What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness • Hacker News Board

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#111

Post by kharak » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #89

kharak wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else do you do every evening? For me, its working out, doing chores or Netflix, podcasts and video games. There is nothing else I could do. Too tired to learn new things and I need to recharge.

Meditation and writing are goods ways to both relax and learn more about yourself. Learning an instrument, drawing, painting are also a very good ways to relax while learning a skill that will follow you all your life and be productive instead of passively consuming content. With internet we also have access to books summing up the knowledge of each era/geographic area. If you're asking yourself metaphysical question…

Forgotten to put reading into that list, I have weeks or months where reading is my goto activity (although less last 12 months). But honestly, despite my curiosity for everything, I don´t believe books can help me become a better version of myself. Books like Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari are interesting, but that´t pretty much it. Then you have books about how to be better at something (yourself), by forming good habits and so on. At the beginning (when I didn´t known much about anything), these books had been useful. But now, nothing I read touches me / changes me a bit. It´s all more of the same. Still useful for conversations, though.

Meditation, tried it several times. I don´t get it. Sometimes, nothing happens in my mind and I just sit there for minutes, observing nothing. Other times I can observe thoughts appearing and wandering off, then I refocus on my breathing technique. Both experiences do nothing for me. I feel the same afterwards, I do the same activities afterwards.

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#112

Post by nradov » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

cryptozeus wrote: post #110

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…

How did you find the Alcatraz race ? Was water too cold ? I would love to do this but bit scared about shark attack lol ( i know there are no sharks in bay)

Water temperature is about 58°F / 14°C. With a decent wetsuit the water temperature will be fine for most everyone, although the real tough swimmers go without.

There are sharks in the Bay, mostly leopard sharks which aren't dangerous to people. At times there may be a few great white sharks as well but you'll probably never see one.

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#113

Post by kharak » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

blankaccount wrote: post #93

kharak wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else do you do every evening? For me, its working out, doing chores or Netflix, podcasts and video games. There is nothing else I could do. Too tired to learn new things and I need to recharge.

"Too tired to learn new things and I need to recharge." This is the part where optimising for happiness kicks in. I was in a similar situation and it involved investing less energy in things I was doing to open up energy to learn music. Music probably won't help my career or physical fitness, but I'm gambling that it will pay off in happiness down the line.

Being able to play music / an instrument is certainly a great skill to have. Can´t do it myself, due to a shared flat, but a great thing to do!

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#114

Post by cmurf » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

jraby3 wrote: post #103

205guy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must put in a word for my favorite sport: week-long solo backpacking. Meditation, frustration, overcoming, self-reliance, singing at the top of your lungs, not speaking for days, exhaustion, mental challenge, pushing yourself, scenery and more scenery, plenty hypoxia too. Bonus euphoria for some high summits, sleeping under the stars, catching your own food, not being eaten by predators, swimming in frozen lakes, e…

That sounds amazing but I’d be terrified to attempt this. Any good beginner resources you recommend?

Join a club, e.g. Colorado Mountain Club. You can rent gear for starters. Good backpacking gear is expensive and it's continuously getting better, so renting is totally sane and you probably come out ahead until you're going often. You could start by going with people doing a gear checkout, quick overnighter, not too far from their car. Do at least a basic first aid course, consider more formal wilderness training, also available through the club.

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#115

Post by pimmen » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

duncanawoods wrote: post #87

entee wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally for freestyle you want to follow these rules to avoid shoulder injury: 1.) Don't cross the center line of your body with your arm. If you were climbing a ladder you wouldn't ever do that. Freestyle is kind of like climbing a ladder horizontally. 2.) Keep a good rotation around your center line in the upper body. This helps to use your back muscles/lats to do the big work. You want to be sore at the end of t…

> Don't cross the center line of your body with your arm. If you were climbing a ladder you wouldn't ever do that Hmm, that doesn't sound quite right to me. I claim no knowledge especially in swimming technique so this is just for curious discussion and you can put me right - as a weightlifter, the most natural and least impinged arm motion for me is a diagonal across the body whereas perpendicular swinging motions a…

You are sort of making a diagonal movement anyway because of the rotation, that rotation is what's engaging the rest of your muscles to help you pull the water. If you cross the line, it's much harder to use your lats, your core or your chest to pull the water and instead you're using almost solely your shoulder and with increased resistance too.

That increased resistance is not helping you propell forward either, you're propelling diagonally with the stroke in that case which is a waste.

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#116

Post by entee » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 6:21 PM UTC

duncanawoods wrote: post #87

entee wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally for freestyle you want to follow these rules to avoid shoulder injury: 1.) Don't cross the center line of your body with your arm. If you were climbing a ladder you wouldn't ever do that. Freestyle is kind of like climbing a ladder horizontally. 2.) Keep a good rotation around your center line in the upper body. This helps to use your back muscles/lats to do the big work. You want to be sore at the end of t…

> Don't cross the center line of your body with your arm. If you were climbing a ladder you wouldn't ever do that Hmm, that doesn't sound quite right to me. I claim no knowledge especially in swimming technique so this is just for curious discussion and you can put me right - as a weightlifter, the most natural and least impinged arm motion for me is a diagonal across the body whereas perpendicular swinging motions a…

It’s true ladders are mostly leg. It’s not the best analogy perhaps a better one is pulling yourself up onto a box. You wouldn’t put your hands close to the center of the body, you’d have them out wide as you push.

Not sure what you’re referring to in terms of lifting diagonally, but as another comment noted in swimming you’re rotating around the center line with each stroke. If you were doing right-arm cable pull downs, you likely aren’t going to have the most strength with your right hand level with your left shoulder. You may rotate, using your core an back to bring the arm down but in those cases I doubt you’re crossing the center line high up in that motion.

Because of the rotation in swimming you can end up with your arm that way which will impinge on the rotator cuff.

Essentially you want to stabilize your shoulder with your lats and scapular muscles so that it doesn’t fall forward in the socket. That is what causes swimming repetitive use injuries. I say this as someone with two surgically repaired shoulders. I’ve done a lot of stroke work to keep them fixed after years of bad form.

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#117

Post by sevencolors » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

This part struck me:

> “Study after study shows that good social relationships are the strongest, most consistent predictor there is of a happy life.”

I was having a similar conversation with some friends recently. In our parents' generations (boomers), folks tended to cluster in their communities, which were usually religious. As our generation has grown up we've shunned the oppressive religious thinking but ended up losing the community aspect. I believe that's where all this social anxiety and feelings of loneliness come from. I'm mostly introverted but feel happier and refreshed after spending time with friends. I've joined a group of other rock climbers and we do outings monthly. I love climbing but really love the mini-community we've created. I see the author here found the same thing. Being around other folks in a shared bond of movement (swimming, running, etc) fosters joy :)

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#118

Post by anonymousDan » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

tsbinz wrote: post #60

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the solution is to move the water and have the swimming equivalent of a treadmill. NB: this already actually exists, only remember seeing it in a video at some point though.

You probably saw it in person as well, it's called a river :) In Zurich there's multiple places where you can swim in the Limmat, and it takes quite some effort to stay in place - one example is https://images.app.goo.gl/qTASdR51yDTiCk299 (of course you could go without the installation but this allows people to use it that would be afraid of getting carried away ...)

It would be so amazing to live near a river with water clean enough to do this :(

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#119

Post by Bekwnn » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 11:10 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #15

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 t…

Which is why I place a high price point on my work actually being something I like working on and care about the end result of.

Spending that much time of your life on something you don't for a bit more money... it doesn't feel worthwhile.

Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

#120

Post by mnm1 » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 11:45 PM UTC

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…

You were taught wrong things. Most cultures value things outside of work much more and are therefore able to enjoy then more. Not to mention that discipline and hard work most often don't lead to success. There are many disciplined, hard workers working two or three minimum wage jobs. Hardly what anyone would call success, barely scraping by an existence let alone a life. People should question their culture and propaganda a lot more. Most of it is bullshit.