Gender specific problems

[Hoya97]

Okay, let me don my asbestos suit before I go much further…

I have noticed that by and large, woman make excellent divers. They move slower though the water enabling them to see more things, and they are less prone to take risks. All are good things and personally, I enjoy diving with them.

However, as an instructor, I’ve noticed things that tend to effect women a lot more frequently than men. Specifically, ear clearing and seasickness.

I see a lot of women who are totally gung ho about diving at the start, until they get in the water. An inability to clear their ears really dampens their enthusiasm. I was wondering if anyone knew why (they have smaller Eustachian tubes)? I tell them that they should practice clearing the ears at least four times a day while they are in training. This ‘exercises’ the membrane and (I think) gives it more flexibility. Yes, I know, I’m probably totally wrong about this, but it tends to work. I would really love to know if there has been any formal studies on this and if so, what the findings are.

Another thing that zaps women more than men is seasickness. For every guy who ends up feeding the fish, I think I’ve seen two women joining him at the rail. Could this also be related to small Eustachian tubes (inner ear, balance, vertigo work with me here – I am providing a bit of logic to this!)? Again, was wondering if others have noticed this trend and if there is any formal studies looking in to this issue.

Please believe me, I’m not ‘bashing’ women – far from it! I’ve just noticed a trend and was wondering if others had too.

Thanks in advance for not blasting me out of the water!

Lee

 

[Conce]

Hi Lee!

In fact I didn´t learn to dive sooner because since I know myself I suffer from seasickness - at airplanes, cars, trains, boats, even elevators ...

I was very lucky because in my first dive the instructor stayed with me in the water almost 15 minutes - we were wainting for the boat to leave (I usually get seasickness when the boat stops) and everything went ok.

After that dive I got seasickness several times - sometimes really bad seasickness - but the motivation for dive was so big that everything was surpassed.

This month I did my first liveaboard and I only got a very light seasickness on my first day :luxhello: And this improvement has generalized to the others transportations - airplanes, cars and trains - now I can even read a book on those transportations ... if someone told me that 2 years ago I wouldn´t believe ...

I also have difficulties in equalizing my ears - I bought a proear mask and learned different techniques ...

What I´m trying to say is when you really want something you surpasss the obstacles in your way.