Nervous about Diving

[tlj3071]

My son-in-law had lots of difficulty with mask clearing, so he used to practice in the bath tub. It takes water to practice this skill, but not much water! Once he "got it", he still was pretty nervous untill I had him remove his mask and count to 10 very slowly. This helped him as he came to the realization that the mask is just nice to have, while the air is what's really important.

 

[windapp]

Greetings ascully88 I have a question for you, "Why do you want to dive?".
If you are putting yourself through so much stress why is it important to you?

I am agreement here, and wanted to add a little bit. If your only reason for diving is because someone else wants you to, or because you want to overcome a fear, quit now. Diving requires that you will be in control of yourself at all times. Most good experienced divers will tell you that if they are having an off day, they simply don't dive that day. If you are always going to be afraid, you will never be able to dive safely. The only way you will overcome your fears and anxiety is if you are motivated by a real desire to dive.

Now, assuming you really want to dive, I have a tip for mask clearing. You do not have to clear your mask in one breath. Actually trying not to clear in one breath will drive this home. Just press the mask to your forhead, look up a little bit, and breath in through your mouth, and out through your nose. At first, don't breath out completely. Leave your lungs 3/4 full, and take your next breath. Then clear a little bit more. Once you get the hang of this, start taking deeper breaths. The point is that if you try to clear in one big breath, there will be a tendancy to breath in through your nose a little once your lungs are empty. If the water isn't all clear, you will get it up your nose, and tend to panic. Also, remember that a flooded mask is not an emergency, but an inconvenience. Even if you take 5 minutes to clear it, you will not be in any danger. In the spirt of that, you can try opening your eyes as well so that you aren't completely blind to what is going on around you. This, of course, depends on how chlorinated the pool is.

 

[minnesnowta]

Man, I will tell you. I freaked out the first time I was underwater doing my checkout dives.

My husband and I had already booked dives in the Bahamas and we were getting certified right before the trip. We only went down about 30 feet. But the viz in Minnesota lakes is bad. Maybe 8 feet or so. I think that freaked me out, plus being in a new environment.

We descended and as soon as I got on the platform, my heart was fluttering and my mind was just racing, like, "I hate scuba diving, why did I think I could do this, I'm not supposed to do this, I'm not supposed to be a scuba diver, why did I think I could be a scuba diver, I don't want to go down to 60 feet in the ocean, I don't want to go scuba diving in the ocean, I want to cancel the dives, I don't want to do this, I want to go up to the surface, I don't want to be down here, I want to go back up."

But all those thoughts were also interchanging with thoughts like, "You can do this, you want to do this, this is fun, you don't want to go to the surface, that would be embarrassing. You don't want to cancel your dives, that would also be embarrassing. You can breathe, you're OK. There's no problem down here. You can go up at any time but you really don't want to do that. Just breathe, you're OK. There are no problems. Nothing is wrong."

I was also taking very shallow breaths. I did a few huge sighs...like the kind of sigh where you are just like "OK chill." Big deep breaths. I was very conscious of the fact that I was freaking out. And I was still conscious of the fact that I could breathe, so really there wasn't an actual problem. I just willed myself to keep thinking the positive thoughts. Soon the positive thoughts overtook the negative thoughts. And I was fine. I went back to breathing deeply and exhaling long slow breaths. And the dive was great.

And I went to the Bahamas and had no problem at all! I was totally anticipating another freak-out. I had told my husband about my panic attack. We came up with some hand signals to use in the Bahamas in case I freaked out again. Something like the "so-so" signal, then a fluttery hand over my heart, then a loopy-brain signal. Our agreement was that I just needed a couple minutes to chill and talk myself down. Because I knew I could overcome it.

A lot of it is getting logical with yourself. Telling yourself that you truly are fine. If you can breathe, you're OK. And cutting yourself some slack. Allow yourself to feel crazy for a minute. I mean, don't let that veer off into a full-on freak-out session. But take those huge deep breathes for a minute and don't worry about your air consumption.

If you can breathe, you're OK.

The muscle soreness may have been partly due to your nervousness. If you are tensing your muscles, they might be sore later on. I know I had a lot of shoulder/neck soreness after my check out dives. I think partly due to three things: new activity means new ways of using your muscles, supporting the rig on my back, and tense muscles due to nervousness.

The pressure really doesn't feel that much different at deeper depths. It didn't for me, anyway. You probably won't notice it at all. And doing your mask skills at different depths isn't different either. A woman in our checkout dives was having trouble with the mask-clearing and the instructor told her, "If you can do it in 3 feet of water, you can do it in 20 feet, 30 feet, 100 feet...it's all the same."

Sorry for the novel! Hope this helps though. It helped me to read other people's panic attack stories.