SCUBA Diving is not only an enjoyable way to witness the undersea world, but it is also an adrenaline-boosting sport which has a variety of health benefits for your body. Below are a few enlisted health benefits that you can get from your scuba diving hobby.
1. Gain Strength and Flexibility
Swimming, in general, is considered one of the best ways to keep your body well-toned, flexible and promotes consistent stamina. During scuba diving, your muscles work harder than they do when on the ground, due to the resistance and the heavy water currents. Not only is scuba diving good for your legs, but it can also strengthen your core strength, which helps with your posture in everyday life as well.
2. Breathing
Just like in yoga and meditation, scuba diving requires that you take every breath consciously, which is slow and deep- and that allows oxygen to pass to your brain more efficiently to keep you focused. This kind of breathing reduces the risk of lung cancer and also promotes good mental health. When you are ever present in your breathing and fully conscious of your surroundings, this teaches your brain to be vigilant at all times, which in essence promotes the feeling of calmness.
3. Lowers Blood Pressure
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension is defined as high pressure (tension) in the arteries, which are the vessels that carry blood from the heart to the rest of the body. Our normal blood pressure is below 120/80; blood pressure between 120/80 and 139/89 is called ‘pre-hypertension’ and a blood pressure of 140/90 or above is considered high while a systolic blood pressure ranging between 90 and 100 is considered fairly low. Since breathing whilst scuba diving is deep and slow, this helps to optimize your air consumption, thus reducing the heart rate and promoting calmness throughout your journey.
4. Healing Effects of Water
Water is a healing element in any form. Be it the salted ocean water, tears or a bath, essentially water is healing. Seawater particularly consists of many different minerals that can help detoxify your skin and heal your body from many ailments. Ocean water helps reduce infections, stress, arthritis and even psoriasis, so one of the best ways to improve your health is through scuba diving!
5. Exposure to Sunlight
In ancient times, yogis used sunlight therapy to heal all kinds of illnesses, and today this sunlight therapy is referred to heliotherapy. Sunlight rays contain Vitamin D, which is also found in oranges, and come in the form of a group of fat-soluble secosteroids which are responsible for increasing intestinal absorption of magnesium, phosphate, calcium, as well as the absorption of other biological effects. Vitamin D also helps the cells of the entire body to communicate with each other properly. This mainly comes from your skin when it gets exposed to sunlight. In short, we can say that sunlight is good for you.
Vitamin D also helps cells all over your body to communicate properly and mainly comes from your skin when exposed to sunlight rays. In essence, sunlight is good for you.
6. A Great Stress Reliever
Stress is your body’s way of responding to your daily life demands. Be it work, home and family, you need to always find the balance. When you feel stressed by something going on in your life, your body reacts by releasing chemicals into the bloodstream, which can result in hypertension. You can carry the breathing exercises that you learn from scuba diving into your everyday life, which might help to increase your level of overall awareness and clarity while promoting more calmness and resolve when dealing with life’s stressors. Some even say that going on a scuba diving trip relaxes them in the same way as relaxing in a luxury villa.
7. Maintains and Increases Fitness Levels
Prior to scuba diving, you should already have a decent level of fitness. The reason behind this is because when you scuba dive, you use both your legs and arms to swim against the ever-present ocean current. As you scuba dive, your body exerts a lot of energy throughout the dive, which could put the diver at risk of DCS (Decompression Sickness). However, “the experience is unpredictable and you can very well find yourself excelling and going back home to begin a healthy lifestyle, thanks to the use of quality equipment and the help of qualified and skilled guides. So it helps to always dive with seasoned instructors to really maximize the benefits of your experience,” recommends technical diving instructor Geoffery Falzon from AtlantisGozo in Malta.
