what route to take around the site on the basis of all of the above, where other dive groups are on the site and the best route to avoid them, plus where to look on the site for critters, and also looking away from the site and out into the blue for larger pelagic schools etc. And you're constantly learning from your peers and personal experiences, which is never a bad thing either. So I definitely think there are benefits in terms of mental health and development.

That's a great point. I had the metal relaxation or therapeutic aspect of diving as the benefit for good mental health. But this other aspect you brought up adds to it as another other type of benefit, which is keep the mind learning and alert. I think it is good to note that this activity can help keep the mind sharp as we age, I can see where the motivation and common practices of diving require us to keep using our minds in that fashion.

---------- Post added April 26th, 2015 at 08:36 AM ----------

This has been my experience with diving for fitness.

Swimming US Masters - great
Freediving - good
Scuba - not so much
Tech diving - eh, little better than scuba since you lift heavy stuff and have more drag when frog kicking
Cave diving - awful, you just rotate your ankles
Scootering - LOL!

Age has played a part though. I was young when doing scuba along with the metabolism of youth and a host of sports, activities, and strength and endurance workouts. From age 20 to 31 freediving was my passion and I played lacrosse, surfed, ran and lifted a lot. In my 30's I started tech diving, but still did lots of freediving and swam US masters. In my 40's, I have a slower metabolism, bad knees, and I'm tech and cave diving & scootering. I run as much as my knees can take, swim open water in summers, but I focus on the Stronglifts 5x5 program to keep in shape at age 46. 5 sets of 5 reps are good for my joints and heavy weights help boost testosterone and improve strength. I need to work on flexibility. Been bad on that since a car accident in 1999 in the Cayman Islands.

Being underwater is chicken soup for the soul as a terrific stress reliever as was pointed out. Being on scubaboard ... not always the case.

"
Very interesting. I guess I would have to agree on that indirect impact of diving "SCUBA BOARD". Being on Scuba Board has not done much for my cardio, but it has done a lot for my curiosity, for many topics on diving. Can't really get that kind of experience any where else. It still boggles my mind that I can chat with some one clear across the globe about a particular subject we have in common.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Better health??? Since I have started diving, I have put on almost 100 lbs, most all my hair has fallen out, my vision has gone to hell, my hearing is now terrible and I have tinnitus, my low back is a mess, my thoracic spine ain't great and my neck is not good, I have arthritis in my hands, knees and probably elsewhere, I've had cancer cut off my face (most likely from excess sun exposure) and my endurance is nothing compared to what it was when I started diving.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

+1 for mental health, -1 for physical health... diving is the opposite of good cardio, and it eats into the time I used to dedicate to the latter. Doing both is not impossible, just takes more deliberate mental effort to force oneself... or maybe I should just pick sites that require a really long surface swim...

This! I used to play baseball, basketball and climb mountains before the scuba addiction set it. Now I find myself spending an hour or ninety minutes covering an area the size of a Volkswagon. When I began diving I spent more time in the library than the water trying to learn about what I saw. Now I'm on the interweb far more than I'm diving. Oh, and I get pretty grumpy when I can't dive, like this weekend. :furious:

---------- Post added April 26th, 2015 at 09:38 AM ----------

Better health??? Since I have started diving, I have put on almost 100 lbs, most all my hair has fallen out, my vision has gone to hell, my hearing is now terrible and I have tinnitus, my low back is a mess, my thoracic spine ain't great and my neck is not good, I have arthritis in my hands, knees and probably elsewhere, I've had cancer cut off my face (most likely from excess sun exposure) and my endurance is nothing compared to what it was when I started diving.

I feel like Roseanne Rosanadana is reading a viewer's letter.

 

[cbm32]

I come from a different place than most. I have permanent spinal cord damage and was in a wheel chair for five years (was never supposed to walk again). I stumbled onto the possibility of being able to dive towards the end of that five years (towards the end of year 4 or a little prior to that). I think that diving played a part in that final push to get rid of the wheel chair completely.

I still tend to fin primarily with my better leg, but force myself to use the weak one when I think about it and definitely use that weak one a lot when needing speed or fighting current. Underwater I am not really handicapped at all....the one place where that is true. I find that I am much more active and in far better physical shape when someplace where I can dive on a consistent basis.

Given that I can not run (H3ll, I still fall down from time to time when walking with my cane LOL) I believe that not only the physical activity of diving, but the way I breathe in order to extend my bottom time, tend to improve my cardiovascular health.

The mental health/psychological/emotional benefits have already been pretty well covered by others, and I would second those statements. I would also agree that as we get older anything that makes us really concentrate, think, and be ultra aware of our surroundings has a positive effect on our intellect and ability to stave off the effects of age on our thought processes. I least I think it does....or thought it did when I typed that....although now I cant really remember why :headscratch::headscratch::headscratch: