Conquer Your Fear of Swimming in Easy Steps

Is your fear of swimming preventing you from improving your even learning to swim? Maybe it stops you from going anywhere near the swimming pool at all? Maybe you can already swim but swimming in deep water scares the life out of you, so you may in fact have a fear of deep water.

Look no further because here we have some of the simplest swimming tips to help calm your nerves.

Why do we have a fear of water? The most common reason for having any kind of anxiety when it comes to getting in the swimming pool is usually linked to a bad experience in the past. This could have been a terrifying swimming lesson, an accidental fall into deep water or even a near drowning.

Now when you go near water or a swimming pool your body's self defence systems kick in and raise your heart rate, tighten your muscles and accelerate your breathing. These are all your body's way of saying 'don't even go there'!

You might not have quite such a fear. Instead you could be one of those swimmers who swim happily around in the water until suddenly out of nowhere you feel like you're going to sink. You are swimming in deep water and it is going to pull you down and you instantly find yourself scrambling for the side to hold on to.

Ok, so how do you conquer your fear of swimming or fear of deep water? The short answer: slowly and gradually, step by step.

Step 1: learn how to hold your breath and to breathe out into the water. Yes, blow bubbles! Human beings cannot breathe underwater (sorry to state the obvious here), so we have to learn to control our breathing whilst in the water. If we control our breathing, then our heart rate will be lower, our muscles will be less tense and overall we will become more relaxed.

Try standing in water of about chest or shoulder depth, take a deep breath partially submerge your face into the water. Allow your mouth and nose to become submerged, holding your breath the whole time.

Do this slowly and gradually and eventually you will become used to the feeling of breath holding and having water on your face.

Try breathing out through your mouth by blowing gently. Allow the bubbles to tickle your nose and splash your face. These feelings are all common part of swimming so practice this until you are used to it.

Feeling brave? Ok Step 2: try again but this time venture a little deeper by allowing your eyes to become submerged, still holding your breath.

You might want to wear some swim goggles for this one. The ability to see everything clearly under the water can be quite calming and reassuring.

Once you are used to submerging yourself in the water, your fear of swimming is nearly conquered and you are ready to take your feet off the pool floor and begin to swim.

Learning to swim is a whole other chapter but our best-selling book 'The Complete Guide to Simple Swimming' contains help with all aspects of fear of swimming and learning to swim including submersion, stopping and standing mid swim and swimming the four basic strokes. You can download it, print out the parts you need and take them to your pool to try out. Click here to conquer your fear of swimming.

So maybe your nervous tension kicks in when you are swimming in deep water. There you were happily learning to swim when suddenly you get that sinking feeling. That feeling that the deep water is going to pull you down. The sort of fear of water that stops you in your tracks.

One important point you must understand here: the buoyancy of the human body is the same in deep water as it is in shallow water. In other words your ability to remain at the water surface is the same regardless of the depth of the water.

Try this simple psychological test: swim away from the pool side for a distance of 5 to 10 metres, but to water that is still within your standing depth. Then change direction and swim back to poolside you came from, but WITHOUT touching the pool floor with your feet.

If you are able to complete this without any problems then you have just proved to yourself that you are able to stop, change direction and return to poolside in any depth of water. The fact that you managed this without putting your feet on the bottom of the pool means that the depth of the water is of no concern whatsoever.

Hey well done, you have just conquered your fear of swimming!

For an in depth easy-to-follow guide to learning to swim and swimming the four basic swimming strokes with good technique, click on the link below.

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