Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 125 posts

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#11

Post by danzig13 »

Theodores wrote: post #3
danzig13 wrote: post #2

Can’t read the article, but I did want to share that the title resonates with me. I love running and now run again, but I started learning swimming during a knee injury. One thing it re-taught me was how rewarding it is to learn or improve a non-work related skill dramatically. I picked up juggling (poorly) and jump rope since. Two, I knew I was getting a stroke down when I knew when to glide versus to move or exert…

Join the club - could not read the article. Swimming was not my thing but I had to learn so I could do other watersports. The Down Syndrome girl and others in her special needs group that were in the pool when I went were incredible inspiration. If she could smile and put in the lengths then I could too.

FYI, on iOS, you can just read the story with the reader view. You get to it by clicking on the horizontal lines on the left side of the address bar.

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#12

Post by grogenaut »

nickfromseattle wrote: post #6

I swim a lot, but find it quite boring. I bought a waterproof Ipod shuffle + waterproof headphones from Amazon and it improved the experience 100x. Note - use vaseline to seal the headphones into your ear, and wrap the extra wire under your goggle straps or you won't have a good time. Highly recommend.

Or give up on the seal and pick songs with huge bass and that are mixed loud and then audio boost them to the max. For instance Lindsay Stirling and fall out boy seem mixed loud and are actually pretty audible through water.

I really only need beat to exercise anyway.

Experience: several hundred hours of swimming with headphones through the aughts and 10s

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#13

Post by point78 »

danzig13 wrote: post #10
ISL wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible to read the article within the page source, albeit complicated by markup.

I’m on iOS. Never actually tried to look at source in iOS Safari. However, before getting there, I was able to read it just by clicking the reader view in the address bar.

Hah great tip..ty

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#14

Post by eismcc »

In March I started swimming much more due to injury. Swam 250k yards in 3mo. One session was 10k in the pool.

Getting past the boredom is a skill. In my experience it’s mostly a symptom of not focusing on your form. Don’t use a watch and count yourself to stay focused. Break it up with challenging blocks to force you to focus. For ex: 50yds on 1min will force you to move and then focus on recovery.

I now really love swimming, which is a shock.

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#15

Post by lm28469 »

ericmcer wrote: post #7

We are taught and continually retaught that discipline and hard work are the keys to success in life. Why would we not bring the same level of planning, anxiety and pursuit of excellence to our attempts to be happy? When you spend 40-60 hours a week trying to optimize your output at work it is difficult to not have an anxiety ridden vacation where you try to optimize your happiness. I am sure many people can relate t…

> We are taught and continually retaught that discipline and hard work are the keys to success in life.

Maybe we should work on that presupposition first. If we're talking about career and material success it's probably true, but these very rarely bring true lasting happiness. You also have to look at who's telling you to "work hard" and why it's in their interest for you to do so.

Imho once you go above a very low threshold of income (allowing you to live comfortably without excesses) you should have better things to do with your time than spending 7+ hours a day working.

Vacations are the proverbial carrot on a stick. "Be a good worker this week and you'll get to spend your money and enjoy yourself this weekend", "be a good worker this quarter and you'll get to spend your money and enjoy yourself during the next vacations", "Be a good worker all your life and you'll get to spend your money and enjoy yourself during retirement". Fast forward 45 years and you spend literally 70% of your life either working or sleeping, the rest being divided between distraction that barely keeps you going (daily Netflix or video game, weekly party, quarterly vacations) and chores. You're now physically and mentally a shadow of your past self but you have all the time you want, success!

It's extremely easy to get lost in all the little made up games we play days after days and miss the big picture.

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#16

Post by rnikander »

eismcc wrote: post #14

In March I started swimming much more due to injury. Swam 250k yards in 3mo. One session was 10k in the pool. Getting past the boredom is a skill. In my experience it’s mostly a symptom of not focusing on your form. Don’t use a watch and count yourself to stay focused. Break it up with challenging blocks to force you to focus. For ex: 50yds on 1min will force you to move and then focus on recovery. I now really love…

Did you really mean to say you swam 10,000 yards in one session? At the pace you mention (50yds = 1min) that would take over 3 hours.

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#17

Post by eismcc »

rnikander wrote: post #16
eismcc wrote: post #14

In March I started swimming much more due to injury. Swam 250k yards in 3mo. One session was 10k in the pool. Getting past the boredom is a skill. In my experience it’s mostly a symptom of not focusing on your form. Don’t use a watch and count yourself to stay focused. Break it up with challenging blocks to force you to focus. For ex: 50yds on 1min will force you to move and then focus on recovery. I now really love…

Did you really mean to say you swam 10,000 yards in one session? At the pace you mention (50yds = 1min) that would take over 3 hours.

Yes 10400 in 2:56. It’s called a birthday set

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#18

Post by entee »

Just finished swimming a race from Alcatraz to shore, it's just the best high. I do tons of endurance sports, but swimming is the most reliable in yielding that euphoric feeling.

I think it's due to it being essentially forced mindfulness meditation. Though you could swim with music, I don't and that means it's just my thoughts for 30-60 min (watch the thoughts, can't do anything about them right now). I'm forced to focus on breathing on a set schedule (analogous to vipassana techniques). I'm moving my whole body in a way that requires balance, complex coordination and attention to what my body is feeling (analogous to body-scans, yoga). If you're not listening to music it's also a little like sensory deprivation, there's just neutral water rushing sound.

I know running and biking can get there for some (myself included occasionally), but on a pool swim there's nothing to worry about other than the occasional turnaround at the wall. No obstacles, no dodging others on the sidewalk, no traffic. You're in a controlled, safe environment.

That or maybe it's just the hypoxia ;)

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#20

Post by iamgopal »

entee wrote: post #18

Just finished swimming a race from Alcatraz to shore, it's just the best high. I do tons of endurance sports, but swimming is the most reliable in yielding that euphoric feeling. I think it's due to it being essentially forced mindfulness meditation. Though you could swim with music, I don't and that means it's just my thoughts for 30-60 min (watch the thoughts, can't do anything about them right now). I'm forced to…

That just gave me an idea of circular swimming pool.
Post reply on HN